Robert and Christine were married in 1995 and later separated. In 1999, Robert met Nancy. He told her he was married but separated. In September 2003, Robert and Nancy obtained a marriage license. In the application for the license, the couple each wrote that they had “zero” prior marriages.

In November 2003, Robert filed for divorce from Christine. Later that year, the court sent Robert a notice warning him not to re-marry before his divorce was final. Nancy then forwarded the notice to Robert’s union so she could be added to his insurance. In 2007, Robert was killed in a work-related accident.

Nancy sued Robert’s employer for wrongful death. The employer argued that Nancy could not sue because she never married Robert and was not even a “putative spouse” – i.e., she could not have reasonably believed her marriage was valid. Nancy responded that she was a putative spouse because she honestly believed her marriage was valid. As evidence, she claimed she did not read the marriage license closely and did not read the notice that he received and that she forwarded to his union. The trial court agreed with Robert’s employer. Nancy appealed.

The Court of Appeal sided with Nancy and explained that she could still be a putative spouse if she honestly believed her marriage was valid. The fact that her belief was unreasonable or even ludicrous was beside the point. The trial court should have let Nancy testify before a jury so it could decide whether or not she was lying.

If you (honestly) believe you’re a putative spouse, contact Jarvis, Krieger & Sullivan today for a free, no-obligation consultation.

In California family law, the My Two Dads plot is not as implausible as you might think. In the 2011 case of In re P.A., Patricia was pregnant when she met Roger. The two married, and Patricia gave birth to P.A. Roger treated P.A. as his own daughter and told everyone he was her father. But Roger was abusive to Patricia. After P.A. told a social worker that she saw Roger push Patricia to the floor, the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency asked the juvenile court to remove P.A. from the home. The Agency then located P.A.’s biological father, Alvaro, but he wanted nothing to do with P.A. The court awarded Roger the right to visit P.A. But Alvaro had a change of heart when a paternity test confirmed he was P.A.’s biological father. So after being absent for the first six years of P.A.’s life, Alvaro began talking on the phone with P.A. and visiting her. P.A. decided she liked Alvaro better than she liked Roger. Consequently, Alvaro asked the court to declare him to be P.A.’s father. The court said Alvaro was the biological father, and that was the end of the matter. Roger appealed.

You might be surprised to find out that the Court of Appeal didn’t think much of Alvaro’s status as the biological father. In California family law, the biological father does not sit atop the hierarchy of fathers. The court in In re P.A. described the three classes of fathers: presumed, biological, and alleged. A presumed father is a man who meets one or more of the criteria in section 7611 of the California Family Code. A biological father is a man who has established paternity status but has not shown he is the child’s presumed father. An alleged father is a man who has not established biological paternity or presumed father status. The purpose of these categories is to distinguish between fathers that have established a parent-child relationship and fathers that have not. The most important of these is the presumed father because only the presumed father has established the parent-child relationship.

In In re P.A., the Court of Appeal identified Roger as the presumed father. The Court pointed out that Alvaro originally wanted nothing to do with P.A. and was absent for the first six years of her life. Meanwhile, Roger had treated P.A. as his own child and told everyone he was her father. That, of course, did not mean Alvaro had no rights at all. For that reason, the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the juvenile court so the juvenile court could weigh the competing interests of Alvaro and Roger.

If you find yourself in a My Two Dads plot, please contact Jarvis, Krieger & Sullivan today for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Section 271 provides that “(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, the court may base an award of attorney’s fees and costs on the extent to which the conduct of each party or attorney furthers or frustrates the policy of the law to promote settlement of litigation and, where possible, to reduce the cost of litigation by encouraging cooperation between the parties and attorneys. An award of attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to this section is in the nature of a sanction…”

Wife appealed, asserting that the order was not based on substantial evidence. The Court of Appeal affirmed the order of the trial court, noting that the statement of decision was 31 pages and set forth 15 findings. The Court of Appeal noted that the record was replete with “abusive, rude, hostile, and/or disrespectful” correspondence from Wife’s lead counsel and that he himself had acknowledged that “[p]erhaps some unpleasant letters that could offend someone did substantially increase the cost of litigation.” The Court of Appeal closed its discussion with a “reminder to counsel – all counsel, regardless of practice, regardless of age – that zealous advocacy does not equate with ‘attack dog’ or ‘scorched earth’; nor does it mean lack of civility.”

