Fults v. Superior Court

Opinion

HALVONIK, J. Stephanie Nicole Fults was bom to petitioner Christine Fults on October 3, 1975. The birth certificate lists the mother’s age as 17 and names David Cook, real party in interest, as the father, age 19. Petitioner and Cook have never been married nor have they ever lived together.

The District Attorney of Sonoma County filed a paternity suit on petitioner’s behalf naming Cook as defendant.1 Cook’s answer denied paternity and he propounded a number of interrogatories, two of which, numbers 76 and 77, are the subject of the instant petition. Number 76 asks, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with anyone with whom you were not married? If so, state the name and address of such person and the date of such intercourse.”

[902]Number 77 demands that petitioner “State the names and addresses, if known, [of] all persons with whom you have been romantically or sexually involved and the dates of such involvements.”

Petitioner objected to these interrogatories as irrelevant, embarrassing and an invasion of her privacy. In reply to another interrogatory she had stated: “I had no sexual relations with anyone other than the defendant from September 1, 1974 through March 1, 1975.” That answer covered a period three months before and three months after the likely date of conception and that, she insisted, was sufficient to satisfy any legitimate curiosity. The trial court disagreed and ordered petitioner to answer but, concerned with the sweep of the interrogatories, limited their scope to the period of one year prior to the likely date of conception and one year after that date. It is that order which is challenged here.

Directing our attention to Peterson v. Peterson (1953) 121 Cal.App.2d 1, 6 [262 P.2d 613] and Dastagir v. Dastagir (1952) 109 Cal.App.2d 809, 815-816 [241 P.2d 656] and their holding that evidence of the identity of sexual partners prior to the probable date of conception is inadmissible, petitioner contends that the challenged interrogatories seek irrelevant information. But relevancy at trial and relevancy for purposes of discovery are two different things. “An appellate court cannot reverse a trial court’s grant of discovery under a ‘relevancy’ attack unless it concludes that the answers sought by a given line of questioning cannot as a reasonable possibility lead to the discovery of admissible evidence or be helpful in preparation for trial.” (Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 161, 173 [84 Cal.Rptr. 718, 465 P.2d 854]; Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2016, subd. (b), 2031.) If petitioner’s statement that she had sexual relations with no one but Cook three months before and after the time of conception is accurate then of course answers to defendant’s interrogatories will provide no relevant evidence or any leads to relevant evidence. But parties to litigation are customarily skeptical about the averments of their adversaries and courts must suspend judgment on such matters until all of the evidence is in. If her statement is inaccurate then answers to the challenged interrogatories may furnish defendant with the means to establish that fact.