Johnson v. Superior Court of L.A. Cty.

The statewide uniform child support guidelines (Fam. Code, § 4050 et seq.) establish a presumption that the amount of a child support award is to be determined by a common formula. The presumption may be rebutted when the parent being ordered to pay support has an “extraordinarily high income.” Estevez v. Superior Court (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 423 [ 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 470 ] holds that once the guideline presumption has been rebutted in this manner, an extraordinarily high earning parent who offers to pay any reasonable amount of court-ordered child support does not need to provide detailed financial discovery to the other parent. We find that the rationale of Estevez applies to this case. We therefore grant a high-earning parent’s petition for a writ of mandate and order the trial court to disallow such detailed discovery.

Background

Petitioner Larry Johnson is a professional athlete with the New York Knicks basketball team. While the Knicks were in Los Angeles, Johnson had sexual relations with real party in interest Laura Tate. Their child, Taylor, was bom on August 2, 1997.

Following Taylor’s birth, Tate filed a complaint to establish paternity and for child support. She…