Full Opinion

Filed 10/27/26 In re Brianna V. CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FIVE In re BRIANNA V. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court B353140 Law. (Los Angeles County LOS ANGELES COUNTY Super. Ct. No. DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN 25CCJP00915A-C) AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Appellant; v. MANUEL G., Defendant and Respondent; Ev. G. and Ez. G., Respondents. APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Safaan K. Ahmed, Judge. Affirmed. Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Jacklyn K. Louie, Assistant County Counsel, and Navid Nakhjavani, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Appellant. Johanna R. Shargel, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Respondent Manuel G. Anuradha Khemka, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Respondent Minors Ev.G. and Ez.G. ****** This is the second appeal in this juvenile dependency case. In the first appeal, we upheld the juvenile court’s exertion of dependency jurisdiction based on Manuel G.’s (father) sexual abuse of his 17-year-old stepdaughter, but dismissed as moot the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (the Department)’s challenge to the juvenile court’s dispositional order allowing father to remain in the home with his stepdaughter and his two younger children in light of the court’s issuance of a new dispositional order under Welfare and Institutions Code section 388.1 In this second appeal, the Department challenges that section 388 order. Because the juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in issuing that order, we reject the Department’s challenge and affirm. 1 All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated. 2 FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND For efficiency’s sake, we incorporate by reference the facts and procedural background set forth in our prior opinion in In re Brianna V. (Aug. 20, 2026, B350160) [nonpub.opn.], and here provide only a truncated general background that focuses on the section 388 order at issue here. I. General Background In September 2025, the juvenile court exerted dependency jurisdiction over Brianna V. (born 2008), Ev.G. (born 2017), and Ez.G. (born 2024), based on two incidents of father’s alleged sexual abuse of Brianna, who is his stepdaughter (Ev.G. and Ez.G. are father’s biological children). Although father denied any sexual abuse and prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges, the court ultimately credited Brianna’s account of the two incidents due to what it viewed as “sufficient corroborati[ve] evidence” (namely, Brianna’s disclosure of that abuse to a close friend and a close relative, the timing of that disclosure, Brianna engaging in “behavior” “indicative of someone suffering emotional trauma,” and Brianna’s failure to recant). On October 31, 2025, the juvenile court held a dispositional hearing. The court ordered father to attend a sexual abuse treatment program for perpetrators, to participate in individual counseling (addressing case-related issues such as sexual abuse, its impact on children in the home, and protective parenting), and to attend parenting classes. Over the Department’s objection that father be excluded from the home until such time as it is possible to “see how . . . father is doing [in the court-ordered] services”, and based upon Brianna’s report that she feels safe at the home when father is present as well as the positions of Ev.G. 3 and Ez.G. supporting father’s return to the home, the court ordered the minors released to both parents under the Department’s supervision and under certain conditions—namely, that (1) father not be left alone in the home with Ev.G. and Ez.G.; (2) the Department conduct unannounced home visits; and (3) mother make the minors available to social workers. The Department appealed the court’s dispositional order, and also petitioned for a writ of supersedeas seeking a stay of that order. When this court granted an immediate stay of the order releasing the children to father, and the juvenile court entered a subsequent order allowing for unmonitored visits outside the home with Ev.G. and Ez.G., the Department filed a second appeal and second petition for a writ of supersedeas challenging the subsequent order. On January 8, 2026, this court granted the Department’s petitions, staying both prior dispositional orders pending resolution of the Department’s appeals—but noting that, during the pendency of the appeals, the parties were free to seek new or modified custody orders in the juvenile court pursuant to section 388. II. Section 388 Order In January 2026, father filed a petition under section 388, requesting that the juvenile court modify the disposition order it issued in response to this court’s intervention and release of Ev.G. and Ez.G. to both parents. Father alleged that his completion of 10 sessions of the sexual abuse treatment program, four sessions of individual counseling, and many appropriate visits with the younger children constituted both changed circumstances and established that it was in the best interests of the children that he return to the home. 4 The juvenile court concluded that father’s petition made a prima facie case for release and set a hearing. The Department opposed the petition, urging that father had at most “demonstrated partial compliance with court-ordered services,” and that father’s continued “denial regarding the sexual abuse allegations” “raises concerns” regarding the children’s safety. After entertaining argument at the March 2, 2026, hearing on the petition, the juvenile court granted father’s section 388 petition. The court found that there had been a change of circumstances in the intervening few months—namely, that (1) father had been “consistently attending the sexual abuse awareness programs” and “participating in individual counseling,” such that “[i]t appears that he has sufficiently understood the impact of the trauma of what sexual abuse does to children and the harm it does to children in the home,” and (2) father had been “having meaningful and consistent visitation with [Ev.G.] and [Ez.G.] without any safety concerns noted from any of the monitors.” The court noted that, although father continued to maintain his innocence of any sexual abuse of Brianna, which rendered the sexual abuse counselor “unable to assess whether there has been a meaningful behavioral change” in father, the law does not require a parent to admit sexual abuse before a home-of-parent order is appropriate; instead, the court noted, the more relevant query was whether father had made “sufficient progress in understanding the impact [of the conduct at issue] that [father] can be safely returned home,” and the court concluded that this standard had been met. The court also found that it would be in the best interests of Ev.G. and Ez.G. to allow father back into the home because it would promote stability and 5 otherwise have a positive “impact” on the children. The court ordered Ev.G. and Ez.G. returned to the home of both parents, conditioned on the parents