Opinion ID: 2514223
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Requirement of a Natural Parent and Child Relationship

Text: Section 6452 limits the ability of a natural parent or a relative of that parent to inherit from or through the child on the basis of the parent and child relationship between that parent and the child. Probate Code section 6453 restricts the means by which a relationship of a natural parent to a child may be established for purposes of intestate succession. [9] (See Estate of Sanders (1992) 2 Cal.App.4th 462, 474-475, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 536.) Under section 6453, subdivision (a), a natural parent and child relationship is established where the relationship is presumed under the Uniform Parentage Act and not rebutted. (Fam.Code, § 7600 et seq.) It is undisputed, however, that none of those presumptions applies in this case. Alternatively, and as relevant here, under Probate Code section 6453, subdivision (b), a natural parent and child relationship may be established pursuant to section 7630, subdivision (c) of the Family Code, [10] if a court order was entered during the father's lifetime declaring paternity. [11] (§ 6453, subd. (b)(1).) See contends the question of Draves's paternity was fully and finally adjudicated in the 1941 bastardy proceeding in Ohio. That proceeding, he argues, satisfies both the Uniform Parentage Act and the Probate Code, and should be binding on the parties here. If a valid judgment of paternity is rendered in Ohio, it generally is binding on California courts if Ohio had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter, and the parties were given reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard. ( Ruddock v. Ohls (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 271, 276, 154 Cal.Rptr. 87.) California courts generally recognize the importance of a final determination of paternity. (E.g., Weir v. Ferreira (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1509, 1520, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 33 ( Weir) ; Guardianship of Claralyn S. (1983) 148 Cal.App.3d 81, 85, 195 Cal.Rptr. 646; cf. Estate of Camp (1901) 131 Cal. 469, 471, 63 P. 736 [same for adoption determinations].) Doner-Griswold does not dispute that the parties here are in privity with, or claim inheritance through, those who are bound by the bastardy judgment or are estopped from attacking it. (See Weir, supra, 59 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1516-1517, 1521, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 33.) Instead, she contends See has not shown that the issue adjudicated in the Ohio bastardy proceeding is identical to the issue presented here, that is, whether Draves was the natural parent of Griswold. Although we have found no California case directly on point, one Ohio decision has recognized that a bastardy judgment rendered in Ohio in 1950 was res judicata of any proceeding that might have been brought under the Uniform Parentage Act. ( Birman v. Sproat (1988) 47 Ohio App.3d 65, 546 N.E.2d 1354, 1357 [child born out of wedlock had standing to bring will contest based upon a paternity determination in a bastardy proceeding brought during testator's life]; see also Black's Law Dict., supra, at pp. 146, 1148 [equating a bastardy proceeding with a paternity suit].) Yet another Ohio decision found that parentage proceedings, which had found a decedent to be the reputed father of a child, [12] satisfied an Ohio legitimation statute and conferred standing upon the illegitimate child to contest the decedent's will where the father-child relationship was established prior to the decedent's death. ( Beck v. Jolliff (1984) 22 Ohio App.3d 84, 489 N.E.2d 825, 829; see also Estate of Hicks (1993) 90 Ohio App.3d 483, 629 N.E.2d 1086, 1088-1089 [parentage issue must be determined prior to the father's death to the extent the parent-child relationship is being established under the chapter governing descent and distribution].) While we are not bound to follow these Ohio authorities, they persuade us that the 1941 bastardy proceeding decided the identical issue presented here. Next, Doner-Griswold argues the Ohio judgment should not be given res judicata effect because the bastardy proceeding was quasi-criminal in nature. It is her position that Draves's confession may have reflected only a decision to avoid a jury trial instead of an adjudication of the paternity issue on the merits. To support this argument, Doner-Griswold relies upon Pease v. Pease (1988) 201 Cal.App.3d 29, 246 Cal.Rptr. 762 ( Pease ). In that case, a grandfather was sued by his grandchildren and others in a civil action alleging the grandfather's molestation of the grandchildren. When the grandfather cross-complained against his former wife for apportionment of fault, she filed a demurrer contending that the grandfather was collaterally estopped from asserting the negligent character of his acts by virtue of his guilty plea in a criminal proceeding involving the same issues. On appeal, the judgment dismissing the cross-complaint was reversed. The appellate court reasoned that a trial court in a civil proceeding may not give collateral estoppel effect to a criminal conviction involving the same issues if the conviction resulted from a guilty plea. The issue of appellant's guilt was not fully litigated in the prior criminal proceeding; rather, appellant's plea bargain may reflect nothing more than a compromise instead of an ultimate determination of his guilt. Appellant's due process right to a hearing thus outweighs any countervailing need to limit litigation or conserve judicial resources. ( Id. at p. 34, 246 Cal.Rptr. 762, fn. omitted.) Even assuming, for purposes of argument only, that Pease's reasoning may properly be invoked where the father's admission of paternity occurred in a bastardy proceeding (see Reams v. State ex rel. Favors (1936) 53 Ohio App. 19, 4 N.E.2d 151, 152 [indicating that a bastardy proceeding is more civil than criminal in character]), the circumstances here do not call for its application. Unlike the situation in Pease, neither the in-court admission nor the resulting paternity judgment at issue is being challenged by the father (Draves). Moreover, neither the father, nor those claiming a right to inherit through him, seek to litigate the paternity issue. Accordingly, the father's due process rights are not at issue and there is no need to determine whether such rights might outweigh any countervailing need to limit litigation or conserve judicial resources. (See Pease, supra, 201 Cal. App.3d at p. 34, 246 Cal.Rptr. 762.) Additionally, the record fails to support any claim that Draves's confession merely reflected a compromise. Draves, of course, is no longer living and can offer no explanation as to why he admitted paternity in the bastardy proceeding. Although Doner-Griswold suggests that Draves confessed to avoid the publicity of a jury trial, and not because the paternity charge had merit, that suggestion is purely speculative and finds no evidentiary support in the record. Finally, Doner-Griswold argues that See and Griswold's half siblings do not have standing to seek the requisite paternity determination pursuant to the Uniform Parentage Act under section 7630, subdivision (c) of the Family Code. The question here, however, is whether the judgment in the bastardy proceeding initiated by Griswold's mother forecloses Doner-Griswold's relitigation of the parentage issue. Although Griswold's mother was not acting pursuant to the Uniform Parentage Act when she filed the bastardy complaint in 1941, neither that legislation nor the Probate Code provision should be construed to ignore the force and effect of the judgment she obtained. That Griswold's mother brought her action to determine paternity long before the adoption of the Uniform Parentage Act, and that all procedural requirements of an action under Family Code section 7630 may not have been followed, should not detract from its binding effect in this probate proceeding where the issue adjudicated was identical with the issue that would have been presented in a Uniform Parentage Act action. (See Weir, supra, 59 Cal. App.4th at p. 1521, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 33.) Moreover, a prior adjudication of paternity does not compromise a state's interests in the accurate and efficient disposition of property at death. (See Trimble v. Gordon (1977) 430 U.S. 762, 772 & fn. 14, 97 S.Ct. 1459, 52 L.Ed.2d 31 [striking down a provision of a state probate act that precluded a category of illegitimate children from participating in their intestate fathers' estates where the parent-child relationship had been established in state court paternity actions prior to the fathers' deaths].) In sum, we find that the 1941 Ohio judgment was a court order entered during the father's lifetime declaring paternity (§ 6453, subd. (b)(1)), and that it establishes Draves as the natural parent of Griswold for purposes of intestate succession under section 6452.