Social workers wanted to report Vernica Gonzalez to the state Department of Justice's child abuse database with a "substantiated" abuse determination. That determination was upheld by a trial court judge. The appeals court said the spanking came close to abuse, but that social workers and the lower court judge failed to consider the family's entire circumstances. Gonzalez and her husband testified that other forms of punishment such as groundings and taking away her phone had failed to persuade their year-old daughter to do her schoolwork and avoid gang culture.
The parents said that other family members had testified that spankings in the household were a rarity. The appeals court said the mother's growing frustration with her daughter's behavior and her intention not to inflict harm in the April spanking weighed heavily in its ruling. Rushing continued that "the spanking was entirely the product of a genuine and deliberate disciplinary purpose, i. The court ordered the child abuse report to be withdrawn or Gonzalez given another hearing in which the San Jose family's entire circumstances are considered and the spanking put into context with the parents' growing frustration with a recalcitrant daughter.
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