Background
A county child-welfare agency removed W.A. from her adoptive parents and began a dependency case. The adoptive parents denied Native American ancestry, and the juvenile court found that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) did not apply. The court later established a guardianship but retained dependency jurisdiction; adoption again became a possible permanent plan.
W.A.’s mother filed a Welfare and Institutions Code section 388 petition seeking changed orders. The juvenile court summarily denied it. On appeal, she challenged both that denial and the adequacy of the agency’s continuing ICWA inquiry, pointing to adoptive and biological relatives whom the agency had not questioned.
The Court’s Holding
The Third District affirmed the denial of the section 388 petition but vacated the ICWA finding and ordered further inquiry. Because the juvenile court retained dependency jurisdiction, the statutory duty to ask whether the child is or may be an Indian child remained active. The mother did not forfeit the issue merely by failing to appeal the initial 2022 ICWA finding or later orders repeating it.
The published portion holds that inquiry was required of available extended relatives on both sides of the child’s family history. Although the adoptive parents denied Indian ancestry, their relatives might possess different information. Tribal membership is a political relationship determined by the tribe, not simply a racial classification, so adoption does not make inquiry of an adoptive family categorically pointless.
The agency also conceded it had not contacted available biological relatives, including the child’s biological mother and sister. Those omissions required remand. After renewed inquiry, the juvenile court must make new ICWA findings and, if W.A. is an Indian child, follow ICWA and California’s implementing statutes.
Key Takeaways
- ICWA’s inquiry obligation continues while the juvenile court retains dependency jurisdiction.
- A parent may challenge a current ICWA finding even without appealing each earlier order that repeated the finding.
- Agencies should ask available adoptive extended relatives as well as biological extended relatives about tribal connections.
- A tribe—not the agency or state court—ultimately determines membership eligibility.
- A deficient inquiry can require vacating the ICWA finding while leaving unrelated dependency rulings intact.
Why It Matters
Dependency lawyers and county agencies should not treat an adoptive parent’s ancestry denial as the end of the inquiry. The ruling calls for documented, diligent outreach to reasonably available relatives whenever the court still exercises dependency jurisdiction.
For families, the remedy is targeted rather than an automatic undoing of the placement plan. Here the section 388 denial remained in place, but the agency and court must complete the federal and state-law inquiry before proceeding on a potentially permanent adoption path.
Read the full opinion (PDF) · Court docket