Filed 12/8/21 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION SEVEN B311089 In re SCARLETT V., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile (Los Angeles County Court Law. Super. Ct. No. 19CCJP04900A) LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. FRANKLIN V., Defendant and Appellant; SCARLETT V., Appellant. APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Marguerite D. Downing, Judge. Reversed with directions. Anne E. Fragasso, under appointment of the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Marissa Coffey, under appointment of the Court of Appeal, for Appellant. No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent. ______________________________ INTRODUCTION The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services filed a petition alleging Scarlett V. came within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300. After the juvenile court sustained the petition, Scarlett—who was born in Honduras—filed a request for Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) findings under Code of Civil Procedure section 155.1 The juvenile court denied the request, ruling the findings were “discretionary.” Because the court committed legal error, and because Scarlett submitted unimpeached and uncontradicted evidence that required the court to enter an order with the findings Scarlett requested under section 155, we reverse. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND A. The Juvenile Court Sustains a Petition Under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 300 Scarlett was born in Honduras in 2013. Scarlett’s mother, Karen M., and her father, Franklin V., were also born in Honduras. The family moved to the United States in 2015. 1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure. 2 Karen and Franklin also have a younger daughter who was born in the United States. In July 2019 the Department received a referral claiming Franklin had attacked Karen. A Department social worker interviewed Karen, who stated that Franklin had physically and emotionally abused her for years and that she and Franklin had separated six months earlier. On the night of the most recent incident, Franklin arrived at the apartment where Karen lived with the children and began to argue with Karen and insult her. Eventually, Franklin hit Karen in the mouth and in the head several times, causing Karen to bleed and feel as though she was going to faint. The social worker also interviewed Scarlett, who at the time was six years old. Scarlett stated that she was in the kitchen with her sister when her father attacked her mother, but that she heard the argument, heard her father say he was “going to kill” her mother, and knew her father had hit her mother. She also said that her father sometimes hit her and her sister with a belt on the legs and buttocks and that she was afraid of her father. The Department filed a petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (a) and (b)(1). In October 2019 the court sustained an amended petition, finding true the allegations that, because of the …
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