## Facts

- Husband and wife married in 1964 and separated in 1972.
- They had no biological children together, but in 1966 brought two children from Mexico to the United States using documents listing them as the children’s parents.
- The children were actually the biological children of husband’s brother and sister-in-law.
- The children believed the parties were their natural parents, and the parties treated the children as their own while raising them in the United States.
- Community assets included a Salinas residence, household furniture, real property in Mexico, and a 1967 Pontiac; evidence also showed community debts.
- During separation, husband claimed he transferred the Pontiac to his brother to repay a loan and that the Mexico property was lost due to nonpayment, but he offered no corroborating documents.

## Issues

1. Whether husband, based on his conduct, was estopped from denying paternity such that the court could order him to pay child support.
2. Whether the trial court erred by treating the Mexico real property and the Pontiac as existing community assets and awarding them to husband despite his testimony they were no longer available.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment.
- Husband was equitably estopped from denying paternity and could be ordered to pay child support.
- The trial court did not err in including the Mexico property and the Pontiac as community assets where husband’s contrary testimony was uncorroborated and could be rejected as not credible.
- The overall property allocation and debt assignment reflected no abuse of discretion.

## Legal Principles

- A spouse who has held children out as his own and induced their reliance on that parental status may be equitably estopped from later denying paternity to avoid child support.
- For support purposes, estoppel may supply the functional parent-child relationship required to support a child support order.
- In dividing community property, the trial court may reject uncorroborated, self-serving testimony that community assets were transferred or lost.
- On appeal, factual findings regarding existence and characterization of assets are upheld if supported by substantial evidence, and credibility determinations are left to the trial court.

## Conclusion

The court upheld child support based on equitable estoppel where the husband had created and maintained a parent-child relationship, and it sustained the community property division because the trial court could disbelieve unsupported claims that major assets no longer existed.


In re Marriage of Valle, 53 Cal. App. 3d 837, 126 Cal. Rptr. 38 (Ct. App. 1975)