Dept. of Human Services v. R. I. S. ( 2024 )

No. 741 October 16, 2024 539
This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
In the Matter of K. M.,
a Child.
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,
Petitioner-Respondent,
v.
R. I. S.,
Appellant.
Multnomah County Circuit Court
19JU00062
A182644 (Control)
In the Matter of K. M.,
a Child.
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,
Petitioner-Respondent,
v.
R. I. S.,
Appellant.
Multnomah County Circuit Court
19JU00063; A182646
Francis G. Troy, II, Judge.
Argued and submitted May 15, 2024.
Tiffany Keast, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause
for appellant. Also on the briefs was Shannon Storey, Chief
Defender, Juvenile Appellate Section, Oregon Public Defense
Commission.
Inge D. Wells, Assistant Attorney General, argued the
cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum,
Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
540 Dept. of Human Services v. R. I. S.
Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Kistler,
Senior Judge.*
PER CURIAM
Affirmed.
______________
* Egan, J., vice Jacquot, J.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 335 Or App 539 (2024) 541
PER CURIAM
The juvenile court denied mother’s motion to dis-
miss dependency jurisdiction over her two children, K and L.
Mother assigns error to that ruling, arguing that the
Department of Human Services (DHS) failed to prove that,
at the time of the hearing in September 2023, the children
remained at risk of serious loss or injury due to mother
being unable or unwilling to protect them from exposure
to domestic violence and exposing them to unsafe people.
DHS maintains that the juvenile court correctly denied the
motion, because the circumstances that brought the chil-
dren into dependency jurisdiction had not been adequately
ameliorated and the children remained at nonspecula-
tive risk. We conclude that DHS met its burden—albeit
narrowly—and, accordingly, affirm.
We review the denial of a motion to dismiss depen-
dency jurisdiction for legal error and, in doing so, “view the
evidence, as supplemented and supported by permissible
derivative inferences, in the light most favorable to the juve-
nile court’s disposition.” Dept. of Human Services v. D. L.,
308 Or App 295, 297, 479 P3d 1092 (2020), rev den, 367 Or
668 (2021). The question is whether the evidence, so viewed,
“was sufficient to permit the challenged determination.” Id.(internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the permanency
plan is reunification, so it was DHS’s burden to prove by a
preponderance of the evidence that, at the time of the hear-
ing in September 2023, (1) the bases for jurisdiction contin-
ued to pose a current threat of serious loss or injury to the
children, and (2) that risk would likely be realized absent
dependency jurisdiction. Dept. of Human Services v. T. L.,
279 Or App 673, 685, 687, 379 P3d 741 (2016).
The juvenile court first asserted dependency juris-
diction over the children in February 2019, based on father
exposing them to domestic violence, mother’s inability to
protect them from father’s domestic violence, and mother
exposing them to unsafe people. Mother moved to dis-
miss jurisdiction. In September 2023, the juvenile court
denied the motion, citing, with respect to mother,1 mother’s
1
Father is not a party to this appeal, and the jurisdictional bases relating to
him are not at issue.
542 Dept. of Human Services v. R. I. S.
“ongoing minimization and denial” regarding past domestic
violence and the fact that mother was in the “early stages”
of domestic-violence treatment.
Having reviewed the record in accordance with the
standard of review, we conclude that, although it is a close
case, DHS met its burden, such that the juvenile court did
not commit legal error in declining to dismiss jurisdiction in
September 2023. Although the court could have reached a
different decision, had it viewed the evidence a little differ-
ently, we cannot say that it committed legal error, because
we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the
court’s disposition, not in the light most favorable to mother.
We therefore affirm.
Affirmed.