As a general rule, only a person “aggrieved” by a judgment has standing to appeal from it. Is a mother without reunification services “aggrieved” by a judgment granting her 18-year-old child’s request for the termination of dependency jurisdiction? The Court of Appeal answers “no” in In re J.C., case no. G048720 (4th Dist. January 21, 2014), and dismisses the appeal.
J.C., the child of divorced parents, had been living with her father before being declared a dependent of the court a few months after her 15th birthday, when the court found that her father failed to ensure she attended school or get treatment for a psychiatric condition. After treatment at a facility, J.C. was placed in foster care and continued to improve. On her 18th birthday, she asked the court to terminate dependency jurisdiction (though she could have remained a dependent until age 21) so she could return to living with her father. Her mother appealed.
Emotion naturally runs high in dependency cases, but standing based on emotional concern for a child is not enough to confer legal standing to appeal:
Mother asserts she has standing because the termination of jurisdiction resulted in J.C. living with father, and mother worries father will neglect J.C.’s psychiatric treatment, which will damage mother’s relationship with J.C. That interest, while perfectly understandable on an emotional level, does not confer legal standing.
The court does not casually dismiss mother’s interest here. The opinion walks the reader through the standing analysis rather clearly, starting with the proposition that while standing to appeal is liberally construed, only a person “aggrieved” by a decision may appeal from it. That requires a court to “precisely identify [the appellant’s] interest in the matter.”
The court noted that a parent’s interest in the companionship, care, custody and management of a child “is no longer paramount” once reunification services end; at that point, “the focus shifts to the needs of the child for permanency and stability.” Mother this faced an uphill battle to prove standing because her interest had been “significantly reduced” upon the termination of reunification services
But it was the fact that J.C. had turned 18 that ultimately precluded standing. The Court stated that J.C.’s decision to ask for termination of dependency jurisdiction was an exercise of her “rights and responsibilities that come with adulthood” and thus not subject to parental oversight — a point illustrated by the fact that mother was not even entitled to notice of the hearing on J.C.’s request for termination of dependency jurisdiction.