4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/01/21 - Jan 21, 2026

argument

4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/01/21

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One 50 min 1 speaker 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the procedural background and who are the parties in this oral argument?

Brent Riggs 13:56

We meet again. Yeah.

Indra Bennett 14:07

Good morning. You can all come up. Perfect, thank you.

Jesse McGowan 14:28

Morning. Okay. Yeah.

Brent Riggs 14:35

Let's see, am I the appellant on this side?

Unknown 14:37

Yes, yes. Okay.

Brent Riggs 14:40

Intro. Could be true.

Unknown 15:02

You stick to the side.

Brent Riggs 15:44

Oh, right there. Thank you.

Brent Riggs 15:53

Squeaky chair.

Unknown 19:44

And you could use it.

Unknown 20:18

Yeah, that's okay. She should remember the county cancer.

Indra Bennett 20:26

In the slide for here.

Indra Bennett 20:45

Someone. We have to call it. Yeah.

Unknown 21:07

Yeah.

Unknown 21:16

Okay.

Unknown 21:25

Yeah, she started representing Paris. Uh

Indra Bennett 21:36

Pretty quickly all the

Unknown 21:45

Okay. I just saw it actually. Okay, it's the Hits.

William Bado 28:11

All right. The Court of Appeal Estate of California at Fourth Apollic District Division One is now in session with the honorable William Bado presiding.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 28:19

Good morning everyone. Welcome, pleased to have a seat. We have a special set today, in Ray AA, and Counsel for Appellant, Mr. Riggs.

How does counsel for the appellant define the issue of standing for the minor?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 28:33

So whenever you're ready, if you could uh approach the podium, I'm joined this morning uh by Justice Doe on my right and Justice Castillo on my left. And Mr. Riggs, would you like to reserve any time for rebuttal? A couple of minutes, yeah. All right, that's very good. So Whenever you're ready, if you could begin by stating your appearance and uh then continue.

Brent Riggs 29:01

Thank you, Honor. Uh Brent Riggs for the appellant. Uh, this case involves a biological father who said he knew from the moment of conception That this was his child. And then let another man who thought he was the father. paid child support for the f child for twelve years. Um No gifts, no money contributed to the child, essentially no contact, so I read the record anyway, and um and then comes into her life for two months, during which time she's subjected to his physical and emotional abuse. And um Then the judge, the juvenile court, orders that she's supposed to visit with him and have once a week phone calls. I believe that's how the order is.

Unknown 30:06

Mr. Riggs, um do you want to address the issue of standing that your opponent uh raised that the minor does not have standing to raise these issues given that uh it is with in essence with her consent. So if she can if she doesn't want to visit then there's no visits that would would happen. And so do you want to address standing briefly?

Brent Riggs 30:28

Uh yes, the the order doesn't say that she has to consent to the visit. It just says Give her due consideration, whatever that means. I suppose it could mean anything. Uh um We don't know what kind of litigation would take place to require uh enforcement of uh the visitation order, but we do know that the juvenile court would have made the order, if it's not uh reversed, will have be presumed to have made it in her best interest. And so the family Court will be stuck with that. unless someone wants to litigate that it's Otherwise, I'm not sure how that works because the way the code reads is It's presumed to be in her best interest until um the family court decides something else is in her best interest.

Brent Riggs 31:30

So that kind of puts the b burden on her. And I think that's sufficient for a standing situation, Your Honor.

Unknown 31:39

Thank you.

What arguments does the appellant make about the juvenile court’s visitation order language?

Brent Riggs 31:39

Mm-hmm. Um actually those were the Main points uh I wanted to make I also just point out it seems in that Donovan L case that the court may have indicated there wasn't any right to uh to visitation for this kind of a father. And I'll submit it.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 32:04

All right. Very well. Mr. Riggs, we'll give you a few minutes to respond then. All right. And um I guess I should uh ask uh m Ms. Bennett, uh on behalf of the county, uh were you planning on making comments or responding?

Indra Bennett 32:21

Yes.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 32:22

All right, please, go ahead.

Indra Bennett 32:36

Good morning, and may it please the court. Supervising Deputy County Council Indra Bennett for the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency respondent. I'd like to start with the substance of th of the custody orders and what they obligate the minor to do because all of our arguments come back to that. To touch on standing. And the main gist there of biological father. Claiming in his brief that these custody orders give the minor veto veto power over visits. I disagree. So if we're looking at the custody orders in the record, we know that The parties circulated a draft of these orders before the court then went on to modify the draft and to adopt a final arrangement.