In re L.C.
Filed 4/8/13 In re L.C. CA6
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SIXTH
APPELLATE DISTRICT
In re L.C., a Person Coming
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
H038493
(Santa Clara
County
Super. Ct.
No. JD19419)
SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEPARTMENT
OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN’S SERVICES,
Plaintiff and
Respondent,
v.
J.M.,
Defendant and
Appellant.
In this dependency matter, the minor, L.C., was
adjudged a dependent child of the court (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300, subd.
(b)) and her mother’s boyfriend, J.M., whom L.C. knew as “daddy,†was found to
be her presumptive father (Fam. Code, § 7611, subd. (d)).
of presumed fatherhood, concluding that a 2009 paternity judgment in favor of
R.C. conclusively rebutted the presumption that J.M. was the father. J.M. appeals.
L.C. joins his argument on appeal.
We shall affirm.
I.
Factual and Procedural Background
This case involves two
and the instant petition filed in 2012.
L.C. lived with mother, J.M., and her half
sibling, A.M. (J.M.’s biological child), from 2008, when L.C. was six months
old, to 2010, when J.M. and mother broke up.
Sometime in 2008, J.M. went to jail and mother struggled with caring for
L.C. by herself. She put L.C. in the
care of R.C., L.C.’s biological father.
It was during the time that R.C. supposedly had custody of L.C. that the
2009 dependency was filed.
The report filed for the initial hearing in the
2009 case states, “Paternity is not established. [R.C.] reports that he did not sign the
declaration of paternity after the child was born. Both parents are requesting a paternity
test.†During proceedings on March 9, 2009, mother’s counsel stated
that “[mother] is not opposed to presumed father status for [R.C.].†Father’s counsel replied, “Your Honor, my
client has been seeking presumed father status since the initial hearing and so
we’re happy to hear mother is not contesting that anymore.†Counsel for L.C. and counsel for the Santa
Clara County Department of Family and Children’s Services (Department) each
stated they had “no objection†to R.C. having status as a “presumed
father.†The juvenile court signed and
filed a “Parentage-Findings and Judgment†declaring R.C. to be the “legal
parent†of L.C. R.C. was offered
participate. Mother ultimately reunited
with L.C. and was awarded legal and physical custody. Visitation with R.C. was to be arranged by
the parents.
In February 2010, in proceedings in family
court, the Santa Clara County Department of Child Support Services obtained a
“Judgment Regarding Parental Obligations†ordering R.C. to pay mother
“$0.00/ZERO†per month child support and to make efforts to find work. The family court “found paternity had been
established by the Juvenile Court.â€
When the instant case commenced in February
2012, R.C.’s whereabouts were unknown.
In a report filed for the initial hearing the reporter notes, “It is
believed that in 2009, the Court found [R.C.] a presumed father for the child,
as paternity testing revealed he was the biological father.†R.C. was identified at the outset of the
instant matter to be L.C.’s biological father.
L.C. thought of J.M. as her father.
She had lived with him and mother when they were together and J.M. had
regularly visited L.C. and A.M. after the breakup. L.C. thought of J.M., A.M. and J.M.’s mother
as her family. R.C. had not maintained
visitation with L.C. Indeed, L.C. did
not know who R.C. was.
The instant matter arose following a welfare
check at mother’s home during which police officers found mother to be under
the influence of drugs and the home to be unsafe for the children. J.M. was unable to care for the girls as he
was participating in “prop 36 services†following a 2010 conviction for illegal
possession of drugs. On February 16, 2012, the juvenile court
detained L.C. and A.M. and ordered them to be placed with J.M.’s mother. The court found J.M. to be A.M.’s presumed
father based upon a voluntary declaration of paternity and to be L.C.’s presumed
father under section 7611, subdivision (d).
The Department eventually located R.C. in
Oceano where he had been living for the last several years. He was steadily employed and claimed to have
maintained his sobriety since 2006. He
had been paying child support for L.C. for the preceding one and one-half to
two years. He told the Department that
he was ready to assume custody of L.C.
When the paternity issue came before the
juvenile court, the court set aside its finding that J.M. was the presumed
father, concluding that the court was bound by the prior judgment granting R.C.
