Legal Question in Family Law in California

I have an interesting question. My son got a woman pregnant. This woman is 24 yrs old and lives with her mother. This woman initially told my son he had gotten her pregnant as a result of their one night stand together. He was initially very excited to be a father for the first time (he has no other children). About 2 weeks later she called him & told him she was getting an abortion. He was upset & asked her to provide proof. At this point he was becoming very leery of this woman because he swore she had told him she was on birth control at the time they had sex. He is very careful with contraception and had never got a girl pregnant before. And here she was claiming to be pregnant. After he asked for abortion proof, she changed her phone number, deleted her FB account and he could not find her anywhere. When he finally did 3 months later she told him she had had a miscarriage. It was becoming obvious she was trying to keep the baby from him. He again asked for proof. She then claimed her father had just died and needed time to get the doctor's note. (He later found out her father was alive and well.) After this she disappeared again. He could not find her. After more months passed, he finally thought to reach out to family members of hers on FB. One family member agreed to talk to him and told him she had in fact given birth to a daughter recently. This family member gave him the woman's contact info and he was in contact with her once again. She admitted she had lied and that this was his child. From what I can gather this woman has mental issues and had just wanted a baby. She never asked for financial help from my son & never wanted him in the child's life. Still she agreed that he could be a part of the child's life if he so wished. At this point the woman's mother was very involved (obviously) and was taking over all discussions. The mother (the baby's grandmother) also seemed like she wanted the baby to have no contact with my son. I advised my son to pursue his legal rights and fight for joint custody of his daughter, which he agreed to wholeheartedly. He was very overjoyed to be a father and though he was angry at the woman for lying & trying to keep his child from him, he wanted to work through it and be in his child's life. Long story short, from talking to the woman's family members, we believe what happened is this woman's mother (the child's grandmother) paid my son $50,000 to sign away his legal rights to his child. This is coming from the mother's own sons mouth. My son has 50,000 in his bank account but will not be honest with me. He will not tell me where he got the money & says he simply decided he didn't want to be a part of the child's life if the child's mother didn't want him to. This is a complete change of heart and I am inclined to believe the family members of this woman who claim that this is what happened are telling the truth about the payoff. My questions are:

1. Is this legal? Can someone pay off another person to sign away their parental rights? Or assuming she paid him off in secret, is it legal to simply sign away all your rights as a parent? Does this hold any water in the law?

2. Do I have any rights in this matter with regard to seeing my granddaughter? is there anything I can do? Even though my son was willing to sell his child down the river for money, I would love to be a part of her life.

Thanks in advance


Asked on 1/29/16, 4:03 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

1. Yes and no. There is nothing that prohibits such an agreement and both sides voluntarily abiding by it. However, it is entirely non-binding and unenforceable. The law in California does not allow anyone to sign away parental rights except in the case of a step-parent adoption, or upon a finding that the person giving up parental rights is an unfit parent. The reason is that with parental rights go parental OBLIGATIONS, and those are held to belong to the child. So at any time up until the child is 18, your son can assert his paternal rights (and assume the responsibilities). He would almost certainly be counter-sued for rescission of the agreement which would require him to refund the money, but his paternal rights are non-waiveable.

2. No. California does not recognize any legal rights of grand parents, except in special cases where the grandparents have previously established a parent-child relationship with the child due to the birth parents being out of the picture for reasons such as incarceration, mental illness, drug problems, etc.

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Answered on 1/29/16, 4:18 pm


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