Child-Support Doctrine to Be Reviewed : Supreme Court: State justices will decide whether a divorced father must pay a 16-year-old judgment that he was never notified about.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to decide whether a divorced father must pay a 16-year-old, $18,200 child-support judgment--even though he was not notified of the award and his former wife never sought it.

The justices said they would review a longstanding judicial doctrine that says child support is inherently at issue in divorce cases and can be awarded without notice and without being requested.

Attorneys for a San Francisco man contesting the judgment say the 84-year-old doctrine is outdated and that courts can no longer presume divorced mothers need child support because they cannot earn as much as men.

The lawyers note further that in no other area of the law can judges, in uncontested proceedings, make awards in excess of those sought. “There is no reason to make an exception and say that litigants (in divorce cases) do not have the same due-process rights as other litigants,” Berkeley attorney Richard I. Sherman said Thursday.

But a city prosecutor defended the doctrine, saying courts need such authority to protect the interests of children affected by divorce. The prosecutor also rejected the contention that the rule no longer is needed because of the increasing opportunities for women to gain income.

“That’s fallacious reasoning,” San Francisco Assistant Dist. Atty. Lynn P. Fitzer said. “Particularly after a divorce, women tend to become much more poor than they were before.”

The case arose from the 1971 divorce of Ronald and Angela Lippel of San Francisco after less than a year of marriage. A petition she filed sought custody of their young daughter but asked for neither spousal nor child support. As often occurs in such proceedings, Ronald Lippel did not formally respond and a default judgment was entered by a San Francisco judge.

According to the father’s current suit, the judge, in addition to granting custody to the mother, for unknown reasons also entered an order requiring Ronald Lippel to pay $100 a month child support. The father received notice that “a judgment” had been entered but was not told--and had no reason to suspect--he was also liable for child support, the suit said.

Through the years, Ronald Lippel saw his daughter frequently, paid some of her expenses. The mother never raised the subject of child support, the suit said.

The support order apparently came to light when the mother applied for welfare. San Francisco officials sought then to enforce the order and, after a lengthy and unexplained delay, obtained a court order in 1987, taking a share of the father’s wages. That, according to Lippel, is when he first learned he owed $18,200.

Lippel brought suit asking that the child-support and wage orders be set aside. But last December, a state Court of Appeal ruled against him, even though it conceded that his contentions had “logical appeal.” The panel noted that child-support judgments--even when not requested--had been upheld by the courts since 1906. While the wisdom of the rule might be questioned, any change in the law should be made by the state Supreme Court, the appeal court said.

In their petition for review to the high court, Lippel’s attorneys argued that the father had been deprived of fair notice of the child-support order.