“presumed father status.†Citing section
7612, subdivision (c), the court held that the presumption of paternity in
favor of J.M. was rebutted, as a matter of law, by “[R.C.’s] paternity judgment,
which was obtained prior to the presumed father determination as to
[J.M.].†Citing In re Cheyenne B. (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 1361, 1376, 1378, the
court noted that the existence of a “paternity judgment†does not require the
court to find the man to be the presumed father for purposes of a dependency
proceeding. But R.C. had been previously
declared to be a presumed father in the earlier dependency and the parties had
presented no authority to support the argument that the prior finding could be
overridden in a subsequent dependency.
Accordingly, the juvenile court vacated the order declaring J.M. to be
the presumed father and held that R.C. was L.C.’s presumed father.
J.M.
appeals from that ruling and L.C. joins his argument. They maintain that the child support order
was not binding and that the juvenile court abused its discretion in failing to
hold a hearing under section 7611 to redetermine the presumed-father
issue.
II.
Discussion
A.
Legal Framework
“Paternity
disputes are governed by a conglomeration of three sets of laws: The Uniform Parentage Act (Fam. Code, §§
7600-7730, hereafter the UPA), the
Uniform Act on Blood Tests to Determine Paternity (§§ 7550-7557), and other
Family Code sections enacted by the Legislature (§§ 7540-7541, 7570-7577). Under the UPA, a man is ‘presumed to be the
natural father of a child’ if he meets certain conditions described in section
7611.†(In re Jesusa V. (2004) 32 Cal.4th 588, 628 (dis. opn. of Kennard,
J.) (Jesusa V.), fn. omitted.) Under section 7611 a man is presumed to be
the natural father if he made a voluntary declaration of paternity (§ 7570 et
seq.) or is a nonsterile husband who cohabited with the mother at the time of
conception (§ 7540 et seq.). A man may
also be the presumed father in four additional circumstances described by
subdivisions (a) through (d) of section 7611:
“(a) He and the child’s natural mother are or have been married to each
other and the child is born during the marriage, or within 300 days after the
marriage is terminated . . . . [¶]
Before the child’s birth, he and the child’s natural mother have attempted to
marry . . . . [¶]
After the child’s birth, he and the child’s natural mother have married, or
attempted to marry, . . . [¶]
He receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his
natural child.â€
In the
dependency system, fathers are classified as alleged, natural, presumed, and de
facto. (In re
779.) Only presumed fathers are entitled
to reunification services and, in appropriate cases, custody of the child. (In re Jerry P. (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th
793, 801.) Presumed fathers are those
that meet the criteria set forth in section 7611. “Although more than one individual may
fulfill the statutory criteria that give rise to a presumption of paternity,
‘there can be only one presumed father.’ †(Jesusa V., supra,
As
pertinent here, a presumption arising under section 7611 “is a rebuttable
presumption affecting the burden of proof and may be rebutted in an appropriate
action only by clear and convincing evidence.â€
(§ 7612, subd. (a).) If two or
more conflicting presumptions arise under section 7611, a court must reconcile
these competing interests under section 7612, and under that section “the
presumption which on the facts is founded on the weightier considerations of
policy and logic controls.†(
rebutted by a judgment establishing paternity of the child by another
man.†(Id. subd. (c).)
B.
The Paternity Judgment
J.M. argues
that the 2010 child support order does not qualify as a “judgment establishing
paternity†under section 7612, subdivision (c).
Our analysis turns upon interpretation of the statute and is subject to
our independent review. (In re Levi
H. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 1279, 1286.)
Our aim is to determine the intent of the Legislature. In so doing, we look first to the words of
the statute, giving them their usual and ordinary meaning. (Ibid.)
“Section 7612, subdivision (c), provides that a
paternity presumption under section 7611 ‘is rebutted by a judgment
establishing paternity of the child by another man.’ The plain language of that subdivision refers
to a judgment, not
merely a finding regarding biological tests used to determine if a man
is the child’s natural father.
[Citation.] This distinction is
critical. In enacting section 7612,
subdivision (c), the Legislature established a categorical rule that allows a
presumption of fatherhood to be rebutted when a judgment of paternity already
exists, thereby preventing the court from determining parentage if it had
previously been judicially determined.
[Citations.] Stated another way,
a section 7611 presumption is rebutted by a prior judgment because that ‘judgment
acts to preclude the issue of paternity from being redetermined.’ †(In re P.A. (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th
974, 982.)