continuing to “engage in all services ordered and recommended” and to “continue with family preservation services” unless recommended otherwise. At a March 10 progress hearing, the court imposed additional safety conditions to ensure Brianna’s safety: (1) requiring an inside lock on Brianna’s bedroom door; (2) counseling for Brianna on safe boundaries; (3) Brianna’s attendance at school-based therapy; (4) the maternal grandmother to live in the home; and (5) father to continue sexual abuse counseling. III. Appeal The Department filed a timely appeal from the March 2 and March 10, 2026, orders granting father’s section 388 petition. DISCUSSION2 To establish entitlement of modification of a prior juvenile court order under section 388, a petitioning parent must show (1) “a change of circumstances” that “remove[s] or ameliorate[s]” “the problem that initially brought the children within the dependency system,” and (2) “modification of the prior order 2 Although the juvenile court subsequently terminated jurisdiction over Ev.G. and Ez.G. on May 6, 2026, that subsequent order does not render moot the Department’s challenge to its earlier section 388 order. The Department has appealed the order terminating jurisdiction, so our review of the section 388 order could affect further proceedings in this case if the termination order is also overturned. We do not lack the power to grant “effective relief” (In re E.T. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 426, 436), so this appeal is not moot. 6 would be in the best interests of the minor child.” (In re Ernesto R. (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 219, 223-224 In re Mickel O. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 586, 615 ; In re A.A. (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 597, 612 (A.A.).) In evaluating the petition, the juvenile court “may consider the entire factual and procedural history of the case.” (Mickel O., at p. 616.) We review the juvenile court’s ruling on a section 388 petition for an abuse of discretion. (In re Alayah J. (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 469, 478.) I. Changed Circumstances The juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in finding that circumstances had changed since the prior court order removing Ev.G. and Ez.G. from father’s custody. Here, the “problem that initially brought the child[ren] within the dependency system” (A.A., supra, 203 Cal.App.4th at p. 612) was father’s sexual abuse of Brianna, but father had in the intervening months taken steps to “ameliorate” that problem by attending sexual abuse awareness programs, by participating in individual counseling that focus on case-related issues (including sexual abuse, its impact on children in the home, and protective parenting practices), and by engaging in successful, safe and regular visits with Ev.G. and Ez.G. The Department urges that the juvenile court nevertheless abused its discretion in finding changed circumstances because (1) father had not attended enough programs or individual counseling sessions, so it was “too soon to tell” whether circumstances had changed, and (2) father’s refusal to admit that he sexually abused Brianna “limits the depth” and effectiveness of the programming. We reject both arguments. We will not— and, indeed, cannot—reweigh the evidence to second-guess the juvenile court’s finding that father’s attendance, compliance and 7 demonstrated insight thus far evinced a “sufficient[] under[standing of] the impact of the trauma of what sexual abuse does to children”; we are particularly reluctant to do so when the Department itself previously acknowledged that father’s attendance at such programs might warrant a different custodial order. And the juvenile court was correct in rejecting the Department’s explicit and implicit suggestion that a parent’s admission to sexual misconduct is a prerequisite to a finding of changed circumstances as to the custodial arrangement. (Accord, Blanca P. v. Superior Court (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 1738, 1753 & fn. 10 [juvenile court cannot deny reunification simply because a parent denies sexual abuse]; In re Natasha A. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 28, 37 [juvenile court cannot deny visitation “simply because” parent denies sexual abuse].) Although the sexual abuse counselor stated that father’s refusal to admit the sexual abuse rendered the counselor “unable” at that time “to assess whether there has been a meaningful behavioral change,” the same counselor recommended father’s further attendance—to which father agreed. II. Best Interests of the Children The juvenile court also did not abuse its discretion in concluding that allowing father to return to the home to be with Ev.G and Ez.G. was in their best interests. Father’s visits with the children had been successful and problem-free, and the court explicitly cited the positive “impact”—implicitly, the stability—of having father back in the house. The Department urges that the juvenile court abused its discretion for two reasons. First, the Department argues that the presumption favoring natural parents having custody of their children does not, by itself, show that father’s resumption of 8 custody is in the Ev.G’s and Ez.G.’s best interests. (In re Justice P. (2004) 123 Cal.App.4th 181, 192.) Although this presumption is insufficient to constitute a prima facie showing (ibid.), the issue here is on the merits and, more to the point, the court here did not rely on the biological link as much as relied upon the history of positive visits and the stability that would arise from having father back in the household. Second, the Department contends that the additional restrictions that the juvenile court imposed to safeguard Brianna upon father’s return to the home— namely, an inside lock on Brianna’s bedroom door; counseling for Brianna on safe boundaries; Brianna’s attendance at school- based therapy; the maternal grandmother to live in the home; and father to continue sexual abuse counseling—means that father’s return is not in the best interests of Ev.G and Ez.G. The Department relatedly argues that maternal grandmother’s presence is of little utility because she also has denied that father committed sexual abuse. We reject this contention because it effectively asks us to reweigh the evidence: The juvenile court determined that the benefit to the children outweighed any risks, when those risks were appropriately mitigated. To the extent the Department seeks to challenge those mitigating terms (as set forth in the March 10 order), the Department has forfeited that issue by not arguing their insufficiency as to Brianna. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(B) [brief must support each point with argument and authority].) 9 DISPOSITION The juvenile court’s March 2 and March 10, 2026 orders granting father’s section 388 petition and modifying its prior disposition orders are affirmed. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS. ______________________, P. J. HOFFSTADT We concur: _________________________, J. MOOR _________________________, J. KIM (D.) 10