Stark v. County of Alameda

Appellant appeals from a denial by the superior court of her application for an order freeing petitioner from any obligation to support her mother upon the ground she was “abandoned” by her mother. The relationship of parent and child is so deep and fundamental in our society that we do not lightly terminate its legal effects. Abandonment calls for an intent to sever and disrupt this rooted relation, an intent, accompanied by actual desertion, that must be either declared or manifested in overt acts. We find substantial evidence to uphold the trial court’s evident conclusion that neither…