Lisa R., In re

• Decision Date: 03 March 1975
• Docket Number: S.F. 23204
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 532 P.2d 123, 90 A.L.R.3d 1017 In re LISA R., a person coming under the Juvenile Court Law. SACRAMENTO COUNTY WELFARE DEPARTMENT, Petitioner and Respondent, v. VICTOR R., Objector and Appellant. In Bank

Page 475

119 Cal.Rptr. 475

13 Cal.3d 636, 532 P.2d 123, 90 A.L.R.3d 1017

In re LISA R., a person coming under the Juvenile Court Law.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY WELFARE DEPARTMENT, Petitioner and Respondent, v. VICTOR R., Objector and Appellant.

S.F. 23204.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

March 3, 1975.

Roberta Ranstrom, Roger K. Warren and Loren Mitchell, Sacramento, for objector and appellant.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold O. Overoye, Rick McClendon and Susan Cohn, Deputy Attys. Gen., for petitioner and respondent.

Frank J. Kanne, Jr., Los Angeles, Griffith & Thornburgh and John R. Rydell, II, Santa Barbara, as amici curiae.

WRIGHT, Chief Justice.

Victor R. Appeals from a juvenile court order entered upon the fourth annual review of the status of Lisa R., a minor, dependent ward of the court. Appellant particularly complains of rulings that he had no standing to offer evidence that he is Lisa's natural father and that he be excluded from the hearing. He seeks to establish his paternity in these proceedings as a basis to afford him visitation rights and eventually to effect a termination of Lisa's dependency status which was grounded on a finding that she is without a parent or guardian exercising parental care and control. ¹

We hold for reasons which follow that under the circumstances present in the instant case the juvenile court does have jurisdiction to determine parentage. We further hold that under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Stanley v. Illinois (1972) 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (see also Cal.Const. art. I, § 13) appellant does have standing to offer evidence that he is the natural father of the minor child.

The initial petition seeking a dependency determination for Lisa was filed by a probation officer of the County of Sacramento when Lisa was two years old. The petition recites that Lisa's mother had been found in a drunken condition in her gasfilled home with Lisa and another minor child and that the mother had been in an intoxicated condition on numerous occasions in the presence of Lisa during a sixmonth period. The probation officer's report in support of the petition recites that the mother had previously pleaded guilty to a child-neglect charge and was then on probation, and that her husband had a record of narcotic violations and was then in custody. The report further recites that the mother had disclosed that Lisa was conceived during a casual relationship with appellant while she was separated from her husband. At the time of the initiation of the probation officer's investigations the mother resided in an alcoholic rehabilitation home. However, she was reported to be pregnant, was contemplating an abortion and had been asked to leave the home. At the time the report was filed she was incarcerated in the county jail for drunkenness.

The petition was sustained on July 3, 1969, and Lisa was adjudged to be a dependent child of the juvenile court under section 600, subdivision (a). ²

The first annual hearing to consider Lisa's continued dependency status was held on June 30, 1970. A probation officer's report discloses that Lisa's mother had become addicted to heroin; that the whereabouts of Lisa's father, identified as appellant, remained unknown; and that Lisa had been in three different foster homes but was doing well in her current placement. The court, through a referee, ordered that Lisa be continued in the status of a dependent child. Although it made no direct finding of parentage, the court twice identified appellant as Lisa's father in the statement of its findings.

A probation officer's report submitted at the second annual review on June 29, 1971 discloses that the husband of Lisa's mother, identified as the 'legal father' of Lisa, had died of an overdose of narcotics. The report also states that Lisa's mother continued to have drug- and alcohol-related problems which were affecting her emotional stability. Lisa is reported to have made good progress with her foster parents who wished to adopt her. Lisa's mother, however, had not given her consent to the adoption. The report also identifies appellant as the 'father' of Lisa and sets forth an address for him. The court ordered that Lisa be continued in the status of a dependent child. Appellant was again identified twice in the court's findings as Lisa's father.

