Wright

This is an appeal from a judgment on the pleadings in favor of the State of California, Department of Benefit Payments (department). Plaintiff, as guardian ad litem for her minor son, Patrick, brought this action for declaratory relief in an attempt to bar the department from recouping out of Patrick’s $20,000 personal injury settlement, the sum of $4,746.91 which the department had paid to Medi-Cal providers for treatment of injuries sustained by Patrick in an accident which resulted in the settlement.

In the posture of this case, we must accept as true the allegations in plaintiff’s complaint for declaratory relief. (Sullivan v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 12 Cal.3d 710, 714, fn. 3 [ 117 Cal.Rptr. 241 , 527 P.2d 865 ].) The following statement of facts has been taken from the complaint and its incorporated exhibits.

On a dark, rainy night in 1973, when Patrick was six years old, he crossed a street into the path of a pickup truck driven by Wayne Allen Garcia and was struck by the vehicle. Patrick was not in a crosswalk; had the street been marked with crosswalks, the nearest one would have been some 45 feet away. Garcia was not speeding and was able to stop his truck…