San Diego County Department of Social Services v. Elizabeth V.

California Court of Appeal May 7, 1985 No. Civ. No. 31331Published

Before: Wiener

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Holding. A trial court does not abuse its discretion by conducting an in camera review of confidential juvenile and adoption records to determine which documents are relevant and discoverable in a freedom from custody and control proceeding. The court may properly limit discovery to relevant materials to balance a parent's due process rights against statutory confidentiality protections.

Issues

Whether a trial court's in camera inspection of confidential juvenile and adoption files to determine discoverability constitutes prejudicial error.
Whether a parent in a freedom from custody and control proceeding is entitled to unqualified access to confidential county files.

Disposition. Affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“A court certainly has the sensitivity and expertise to determine what documents are relevant to the issue presented.”

“Evidence Code section 1040 authorizes the court to disclose information relevant to a proceeding, where the need for disclosure outweighs the public policy concerns advocating nondisclosure.”

Opinion

WIENER, J. Elizabeth V. appeals the judgment freeing her three-year-old daughter Maria (Maria) from her custody and control. (Civ. Code, § 232.)1 The court found Elizabeth had abandoned Maria and failed to provide an adequate parental relationship. The court rejected Elizabeth’s alternative plan to place Maria with her maternal grandmother.

The primary focus of this appeal is directed to the court’s decision to limit Elizabeth’s lawyer’s inspection of documents from two files maintained by the county to those documents which the court determined were relevant to the action. Elizabeth says it is only her lawyer who can determine whether the documents are relevant. She asserts the court’s in camera inspection of the files to determine which portions were relevant and, therefore, discoverable by her counsel was prejudicial error. Although we are sensitive to the fundamental interests involved in this type of proceeding, we conclude otherwise and affirm the judgment.

Factual Background

The petition for freedom from custody and control (FFCC) was filed when Maria was three-years-old and after she had been living in a foster home for about two and one-half years.

[1102]Under Civil Code section 2332 the probation department filed an investigative report recommending Maria be declared free from custody and control of her mother. Elizabeth’s counsel obtained an order to discover the investigative report and any other documents in the existing court file. Believing three other files maintained by the county may have been relied on by the probation officer in preparing the investigative report and may have contained information to support placing Maria with her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth’s attorney asked to examine these files. The files he sought were (1) the juvenile probation file on Elizabeth’s brother, Richard; (2) the dependency file on Maria, maintained by the department of social services (DSS), and (3) the adoption file on Maria, also maintained by the DSS.

Normally, San Diego probation officers do not physically review any of the files requested by Elizabeth’s counsel. Instead, they receive relevant, photocopied portions of files DSS maintains on the minor who is the subject of the report. Although these documents are included in the court file, a probation officer does not know from which file the photocopied documents originated.

San Diego County Department of Social Services v. Elizabeth V.

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