A third annual review of Lisa's status was conducted at a hearing on June 27, 1972. A probation officer reported that Lisa's mother continued to have the same alcohol and drug problems; that Lisa continued to do well in her foster home; and that her foster parents' efforts to adopt Lisa were unavailing because Lisa's mother had not given her consent although the mother had not seen Lisa for a year and a half. ³ The court again ordered that Lisa be continued in the status of a dependent child.

The fourth annual review of Lisa's status was conducted at hearings held on June 26 and July 19, 1973. The probation officer's report on this occasion identifies appellant as 'Lisa's Putative Father' who had employed counsel to commence proceedings to have Lisa placed in his custody although he had 'only seen Lisa approximately five times in the last five years and had had no visits with her during the last two years.' Apparently this was brought about because appellant was of the opinion that he was not allowed to visit with the minor. The report further recites that appellant is a janitor; that he did not then live in a separate residence but lived with a sister; that he has twice been confined for emotional problems in a state hospital; that in 1970 in response to his application for aid to the totally disabled he was examined by a physician who concluded that appellant suffered from conditions from which cure was doubtful without 'good intensive psychiatric care'; that in further response to the same application a case worker had reported that appellant's conduct had been deemed by appellant's common law wife to endanger the lives of appellant, his common law wife, and her four-year-old daughter whom appellant had physically abused. The probation officer also reported that Lisa's mother had died shortly before the hearing date for the fourth annual review.

At the hearing the court first entertained appellant's offer of proof that he is Lisa's natural father and, after the offer, ordered that he had no standing and that he be excluded from the courtroom (see fn. 1, supra). This is the order from which the instant appeal is taken. ⁴

I

We consider first a threshold issue: is the juvenile court vested with jurisdiction to determine the paternity of a minor dependent?

A superior court convened as and exercising the special powers of a juvenile court is vested with jurisdiction to make only those limited determinations authorized by the legislative grant of those special powers. (See §§ 500--945; see also People v. Superior Court (1930) 104 Cal.App. 276, 280, 285 P. 871.) Not specifically included within the jurisdictional grant is a power to determine the parentage of a juvenile. Generally the determination of parentage is within the broad jurisdiction of the superior court and is provided for in Civil Code section 231.

Notwithstanding the absence of specific authorization to make particular determinations, a juvenile court is nevertheless vested with the authority to make such determinations which are incidentally necessary to the performance of those functions demanded of it by the Legislature pursuant to the Juvenile Court Law. ⁵ That law is replete with references to 'parents.' In some of such instances the court is merely required to respond to allegations of parentage without first having actually to find the existence of a parentchild relationship. ⁶ However, in other significant respects the law cannot be judicially applied without a determination of parentage when such question is placed in issue. Thus wardship may initially depend, in the circumstances of a particular case, on a finding that a minor has no parent (§ 600, subd. (a)) ⁷ or 'persistently or habitually refuses to obey the reasonable and proper orders or directions of his parents.' (§ 601.) It is manifest that a juvenile court cannot find that a minor has no parent or that he refuses to obey a parent without a contemporaneous determination of parentage. (See also, § 726 (ordering limited control by parent), § 778 (petition by parent to modify or terminate dependency status).)

The finding of facts which constitute parentage as surely lie within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court as does the finding of facts which are necessary in order to hold that a minor has violated a law. ⁸ In neither instance is the court specifically or expressly authorized or required to make such findings. The resolution of the question whether a minor is within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court because he has violated a law is to be made by that court independently of proceedings, if any, which may be had within the superior court in the exercise of its general jurisdiction. (See In re Johnson (1964) 227 Cal.App.2d 37, 39, 38 Cal.Rptr. 405; see also People v. Silverstein (1953) 121 Cal.App.2d 140, 262 P.2d 656.) If a juvenile court has jurisdiction to find the fact of a commission of an offense by a minor in order to make a determination whether to impose dependency status because a juvenile has violated any law, then it follows that it must have jurisdiction to find the fact of parentage in reaching its determination whether to impose dependency status because a juvenile who needs care has no parent.

We accordingly conclude that a juvenile court is vested with jurisdiction to determine parentage of a minor when that finding is necessary to any ultimate determination with which it is charged. The juvenile court, accordingly, erred when it concluded that it...