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Cal. FAM § 7578

This is the official text of Cal. FAM § 7578, part of California’s Family Code — governs marriage, divorce, child custody and support, domestic violence protections, and adoption. This particular section falls under Division 12, “Parent and Child Relationship.”

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Official statutory text

(a) Every signatory to a voluntary declaration of parentage shall be made a party to a proceeding to challenge the declaration.

(b) By signing a voluntary declaration, a signatory submits to personal jurisdiction in this state in a proceeding to challenge the declaration, effective on the filing of the declaration with the Department of Child Support Services.

(c) The court shall not suspend the legal responsibilities arising from a voluntary declaration of parentage, including the duty to pay child support, during the pendency of a proceeding to challenge the voluntary declaration of parentage, unless the party challenging the declaration shows good cause.

(d) A party challenging a voluntary declaration of parentage has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence.

(e) If the judgment or order of the court is at variance with the child’s birth certificate, the court shall order that a new birth certificate be issued as prescribed in Article 2 (commencing with Section 102725) of Chapter 5 of Part 1 of Division 102 of the Health and Safety Code.

(f) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2020.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.