Ruling Makes Fathers Who Hide Responsible for Retroactive Support

A father who abandons his child and then hides to avoid paying child support may be ordered to make retroactive payments once he is found, a state appeals court ruled.

“Fathers . . . will now be on notice that wherever they go and how long they hide, they will be forced to face their legal and economic responsibility to their children,” attorney Gloria Allred said Tuesday in hailing the ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles.

The unanimous decision, reached Feb. 4 and mailed to attorneys for both sides in a child support dispute, concerns support for a child whose mother became pregnant at age 18 by a Roman Catholic priest.

The father, who has since left the church, acknowledged paternity when the girl was 17 years old and paid child support for the next 11 months, until she reached adulthood.

In a suit filed in Superior Court in November, 1985, the child, Christa Hobbs, now 20 and a student at California State University, Sacramento, sought retroactive payments, but the claim was dismissed.

The appeals court decision reached last week sends the matter back to the lower court for trial, ruling that if it were proved the man knew he was the father and that he intentionally hid to avoid paying support, he could be required to make retroactive payments.

Gerald Tarlow, attorney for the father, John Christianson, said he was considering an appeal of the court’s decision or seeking recourse in the state Supreme Court.

Tarlow, like Allred, said the ruling sets a precedent in California for cases fitting the specific criteria in the appeals court ruling.

In its written decision, the three-judge panel noted that the only similar rulings on record were in state courts in Washington and Iowa.

The mother, Linda Hobbs, 39, said she endured years of emotional problems and was forced to raise her child in poverty because the early pregnancy forced her to abandon her education.

“It was horrible. We lived in roach-infested buildings, lived in situations where the bathtub wouldn’t work for a month,” she said.

Hobbs said she finally tracked Christianson down with the aid of a therapist who helped her and her daughter deal with the rejection.

“She is a wonderful young woman, she is doing wonderful things with her life,” Hobbs said of her daughter. “But she will never have a father.”

Tarlow disputed Hobbs’ claims of poverty, noting that she was married for some time and had other children.

“They make a big deal out of saying ‘roach infested,’ ‘no food,’ all kinds of things, when in fact there was an entirely different life style that was led,” Tarlow said.

He refused to elaborate, saying that specifics might be addressed if the case were tried in the lower court.

Christianson had left the church and was teaching in Rolling Hills when served with the original paternity suit, Allred said.

Tarlow said Christianson has a family, but refused to provide further details, including his hometown.