Although J.M. challenges the effect of the 2010
child support order, the 2009 judgment declaring
R.C. to be L.C.’s legal father is more pertinent. That judgment arose from the parties’ 2009
agreement that R.C. was L.C.’s presumed father.
Indeed, the record contains both the reporter’s transcript of the proceedings
at which mother, R.C. and L.C. all agreed to the court’s declaring R.C. to be
the presumed father and a copy of the “Parentage-Findings and Judgmentâ€
declaring R.C. to be her “legal parent.â€
There is no dispute that a stipulated judgment
of paternity rebuts a presumption of parenthood arising under section 7611,
subdivision (d). (Barkaloff v.
Woodward (1996) 47 Cal.App.4th 393, 399 (Barkaloff).) As the
Barkaloff claimed to be a presumed natural father under section 7611,
subdivision (d), “the section 7611, subdivision (d) presumption was
conclusively rebutted under section 7612 by a stipulated ‘judgment of paternity
of the child (Cassie) by another man (Garcia).’ Once the presumption of
‘natural father’ was rebutted, Barkaloff was not a ‘natural father’ under the
UPA.†(Barkaloff, supra,
Whether
or not the 2010 child support judgment qualifies as a “judgment establishing
paternity†within the meaning of section 7612, subdivision (c), the “Parentage
Findings and Judgment†certainly falls within the plain language of the statute. Accordingly, there was no error in the
juvenile court’s conclusion that the presumption in favor of J.M. was rebutted
by the prior judgment. And, because the
juvenile court did not err in setting aside its finding that J.M. was the
presumed father, we need not reach J.M.’s argument that the court should have
held a hearing to determine which presumption should prevail.
L.C. joins J.M.’s argument and adds her own
contention that the statutory scheme deprives her of her constitutional
allow for reconsideration of the prior paternity judgment. Following the statutory scheme, she says,
“deprived [her] of the right to reunify with the person she considered to be
her father.†The fault in the argument
lies in her premise, which is that the juvenile court erred in 2009 in finding
R.C. to be her presumed father. Thus,
her argument amounts to a collateral attack upon a judgment that was final long
ago, one to which L.C. expressly declined to object at the time it was
entered. Appellate structure “places a
high premium, as it must, on predictability.
No legal system is worth anything unless it provides for
ways. Build too much play into the
system and, legally speaking, the fabric of time and space will collapse. [¶]
involves an innocent child, whose life is tossed about by a whole industry of
well-meaning adults, of whom all levels of court are a part. And courts must not lose sight of the purpose
of the dependency system in the first place. ‘[T]he paramount concern of the appellate
court in all dependency proceedings is for the
protection and welfare of the child.’ â€
(In re Jayson T. (2002) 97
Cal.App.4th 75, 88, disapproved on another point in In re Zeth S. (2003)
31 Cal.4th 396, 413-414.)
Section 7612, subdivision (c), as the
Legislature wrote it, is a sound rule. A
rule precluding serial redeterminations of parentage is more conducive to
stabilizing a child’s life than the contrary rule would be. The countervailing concern, the realities of
a child’s day-to-day life, may sometimes require the juvenile courts to adapt
their orders to take those realities into account. Our juvenile courts are well equipped to do
that. Indeed, by refusing to find J.M.
to be a presumed father, the juvenile court may have deprived J.M. of the
did not necessarily deprive L.C. of her right to be placed with him. J.M. need not be a presumed father to qualify
for placement as a nonrelated extended family member (Welf. & Inst. Code, §
362.7) or be declared L.C.’s de facto parent (Cal. Rules of Court, rule
5.502(10)). In other words, L.C.’s
ability to maintain her relationship with J.M. depends in large part upon J.M.
C.
Disposition
The order of the juvenile court setting aside
its declaration that J.M. is the presumed father of L.C. is affirmed.
Premo,
J.
WE CONCUR:
Rushing, P.J.
Elia, J.
name="_ftn1" title=""> [1]
Further undesignated section references are to the Family Code.
name="_ftn2" title=""> [2]
L.C. implies that the trial court erred by naming R.C. the presumed father, a
conclusion that is not compelled by section 7612, subdivision (c). (See In
re Cheyenne B., supra,
ruling because it gives R.C. the right to “reunify†when he had played
practically no part in her life at all.
At L.C.’s request, we have taken judicial notice of subsequent juvenile
court orders terminating reunification services for R.C. Thus, the alleged prejudice no longer
exists.
