Filed 6/17/26 Santora v. Santora CA1/3
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
FRANCESCO SANTORA,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
A175360
v.
INARA X. SANTORA, (Solano County
Super. Ct. No. FL25-02187)
Defendant and Respondent.
MEMORANDUM OPINION1
Francesco Santora (Father), in propria persona, appeals the trial
court’s dismissal of his petition for custody of minor children for lack of
jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement
Act (UCCJEA) (Fam. Code, § 3400 et seq).2 We affirm.
On October 30, 2025, Father filed a petition for custody and visitation
of three minor children in Solano County Superior Court. He also filed a
UCCJEA declaration, which stated that the children resided in Solano
County with Inara Xie (also referred to as Inara Santora) (Mother), but it did
1 We resolve this case by a memorandum opinion pursuant to
California Standards of Judicial Administration, section 8.1.
2 All further statutory references are to the Family Code unless
otherwise specified.
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not specify how long they had resided there or list any prior addresses. The
declaration indicated two of the children were born in Nevada and one was
born in China.
Father filed a request for order on November 13, 2025, and the trial
court held a hearing on November 17, 2025. Mother did not appear.
According to the clerk’s minutes, “[t]he Court and Petitioner discuss[ed] the
issues,” and “[t]he Court f[ound] she did not have jurisdiction over this
matter and . . . dismisse[d] the case entirely.” The hearing was not reported,
and Father did not include a settled statement or any other evidence of what
transpired during the hearing in the record on appeal. The trial court signed
Father’s request for order below the following handwritten notation: “Court
dismisses case for lack of jurisdiction.”
On appeal, Father contends that the UCCJEA requires written
jurisdictional findings and that the trial court erred by dismissing the case
without any such findings. We disagree.
Father cites sections 3421 through 3424 in support. Those provisions
address grounds for jurisdiction to make an initial custody determination and
temporary emergency jurisdiction, among other things, but they do not
require written jurisdictional findings, either generally or when a court
dismisses for lack of jurisdiction.
Father also cites In re Marriage of Brown & Yana (2006) 37 Cal.4th
947; In re Marriage of Fajota (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 1487; In re Marriage of
Fernandez-Abin & Sanchez (2011) 191 Cal.App.4th 1015; and In re Marriage
of Nurie (2009) 176 Cal.App.4th 478.3 Only two of these require findings, and
3 We note that Appellant’s Opening Brief mischaracterizes several of
the cases it cites. For example, the brief suggests In re Marriage of Fajota
“revers[ed] where court declined jurisdiction without adequate findings,” but
that case concerned a domestic violence presumption that applies in custody
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they concern statutes or circumstances that are not at issue here. Marriage
of Fajota addressed the domestic violence presumption in section 3044, which
contains a requirement for findings at section 3044, subdivision (f) and is not
at issue. And Marriage of Fernandez-Abin & Sanchez instructed the trial
court to make findings on remand where “the record show[ed] the California
court neither based its decision [to exercise jurisdiction] on section 3424 nor
followed the requirements of that statute when it included the children
within the permanent restraining order, and . . . also show[ed] the California
court effectively disregarded the jurisdiction” of another court with a pending
proceeding. (Fernandez-Abin, at p. 1020.) These cases do not stand for the
proposition that written jurisdictional findings are required in every custody
case, as Father contends.
Nor did Father request that the trial court issue a statement of decision
explaining its factual and legal analysis. Section 3022.3 provides that
“[u]pon the trial of a question of fact in a proceeding to determine the custody
of a minor child, the court shall, upon the request of either party, issue a
statement of the decision explaining the factual and legal basis for its
decision pursuant to Section 632 of the Code of Civil Procedure.”
“In general, Code of Civil Procedure section 632, and therefore section
3022.3, ‘applies when there has been a trial followed by a judgment.’ ” (City
and County of San Francisco v. H.H. (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 531, 544, quoting
Maria P. v. Riles (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1281, 1294.) “ ‘It does not apply to an order
on a motion.’ ” (H.H., at p. 544.) “ ‘This is true even if the motion involves an
evidentiary hearing and the order is appealable.’ ” (Ibid.) That said, courts
have created exceptions for special proceedings, and “ ‘[w]here the issues are
determinations, not jurisdiction. (See generally In re Marriage of Fajota,
supra, 230 Cal.App.4th 1487.)
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sufficiently important, as in a child custody case, formal findings of fact and
conclusions of law are required upon the request of a party, regardless of the
nature of the proceedings.’ ” (Id. at p. 545.)
Here, Father does not contend that he requested a statement of
decision, nor is there any indication in the record that he did. The trial court
thus had no obligation to issue written findings. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 632,
subd. (a) [in the absence of a request, “written findings of fact and conclusions
of law shall not be required”].)
Finally, even if the failure to provide written findings were error, any
such error would have been harmless. (See F.P. v. Monier (2017) 3 Cal.5th
1099, 1108 [“a trial court’s error in failing to issue a requested statement of
decision is not reversible per se, but is subject to harmless error review”]; In
re Kayla W. (2023) 97 Cal.App.5th 99, 106 [“a failure to comply with the
UCCJEA’s procedural requirements is subject to harmless error analysis”].)
A California court can exercise jurisdiction if it “is the home state of the
child on the date of the commencement of the proceeding.” (§ 3421,
subd. (a)(1).) “ ‘Home state’ ” is defined as “the state in which a child lived
with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive
months immediately before the commencement of a child custody
proceeding.” (§ 3402, subd. (g).) Father’s UCCJEA declaration stated that
the children lived in Solano County, but it did not say for how long they had
lived there. That is not sufficient to establish home-state jurisdiction, and
the record contains no evidence going to any other ground for jurisdiction.
Thus, Father has not demonstrated that had the trial court issued
written jurisdictional findings, the result would have been any more
favorable to him. (See Paige v. Safeway Inc. (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 1108,
1129.)
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DISPOSITION
The trial court’s order is affirmed. The parties are to bear their own
costs on appeal.4
TUCHER, P. J.
WE CONCUR:
PETROU, J.
RODRÍGUEZ, J.
Santora v. Santora (A175360)
4 Because Mother did not file a respondent’s brief, we decline to award
her costs as the prevailing party. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(5).)
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