Legal Question in Family Law in California

The birth certificate is not dispositive of paternity. You have to determine whether or not he has been legally established to be the father, either by voluntary declaration of paternity or by paternity proceedings in court. Unless both parents signed a declaration of paternity in the hospital, OR went to the expense and trouble of changing the birth certificate after later signing a declaration or having a court proceeding, the birth certificate would not list the father, even if he has legally been established as the father.