Other Cases Affecting Children

County of Orange v. Carl D. (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 429 [90 Cal. Rptr.2d 440]. Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 3.

The trial court held that the county was entitled to welfare cost reimbursement from an absent father. The mother had left the father and moved to California with their children. During the next decade the father futilely searched for his children. Nine years later, dependency proceedings began in Los Angeles County based on allegations of the mother’s physical abuse. The mother informed social work personnel that she did not know the father’s location or any other vital information. When the mother was later incarcerated and the children began receiving welfare assistance, dependency jurisdiction was transferred to Orange County. The district attorney’s ward support unit, discovered both a mailbox number and an address for the father. However , a month later the Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) filed a supplemental court report in conjunction with dependency hearings that the father’s whereabouts were unknown. SSA continued to file supplemental court reports that the father’s whereabouts were unknown for approximately a year. During this time, the court failed to notify the father of court proceedings concerning his children in the foster-care system. The district attorney’s office filed a petition for the reimbursement of public assistance from the absent father more than a year after the office had obtained his address. After learning his children’s location from the petition, the father was reunited with them and dependency jurisdiction was terminated. The trial court concluded that the father was an absent parent required to pay ward support according to the statewide uniform guidelines. The father appealed the order, arguing that he had no reimbursement responsibilities because he was totally unaware of the previous welfare payments and that reimbursement would impair his ability to provide for his children.

The appellate court relied upon the Supreme Court decision In re Marriage of Comer for guidance. In Comer, the Court held that although the father had been deliberately kept away from his children for seven years, he was required to reimburse the county for payments about which he had no knowledge. (In re Marriage of Comer (1996) 14 Cal.4th 504, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 155.) The appellate court notes that the father in the instant case, like the father in Comer, had the use of money for the many years he did not pay ward support and failed to avail himself of the California Parent Locator. In addition, the appellate court expressed that the state has an interest in maximizing benefit payments to needy children and that there is not an imposed duty on public entities to locate absent parents.

But the appellate court determined that in the instant case, unlike Comer, the government was derelict in its duty to locate the father and therefore the father successfully rebutted the statutory presumption. The statutory presumption is that the government properly performed its official duties in acting upon the mother’s welfare application and in seeking to locate the father. There is a heightened standard for an estoppel claim against a public entity in which justice to the individual must outweigh the negative impact on the public. According to Comer, governmental inaction or delay does not suffice for a successful estoppel claim. The appellate court found the father’s estoppel claim was in this case valid because the government affirmatively misrepresented material facts and impelled reliance from the father. The district attorney’s office located the father’s mailbox and street address, and yet SSA made continued reports that the father’s location was unknown. The appellate court considered that the collective conduct of the two agencies is representative of the same legal right. The court explained that the children remained under state control solely because the state was remiss in its obligation to locate and notify the children’s father of the dependency proceedings. The appellate court therefore reversed the order of the trial court and estopped the government from receiving reimbursement.