When determining what is in the best interest of a child, the primary duty of the court is to protect the child from harm. But what is harm? A recent decision by the California Supreme Court set out the statutory definitions and procedures that must be followed when deciding whether a child should be permanently removed from a drug-addicted mother and placed in a safer environment.

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar on May 27, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Court of Appeals erred by putting the mother’s drug addiction and mental health problems over her the components of the “beneficial relationship exception.” This three-part exception to a presumption of adoption requires (1) regular visitations, (2) a showing that the child would benefit from a continuing relationship and (3) the termination of contact would be detrimental to the child. Witness and expert testimony showed that the mother met all three parts of the test.

Instead of properly applying the exemption, however, the Supreme Court held, “the appellate court treated the lack of progress in addressing substance abuse and mental health issues as a categorical bar to establishing the exception. That conclusion was mistaken, so we now reverse.” The previous opinion was written on April 9 by Justice Gabriel P. Sanchez, who reversed an order by the San Francisco Superior Court for long-term foster care rather than terminating parental ties in favor of beginning adoption proceedings.

Cuéllar began his 30-page opinion in the case of In Re Caden C. by acknowledging the difficulty of the court's task in finding “a delicate balance between protecting children from abuse or neglect and ensuring the continuity of children’s emotionally important relationships, especially with their parents.” He called their task a “fraught determination,” requiring the court to a “sift through often complicated facts to weigh competing benefits and dangers for the child.” He stressed the need to rely on the State’s Welfare and Institutions Code at all times.

Caden C.’s case demonstrates not only the difficult decision the courts faced when trying to balance the young boy’s “competing benefits and dangers,” but it also tells a heartbreaking story that had to be considered when deciding his fate. The boy was born in 2009 and lived with his mother until he was four. In 2013, the Marin County Health and Human Services learned that he was living in a car with a mother who admitted to drug use and suicidal thoughts. The court exercised jurisdiction over the young boy and placed him in foster care with Ms. H., who was not a relative.

At a review hearing the following year, the court retained jurisdiction but returned him to the custody of his mother, who had followed the court order to address her drug and mental health issues and attend parenting classes. By 2016 however, his mother had relapsed and the San Francisco Human Services Agency returned him to Ms. H. Unfortunately, he had three additional foster placements over the next year, all of whom felt they could not provide him with the multitude of services he needed. He was then returned to Ms. H. The boy’s mother tried to regain custody, but the court denied her petition. In 2017, her visitation rights were reduced to once a month. She appealed and a hearing was held in early 2018.

At that hearing, each side presented witness and expert testimony. The state mental health agency argued that adoption was the preferable course because the mother often discussed drug use in front of her son and that he was doing well under the care of Ms. H. At the same time, however, they stated that he “grew distressed at the prospect of not living with his mother.” In addition, Ms. H. said she had “concerns about the mother’s demands” and even expressed fear for her own safety. She wanted more time to consider legal guardianship, but she said Caden could remain in her care.

The mother presented several witnesses who had observed her relationship with her son and believed that terminating it would do him harm. One of the mother’s doctors said that mother and son shared “an intense bond” and that “losing contact would compound Caden’s other traumas, leading to significant emotional fluctuation, confusion, and acting out in the near term and in adolescence.”

After presenting the history, the Court began a lengthy discussion of the “beneficial relationship exception.” Cuéllar reiterated that the Appellate Court’s decision to remove the child was an “abuse of discretion” because it did not recognize that the mother had met the three statutory requirements of the “beneficial relationship exception.” She had visitations; they maintained a relationship, and witnesses had stated that the “termination of parental rights” would be detrimental to the child.”

The Justice wrote that the application of these criteria demands a “subtle, case-specific inquiry” and is replete with “tangled benefits and burdens.” He summarized that the question before the court is “whether losing the relationship with the parent would harm the child to an extent not outweighed, on balance, by the security of a new, adoptive home.” The court also stressed the statute’s history places the burden of proving these things on the parent.

Cuéllar next stressed that “A parent’s continued struggles with the issues leading to dependency are not a categorical bar to applying the exception” and that it can only be applied when the parent had not made sufficient progress in addressing the problems associated with dependence. The flip side doesn’t work. “So, we reject the paradoxical proposition, without any basis in the statute or its history, that the exception can only apply when the parent has made sufficient progress in addressing the problems that led to dependency,” he wrote. In addition, “The parent’s continuing difficulty with mental health or substance abuse may not be used as a basis for determining the fate of the parental relationship by assigning blame, making moral judgments about the fitness of the parent, or rewarding or punishing a parent.”

The court then turned to the appropriate standard of review for determining whether the “beneficial relationship exception was appropriately applied. It found that the “substantial evidence” standard was correct for the first two prongs of the exception, but that the third required a different standard. The third prong, related to whether the termination of contact would be detrimental to the child, is different and discretionary. This was not done and the Court should have used a hybrid standard rather than its “own judgment as to what is in the child’s best interests.”

The Supreme Court concluded by restating that the Court of Appeals erred in its opinion when it said “no reasonable court could apply the parental-benefit exception given Mother’s substance abuse and mental health issues.”

It also found that the state’s mental health agency had filed a new petition to terminate parental rights and that the trial court had done so. “That subsequent decision renders moot the earlier decision not to terminate parental rights,” the opinion found. Therefore, the Court also concluded that the Court of Appeals “should therefore dismiss this appeal as moot.”