Legal Question in Family Law in California

You can't stop him from trying to get custody. Having not had anything to do with the child for years, the deck is stacked against him. In addition, you don't really think this would be the first time that the court has seen a father abandon a child and then suddenly want to be the custodial parent when child support comes up. It doesn't look good. However, without knowing all the facts and circumstances of your situation and each of your relationships with the child, there is no way even to begin to guess at an outcome. Even with all the facts, anything an attorney could say about the outcome would still be an educated guess. If the parents cannot agree, then the judge will do what he or she THINKS is in the "best interests of the minor child." As for the issue of a nasty custody battle, there is nothing you can do to assure that won't happen, I'm afraid. Still, your child has the right to support of both parents, and also a relationship with both parents. If a support motion is what brings him to the table, both financially and as a father, that could be a good thing.

There is nothing you can do to prevent a custody battle, but at this stage it would appear that is a fear. If you do not have a support order in place now, you cannot come back and revisit and ask for one when the child is grown up. Your child is 13 now, and would have some say in where she would like to be, and whether she wanted to have visitation with her father, if at all.