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Cal. FAM § 7823

This is the official text of Cal. FAM § 7823, 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) A proceeding under this part may be brought if all of the following requirements are satisfied:

(1) The child has been neglected or cruelly treated by either or both parents. A finding that a parent committed severe sexual abuse, as described in paragraph (6) of subdivision (b) of Section 361.5 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, against the child shall be prima facie evidence that the parent has neglected or cruelly treated the child within the meaning of this subdivision.

(2) The child has been a dependent child of the juvenile court under any subdivision of Section 300 of the Welfare and Institutions Code and the parent or parents have been deprived of the child’s custody for one year before the filing of a petition pursuant to this part.

(b) Physical custody by the parent or parents for insubstantial periods of time does not interrupt the running of the one-year period.

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.