Current” declaration: Regardless of when the OSC or motion is filed, a party’s income and expense declaration must be “current” as of time of the hearing. [Marriage of Tydlaska (2003) 114 CA4th 572, 575, 7 CR3d 594, 596—support modification properly denied outright because applicant spouse had no “current” income and expense declaration on file]

An income and expense declaration is “current” if completed within the past three months unless the pertinent facts have changed at the time of the hearing (in which case, a new declaration must be prepared). [CRC 5.128(a); see S.D. Super.Ct. Rules, Div. V, Fam. Law Rule 5.6.2—“current” income and expense declaration must be executed within 90 days of hearing]

California Rules of Court 5.128

(a) A current Income and Expense Declaration (form FL-150) or a current Financial Statement (Simplified) (form FL-155), when such form is appropriate, and a current Property Declaration (form FL-160) must be served and filed by any party appearing at any hearing at which the court is to determine an issue as to which such declarations would be relevant. “Current” is defined as being completed within the past three months providing no facts have changed. Those forms must be sufficiently completed to allow determination of the issue.

(b) When a party is represented by counsel and attorney’s fees are requested by either party, the section on the Income and Expense Declaration pertaining to the amount in savings, credit union, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts must be fully completed.

Who is a “parent” in the eyes of California law? Is this title a result of behavior? Is it a matter of biology? Or is it a combination of the two? What is required to assert one’s rights as a parent?

In California, parental rights and responsibilities are most closely tied with one’s DNA. In other words, a person’s biological make-up typically determines whether or not he or she is deemed a “parent.” This is especially true when there is no marital relationship to establish a presumption of parentage (under Family Code Section 7540, “the child of a wife cohabiting at the time of conception with her husband, who is not impotent or sterile, is conclusively presumed to be the child of the marriage”).

When two parties are unmarried, and have shared a sexual relationship that may or may not have resulted in children, and there is no Judgment of Paternity in existence, at least one party will typically insist on a DNA test to prove (or disprove) that a party is a biological parent of the minor child(ren) at issue. To do this, the party requesting the blood test must 1) have “standing” to request the blood test, pursuant to Family Code Section 7611 and 7612, 2) the blood tests must be done pursuant to a court order and 3) the motion for blood tests must be filed within two years of the child’s birth. The DNA testing process is somewhat expensive, costing in the neighborhood of $500.00 to $1,000.00 for testing of three parties (mother, child, and presumed father). The results from this analysis are helpful to the court and the parties, but not necessarily conclusive. They can provide closure for some parties who are not interested in accepting the responsibilities of parenting, but may also disappoint a party who had hoped for the joys of parenthood and of having various parental rights.

The courts have recognized that biology may only be a part of the overall analysis in determining parental rights. Within the Family Code, there is a specific provision one can use to bolster a non-biological parentage claim. The language can be found in Section 7611(d), within a Chapter of the Family Code entitled “Parent and Child Relationship.” The applicable section states that “A man is presumed to be the natural father of a child if he meets the conditions provided…He receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his natural child.”

This section allows any interested party to assert a claim as a presumptive father despite the fact that he may already know that he is not the biological father of the child at issue. In order to support a contention that one has received a child into one’s home, a party should be ready to show that he has cohabitated with the child at issue, although this is not necessarily required. He should also be prepared to substantiate financial and emotional support of the minor. This can be done in various ways: 1) bank and credit card statements to show payment for the child’s expenses, 2) payment of official child support orders (if ever mistakenly filed for by another party, 3) birth certificate records, 4) baptism/other cultural or religious records, 5) tax returns showing a child claimed as a dependent, 6) health insurance coverage for a child, 7) testimony by any family members/friends/others who have witnessed his decision to hold the child out to the world as his own.

Often times, there may be a competing presumed father claim. If you are a non-biological father attempting to be named the natural father, you may be forced to contend with a biological father’s claim. If the court has two separate and distinct claims of fatherhood to resolve, it must settle on one. In other words, there cannot be two natural fathers. In such a case, the court must weigh the competing presumptions, and the presumption that is founded on the weightier considerations of policy and logic will control. In reality then, the “natural parent” status may have little to do with nature.

In deciding whether to apply the presumptions of parentage, the courts weigh and balance on a case by case basis. Key factors in this balancing include whether there is a marital family unit remaining to be protected, whether there is an existing parent-child relationship between the child and the presumed father, or instead, a third person with alleged presumptive (or biological) parentage status, and whether the child’s interest in receiving support would best be promoted by applying or not applying the presumption.

The bottom line is, if you want to establish yourself as a child’s father, but do not live with child’s mother, have not provided support for the child, have not “held yourself out” to be the child’s father, have not signed a voluntary declaration of parentage, are not on the child’s birth certificate, do not claim the child as a dependent on tax returns and the like, you may not have the necessary “standing” to file for paternity and request a blood test. In that circumstance, it is best to enter into an agreement in court with child’s mother to have the testing done (offering to pay for the expense of the testing) in order to determine paternity.