In re S.W. CA1/4

Filed 7/10/24 In re S.W. CA1/4

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

In re S.W., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY CHILDREN AND FAMILY A168222 SERVICES BUREAU, (Contra Costa County Super. Petitioner and Respondent, Ct. No. J21-00479) v. A.W. and S.V., Defendants and Appellants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION1 A.W. (Mother) and S.V. (Father) appeal from an order terminating their parental rights as to S.W. (Child) under Welfare and Institutions Code

1 We resolve this case by memorandum opinion. (Cal. Stds. Jud. Admin., § 8.1.) We provide a limited factual summary because our opinion is unpublished and the parties know, or should know, “the facts of the case and its procedural history.” (People v. Garcia (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 847, 851.) The background section of our opinion denying Mother’s petition for extraordinary writ relief from the order terminating reunification services and setting a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26 hearing in the same underlying matter is hereby incorporated by reference. (A.W. v. Superior Court (Mar. 24, 2023, A166806 [nonpub. opn.]) at pp. 2–16.)

1

section 366.26.2 Generally, Mother and Father challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the order. But because their specific claims are either unreviewable or forfeited, we affirm. Under section 366.26, subdivision (c)(1), a “finding under subdivision (b) . . . of [s]ection 361.5 that reunification services shall not be offered . . . shall constitute a sufficient basis for termination of parental rights” unless certain enumerated exceptions apply. Here, in the same hearing in which the section 366.26 hearing was ordered, the juvenile court found that section 361.5, subdivision (b)(10) and (11), applied and accordingly, ordered that reunification services not be offered. Since “[a]ll orders issued at a hearing in which a section 366.26 hearing is ordered . . . must be reviewed by extraordinary writ” (In re Tabitha W. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 811, 817), the section 361.5, subdivision (b), “finding . . . that reunification services shall not be offered” and the other findings anticipating the section 366.26 hearing in this case are not reviewable here.3 (§ 366.26, subd. (c)(1).) Consequently, the only potentially remaining and reviewable question is whether any exception enumerated in section 366.26, subdivision (c)(1), applies and thus renders the juvenile court’s previous section 361.5, subdivision (b), findings an insufficient basis for terminating parental rights. However, that issue is not raised in Mother and Father’s respective opening briefs, whose only argument concerns the juvenile court’s “finding of danger to” Child. As we observed when deciding Mother’s writ petition, that finding