Court Opinion

ID: 9723996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:40:35.114439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:54.015937
License: Public Domain

BEACH, J.—I dissent.
The most important interest to be considered and protected here is the right of a child to be supported by its parent. Accompanying that interest is the interest of society in enforcing the parent’s obligation by resorting to the parent’s property when the parent fails to support his child. In the recent words of Justice Powell’s dissent, “Familial obligations are not merely commercial. Few legal duties are more universally acknowledged than the duty of a father to support his children.” (Ridgway v. Ridgway (1981) 454 U.S. 46, 68 [70 L.Ed.2d 39, 102 S.Ct. 49, 61].) Indeed, the willful failure of a parent to support his child is a crime. (Pen. Code, § 270; In re King (1970) 3 Cal.3d 226 [90 Cal.Rptr. 15, 474 P.2d 983].)
The procedure under which appellant claims operates to defeat and conflicts with the law’s policy of aiding enforcement of a parent’s child support obligation. That policy in my view far surpasses any commercial policy regarding free alienation of property or the clearing of land titles.
One part of the statute here involved (Code Civ. Proc., § 674.5) seeks to secure the payment of child support through the creation of a lien on the father’s realty. The father in order to convey his property free of that lien seeks to utilize the procedural relief afforded by another part of the same statute. Because the procedure under which the *48father claims operates to diminish the protection of the child support- and thus is in conflict with the more important of the two policies, the trial court was entitled to require strict compliance with the statute and to view any ambiguity arising from the stipulated facts most strongly against the judgment-debtor father and title company and in favor of the preservation of the sources of child support and the protection of the lien therefor.
The majority opinion rests on two premises: (1) the recording of the support order was contrary to the “express terms thereof” and therefore was a nullity creating no lien under the first part of Code of Civil Procedure section 674.5 and (2) even if a valid lien had been created, appellant is protected because it relied in good faith on the sworn but unrecorded certificate of the judgment-debtor/father and because the certificate was eventually recorded.
The recording was not contrary to the express terms of the order. The express terms forbade service not recordation. Appellant and the majority interpret service to include recordation by implication. No authority is given for this. I do not believe such interpretation is allowable under the circumstances here.
More importantly, that part of the order forbidding service if it may be interpreted to include recording would be a nullity. The recording of a support order is a statutory right under the terms of Code of Civil Procedure section 674.5 itself. The superior court in the dissolution O.S.C. proceeding was totally without authority in this case to make such order divesting the wife’s right to record. A court has no power to deprive a litigant of a statutory right unless the litigant clearly stipulates to such order or the matter has been put in issue by the litigation, tried and decided. But that is not the case in the matter at bench.
Appellant’s claim that there was a stipulation by the parties that the order would not be recorded is absolutely wrong. There was no such stipulation and there is no inference or implication that such is what the parties intended. There was no stipulation regarding service or recording. Thus the order forbidding service was without authority in the first place and even if so made it cannot be interpreted to mean that the party could not record the order. The majority opinion and appellant rely on Brown v. Johnson (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 844 [159 Cal.Rptr. 675] as authority for the proposition that recording the support order was a nullity. Brown v. Johnson is totally inapposite and factually distinguish*49able. Brown v. Johnson involved the attempt by a vendor of realty to record a self-serving declaration made by the vendor herself of an equitable lien. The lien had not been perfected into any kind of judgment or order at the time or recordation. As a result, there was no order permitting the recordation and no statute permitting recording of such unperfected lien claim. Here by contrast there was a lawful, statutorily recordable order of the court. (Code Civ. Proc., § 674.5; see 2 Miller & Starr, Current Law of Cal. Real Estate (1977) Recording and Priorities, § 11:8, pp. 18-30.)
A valid lien against the father’s property having been created, the issue then becomes whether or not the lien was validly extinguished. Again in this respect the trial court was entitled to require proof of strict and literal compliance with the statute, and to interpret the application of the statute narrowly.
The certificate of the father did not extinguish the lien on the realty when conveyed to the new buyers. At the time the property was conveyed the certificate was unrecorded. The buyers purchased a piece of property that still had an existing, lawfully created lien thereon. It had not been extinguished by act of the creditor nor order of the court nor by the debtor’s full compliance with the statutory requirements. Appellant claims that it is a person dealing in good faith with the judgment-debtor. If that claim is intended to mean no knowledge of the lien problem, it is not true. Appellant was aware that there was a lien and that the certificate of the judgment-debtor relating to that lien had been executed the day before the deed was executed. Appellant was also aware that the certificate was not recorded when appellant purported to rely (and led its insureds also to rely) on the certificate. To permit appellant’s interpretation of the statute would be to permit the statute to be totally ignored.
Appellant’s argument accepted by the majority is that as long as appellant had “actual notice” of payment of the obligation secured by the lien of Code of Civil Procedure section 674.5, it is enough to be as to appellant conclusive evidence of payment (and thus inferentially extinguishment of the lien) because actual notice is better than the constructive notice given by recordation. Carried to its logical conclusion this view would make the declaration under perjury similarly irrelevant as long as actual notice of any kind was given. This would not require any proof, but would allow any kind of notice, including a telephone call, a letter or an oral declaration, to suffice for the declaration (that the *50amount secured by the lien had been paid). The question is, why bother with a certificate under perjury or even any certificate? The answer is that with reference to the determination of who is a person dealing in good faith with a judgment-debtor, the only fair interpretation, protective of the child support policy, is that the statute contemplates and intends that the person be dealing contemporaneously with a judgment-debtor who has executed and recorded a certificate under the penalty of perjury.
I agree with respondents that the proper view of this description of a “person dealing in good faith with a judgment-debtor” described in that particular paragraph of section 674.5 refers to one presently dealing with the judgment-debtor after the certificate has been acknowledged and recorded. Here, appellant acted on its own, ignoring the command of the statute that the debtor’s certificate be recorded as well as executed. Appellant insured the purchasers’ title, the purchasers took the property, recorded the deed, and the entire transaction had been completed for three months before the debtor’s certificate was recorded. Appellant’s recordation of the debtor’s certificate was not until three months after the conclusion of this transaction and done after respondent district attorney notified appellant that respondent was going to enforce the lien. It was an attempt to lock the barn door after the horse was gone. That conduct does not look like dealing in good faith within the contemplation of the statute.
For the reasons above, I believe the trial court was entitled to require very strict compliance with the provisions of any statute which tends to defeat the rights of minor children to reach some parental property as a source for unpaid support. I would affirm.