Dependency Case Law

In re Karen C. (Sept.3, 2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 932 [124 Cal.Rptr.2d 677]. Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2.

The juvenile court denied a child's petition for an order determining the existence of a mother and child relationship between the child and a woman who was not her biological mother. The child had been born to a married couple that did not want to keep her. To care for the child, the natural parents had given the child to an unrelated woman. The child had no further contact with her natural parents. The woman was an alcoholic who suffered from clinical depression, and she often beat the child. The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) became aware of the abuse, and thereafter, the child was declared a dependent of the juvenile court. The juvenile court placed the child in foster care and ordered that reunification services be provided for the woman. The juvenile court also ordered the woman to participate in parenting classes, individual counseling, alcoholism treatment, and alcohol abuse counseling and to take her prescribed medication. The woman failed to do these things. Accordingly, when the woman applied for a license to serve as a foster parent, the agency denied her application. The child then requested that the juvenile court decree the existence of a mother-daughter relationship between the child and the woman; the woman joined in the motion. The juvenile court denied the child's request, reasoning that the law does not allow a woman who is not a child's birth or genetic mother to be the child's mother. The child appealed the juvenile court's decision, arguing that the Family Code sections concerning the father and child relationship may also be applied to a mother and child relationship, that she had standing to bring the action, that the woman was her "presumed" mother according to the law and public policy, and that she was denied equal protection of the law because the juvenile court would have applied the law differently if she had been raised by a man instead of a woman.

The Court of Appeal vacated the juvenile court's order and remanded the matter to the juvenile court for further consideration in light of the recent California Supreme Court decision of In re Nicholas H. (2002) 23 Cal.4th 56. The appellate court held that according to the ruling in Nicholas H., the woman was entitled to the presumption of maternity to the genetically unrelated child because she raised and held the child out as her own. The appellate court indicated that section 7610 of the Uniform Parentage Act provides that the existence of a parent-child relationship can be proved in three forms: between a child and the natural mother, between a child and the natural father, and between a child and an adoptive parent. Family Code section 7611(d) sets forth a rebuttable presumption of paternity where a man is presumed to be the natural father of a child if "he receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his natural child." The appellate court then held that section 7611's rebuttable presumption applies equally to women and men. Furthermore, the court indicated that the mere fact that the woman admitted that she was not the birth mother of the child does not necessarily rebut the presumption of maternity flowing from the woman to the child. The appellate court remanded the matter to the juvenile court for a fresh determination of whether a parent-child relationship existed under the principles set forth in Nicholas H. basing its decision on the following four reasons: (1) a hearing will not unduly burden the juvenile court, (2) a hearing will enable all parties present evidence for the first time of anything that has transpired after the juvenile court first denied the mother's request, (3) a hearing will assure that the dispute is squarely adjudicated under the principles enunciated in Nicholas H. and any other applicable rules of law, and (4) at such a hearing, if requested by any party, the juvenile court will also have an opportunity to adjudicate the absence of a mother and child relationship in the present case.