The Second Appellate District affirmed an order. The court held that certain information that a dependent child’s paternal grandmother had been told by her own grandmother when she was a small child about their Native American ancestry was too vague, attenuated, and speculative to have given a dependency court any reason to believe that the dependent child might be an Indian child.
Eight-year-old Jonah D. and his older sister attended a school that reported them as victims of general neglect. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (county) investigated and found that Jonah’s mother, Rachel D., had recently hit him with a belt, her open palm, and her fists. Jonah had bruises and contusions, as well as a scratch from Rachel’s fingernail. The county initiated dependency proceedings on Jonah’s behalf.
