Court Opinion

ID: 9720256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:22:44.790055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:14.807271
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J., Dissenting
The majority opinion has substantial internal tensions. First we are told that neither the California Legislature nor the California Supreme Court meant to speak broadly when they used such terms as “[i]n any proceeding” (Civ. Code, § 4600, subd. (a), italics added)1 or a “uniform rule” (In re B. G. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 679, 696 [114 Cal.Rptr. 444, 523 P.2d 244]). But in the next breath we are told that the Legislature meant to speak very broadly when it enacted a minute amendment correcting a small problem.
In my opinion broad language should be interpreted broadly and narrow language should be interpreted narrowly. Since I have the California Supreme Court on my side, I dissent.
Section 4600 speaks in universal terms: “Before the court makes any order awarding custody to a person or persons other than a parent, without *442the consent of the parents, it shall make a finding that an award of custody to a parent would be detrimental to the child.” (Id., subd. (c), italics added.)
It is not surprising that right from its first authoritative interpretation of section 4600, In re B. G., supra, 11 Cal.3d 679, the California Supreme Court has recognized the universal applicability of the statute in custody proceedings. It tells us, “There can be no question of the desirability of a uniform rule; the Legislature’s specification that section 4600 applies to ‘any proceeding where there is at issue the custody of a minor child’ demonstrates that section 4600 was enacted to fulfill that objective.” (In re B. G., supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 696, fn. omitted.) Although the case before it concerned a custody order in a dependency proceeding (former Welf. & Inst. Code, § 600 et seq. [repealed by Stats. 1976, ch. 1068, § 20, p. 4782; see now, Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300 et seq.] the high court deemed that procedural setting to be “fortuitous.” (In re B. G., supra, at p. 695.) The court explained that the issue could have “as readily have been raised” in any number of settings such as an application for letters of guardianship, a writ of habeas corpus, an action for dissolution of marriage or in any one of “at least eight separate proceedings in which custody questions can be litigated.” (At pp. 695-696, citing Bodenheimer, The Multiplicity of Child Custody Proceedings—Problems of California Law (1971) 23 Stan.L.Rev. 703, 704-705.)
So strong has been the bent to universal application of the universal language that the California Supreme Court has found section 4600 applicable to a section 7017 proceeding involving a biological but not presumed father. (In re Baby Girl M. (1984) 37 Cal.3d 65, 75 [207 Cal.Rptr. 309, 688 P.2d 918].) That application and only that application of section 4600 has been changed by amendment—and by amendment not to section 4600, but to section 7017. Put simply the law now is that a finding of detriment is a statutory prerequisite to any order awarding custody to a person other than a parent, except in proceedings brought under section 7017, i.e., proceedings involving natural fathers or persons claiming to be natural fathers. The detail and precision with which the Legislature cut out this sole exception are worth examining.2 But those who want a short answer need only read *443the last two sentences of subdivision (d)(2) of section 7017: “Section 4600 does not apply to this proceeding. Nothing in this section changes the rights of a presumed father.” (Italics added.) Thus the Legislature understood the difference between natural and presumed fathers and drew the distinction: for the former class, section 4600 does not apply, to the latter, it does. Nothing could be simpler.
It should require no more to decide the instant case than to point out that it is a section 224—not a section 7017, subdivision (d)(2)—proceeding and therefore section 4600 applies.
But that simple conclusion would underestimate the majority’s disagreement with the entire line of California Supreme Court decisions following In re B. G. which reaffirm the need for a universal rule in all custody matters involving a minor child. (See, e.g., Michael U. v. Jamie B. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 787, 791-792 [218 Cal.Rptr. 39, 705 P.2d 362]; In re Carmaleta B. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 482, 495-496 [146 Cal.Rptr. 623, 579 P.2d 514]; In re Richard E. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 349, 356-357 [146 Cal.Rptr. 604, 579 P.2d 495].) Some dictumized evidence of this disagreement is the earlier expression by a majority of this exact panel in In re B. J. B. (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 1201 [230 Cal.Rptr. 332], wherein they made plain their disapproval of the holdings of a unanimous California Supreme Court in Carmaleta B. and Richard E.3 What particularly distressed my two colleagues on that occasion was the determination by the high court in those cases that section 4600 applied to section 232 proceedings. (See In re B. J. B., supra, at pp. 1205-1209.) That distress continues here. For example, the lead opinion points out that the application of section 4600 to section 232 “has also been called into question,” citing In re B. J. B. (See majority opn., ante, p. 438, fn. 3.)
The tack taken by the majority here to avoid application of section 4600 to the instant case is to find a “relationship” and an “overlapping” (majority opn., ante, p. 438) between the statute involved here—section 224—and the statute making the sole exception to the section 4600 requirement, section 7017, subdivision (d)(2). The notion is supposedly amendment by osmosis.
The most succinct response is that no matter how related or overlapping the two statutes may appear, the Legislature has seen fit to change only one *444of them, section 7017, subdivision (d)(2), and has accomplished that change with the precision of a corneal laser surgeon using the detail of an engraver of the United States Mint. (See fn. 2, ante.) Where a statute (like § 7017, subd. (d)(2)) expresses an exception to a general rule (e.g., § 4600, subd. (c)) other exceptions are not to be implied or presumed. (Wildlife Alive v. Chickering (1976) 18 Cal.3d 190, 195 [132 Cal.Rptr. 377, 553 P.2d 537]; Whaler's Village Club v. California Coastal Com. (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 240, 258 [220 Cal.Rptr. 2], cert. den., 476 U.S._[90 L.Ed.2d 648, 106 S.Ct. 1962].) The Legislature excepted section 7017, subdivision (d)(2) cases from the rule of section 4600 and told the world that that was the only exception being made. We have no power to make other exceptions.
In summary, the plain English of section 4600 compels the conclusion that a finding of detriment must precede an award of custody to a nonparent. The even plainer English of each and every decision of the California Supreme Court reviewing section 4600 makes it clear as well that the high court understood the Legislature to mean in any proceeding when the Legislature said, “[i]n any proceeding.” The sole explicit statutory exception has no application here. I would therefore find that the trial court erred in failing to consider section 4600 before making its order awarding custody to a nonparent, and would therefore reverse.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied April 7, 1988.

 Unless otherwise indicated, all further statutory references are to the Civil Code.

 Subdivision (d)(2) of section 7017 provides: “If the natural father or a man representing himself to be the natural father claims parental rights, the court shall determine if he is the father. The court shall then determine if it is in the best interest of the child that the father retain his parental rights, or that an adoption of the child be allowed to proceed. The court, in making that determination, may consider all relevant evidence, including the efforts made by the father to obtain custody, the age and prior placement of the child, and the effects of a change of placement on the child. If the court finds that it is in the best interest of the child that the father should be allowed to retain his parental rights, it shall order that his consent is necessary for an adoption. If the court finds that the man claiming parental rights is not the father, or that if he is the father it is in the child’s best interest that an adoption be allowed to proceed, it shall order that that person’s consent is not required for an adoption; such a *443finding terminates all parental rights and responsibilities with respect to the child. Section 4600 does not apply to this proceeding. Nothing in this section changes the rights of a presumed father.”

 Although there was a dissent in Richard E., joined in by two other justices, those three agreed with the majority that section 4600 applied to the section 232 proceedings. Thus, it was a unanimous Supreme Court on the point which disturbs my colleagues.