McBride v. Boughton

Citation20 Cal.Rptr.3d 115,123 Cal.App.4th 379
Decision Date21 October 2004
Docket NumberNo. A103456.,A103456.
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeals
PartiesRichard Paul McBRIDE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Garianne BOUGHTON et al., Defendants and Respondents.

RUVOLO, J.

This case calls upon us to decide, as a matter of first impression in this state, whether an unmarried man who has expended funds to support a child, in reliance on the mother's representation that he is the child's father, may sue the mother on an unjust enrichment theory for the return of the funds after discovering that the child is not his biological offspring. As a matter of public policy, we conclude that such a suit cannot be maintained. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's judgment dismissing this case after sustaining the defendants' demurrer.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Appellant Richard McBride was romantically involved with respondent Garianne Dashiell, then known as Garianne Boughton.1 At some time during 1996, presumably in the fall, McBride moved to Chile. In December 1996, however, Boughton contacted him in Chile and informed him that she was pregnant with a child that she represented was his. Based on this representation, McBride returned to the United States and took a teaching job in order to support Boughton and the child.

The child, a girl, was apparently born on or about May 26, 1997.2 During the month of May 1997, McBride and Boughton orally agreed that McBride would support Boughton for a year so that she could stay home and take care of the child. In June 1998, when the child was about a year old, Boughton began working again, and McBride resigned his job in order to become the child's full-time caregiver. It is not entirely clear from the complaint, but McBride and Boughton apparently lived together in the Los Angeles area during this time.

In December 1998, Boughton moved out of McBride's house, and told him, as alleged in the complaint, "that she would soon stop paying the bills, and that he would have to return to work." The child was not yet ready to adapt to day care, however, so McBride continued to act as her full-time caregiver for about another five or six months.

In May 1999, when the child was about two years old, McBride went back to work, taking a position as a flight attendant. In June 1999, McBride and Boughton agreed orally that McBride would have custody of the child 10 days each month. Nevertheless, in September 1999, Boughton told McBride that she was moving to San Francisco, evidently with the child, and that he would be able to see the child only two weekends a month. In October 1999, McBride filed a paternity proceeding seeking custody of the child, who was by then almost two and one-half years old.

In connection with the paternity proceeding, genetic tests were done, and the testing service reported that McBride was "excluded as the biological father of the child...." McBride learned the results of the genetic tests in December 1999. Evidently, he then abandoned his efforts to seek custody of the child.3

On December 31, 2001, McBride filed the instant action seeking money damages against Boughton and Dashiell, who he alleges is the child's biological father. His original complaint alleged causes of action for intentional and negligent misrepresentation and for unjust enrichment, as well as a common count for money had and received. After respondents' demurrer was sustained with leave to amend, McBride filed a first and then a second amended complaint. Each of the amended complaints omitted the tort causes of action for intentional and negligent misrepresentation that had been included in the original complaint, pleading only unjust enrichment and a common count.4

Respondents demurred to both of McBride's amended complaints. The trial court sustained the demurrer to the second amended complaint, granting McBride leave to amend only for the limited purpose of stating a cause of action against Boughton for breach of contract. McBride did not file another amended complaint within the time allowed, so the trial court entered a judgment dismissing the action. This timely appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION
A.

In reviewing the sufficiency of a complaint against a general demurrer, we are guided by long-settled rules. We treat the demurrer as admitting all material facts properly pleaded, but not contentions, deductions, or conclusions of fact or law. We also consider matters which may be judicially noticed. Further, we give the complaint a reasonable interpretation, reading it as a whole and its parts in their context, and ignoring erroneous or confusing labels if the complaint pleads facts which would entitle the plaintiff to relief. (Richelle L., supra, 106 Cal.App.4th at p. 266, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 601; see also Quelimane Co. v. Stewart Title Guaranty Co. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 26, 38-39, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 709, 960 P.2d 513; Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990) 51 Cal.3d 120, 125, 271 Cal.Rptr. 146, 793 P.2d 479.) In short, our task is to determine whether the pleaded facts state a cause of action on any available legal theory.

