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In Re H.B. (Cal. Ct. App. - March 25, 2008)

By Shaun Martin

Look, I like reading judicial opinions as much as anyone. Even more so, I think.

But the last 32 hours have seen no less than twenty published opinions by the California Court of Appeal and another double-digits by the Ninth Circuit. Can't we spread this stuff out a bit, people? I've got other stuff I've got to do, you know. :-)

That said, I wanted to briefly mention this case. Anyone who works either in the dependency system or on the Court of Appeal knows how profoundly and deeply depressing many of the cases in this area are. So when the dependency court -- a court that's typically understandably jaded by weeks and years of incredibly sad stories -- begins its opinion in the following way, you can only imagine what an incredible downer the underlying situation must be:

"This is truly a sad case. The history of Gail B[.]?s life is well known to the Juvenile Dependency Court -- first as a 9-year dependent herself and now, for the last seven years, as the mother of children [D.B, D.B., B.B. and T.B.] who are currently dependents of the Court."

The opinion by the Court of Appeal doesn't give all of the relevant and historical facts. For which part of me is thankful. There are perhaps some depressing, life-crushing stories that even I don't want to know. And I get a sense that this may be one of them.

Full post as published by California Appellate Report on March 25, 2008 (boomark / email).