B.

McBride's second amended complaint includes two causes of action. The first is captioned as one for unjust enrichment. After incorporating the factual allegations summarized above, this cause of action avers that respondents were unjustly enriched by McBride's having paid for the care and support of Boughton and the child, because respondents "were legally responsible for the monies paid out by [McBride], and would have had to incur those expenses if [McBride] had not done so." The premise of this claim is that McBride's expenditures for the support of the child unjustly enriched respondents, as the child's biological parents, because McBride was not the child's biological father.

McBride's second cause of action is in the form of a common count for money had and received, alleging that respondents "became indebted to [McBride] for money paid, laid out and expended to or for defendants at defendants' special instance and request." This cause of action also alleges that Boughton promised in writing to repay the money McBride spent to care for her and the child, and failed and refused to make any payments.

The trial court sustained respondents' general demurrer to both of McBride's causes of action. In a written order, the court reasoned that "all purported causes of action as to [respondents] are precluded by applicable public policy," citing Nagy v. Nagy (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 1262, 258 Cal. Rptr. 787 (Nagy).

To the extent that McBride's second cause of action was an attempt to plead a cause of action for breach of an express written contract, the trial court sustained a special demurrer for lack of particularity, but granted McBride leave to amend. As already noted, McBride failed to do so. "When a plaintiff elects not to amend after the court sustains a demurrer with leave to amend, we assume the complaint states as strong a case as possible, and we will affirm the judgment if the unamended complaint is objectionable on any ground raised by the demurrer. [Citation.]" (Gutkin v. University of Southern California (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 967, 981, 125 Cal.Rptr.2d 115, citing Soliz v. Williams (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 577, 585, 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 184.) The record does not make clear whether McBride even intended to plead a cause of action for breach of an express contract, but on appeal, he does not argue that the trial court erred in sustaining the special demurrer. Thus, we deem McBride's contract claim, like his tort claims, to have been abandoned.5

C.

In sustaining respondents' general demurrer, the trial court relied on Nagy, supra, 210 Cal.App.3d 1262, 258 Cal.Rptr. 787. In Nagy, the plaintiff's estranged wife revealed during a deposition in their dissolution proceeding that the couple's child was not the plaintiff's biological offspring. The court held that the former husband's action against his former wife for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress was barred because, among other reasons, it would be contrary to public policy to allow a putative father to recover damages "for developing a close relationship with a child misrepresented to be his." (Id. at p. 1269, 258 Cal.Rptr. 787.) The Nagy court placed the plaintiff's claims in the same category as "`betrayal, brutal words, and heartless disregard of the feelings of others[, which] are beyond any effective legal remedy and any practical administration of law.' [Citation.]" (Ibid.)

Prior to the decision in Nagy, this division reached a similar result in Richard P. v. Superior Court (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 1089, 249 Cal.Rptr. 246 (Richard P.). In Richard P., the plaintiff was a married man, Gerald, who had separated from his wife. After the separation, the wife's lover, Richard, established that he was the biological father of the couple's children. Gerald then sued Richard, alleging that Richard had previously misrepresented to him that the children were biologically Gerald's, and had thereby induced Gerald to support them and develop a relationship with them. We held that Gerald's tort claims seeking damages for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, on the basis of misrepresentations as to paternity, were barred by public policy (id. at pp. 1093-1096, 249 Cal.Rptr. 246), reasoning that "the innocent children here may suffer significant harm from having their family involved in litigation such as this[,] and ... this is exactly the type of lawsuit which, if allowed to proceed, might result in more social damage than will occur if the courts decline to intervene." (Id. at p. 1094, 249 Cal.Rptr. 246.)

Richard P. is not dispositive of the present case, however. As McBride's brief in the present case correctly points out, in a footnote in ...

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