Peo in Interest of RSG

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: November 20, 2025
• Docket: 25CA0415
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25CA0415 Peo in Interest of RSG 11-20-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0415 Boulder County District Court No. 24JV30102 Honorable Stephen Enderlin Howard, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of R.S.G. and V.G., Children,

and Concerning E.S.,

Appellant,

and V.I.G.,

Appellee.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division IV Opinion by JUDGE JOHNSON Harris and Schock, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced November 20, 2025

Ben Pearlman, County Attorney, Cheryl Koh-Sicotte, Assistant County Attorney, Boulder, Colorado, for Appellee The People of the State of Colorado

Alison Bettenberg, Guardian Ad Litem

Just Law Group LLC, John F. Poor, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant

Harald Van Gaasbeek, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Fort Collins, Colorado, for Appellee V.I.G. ¶1 E.S. appeals the judgment determining that he was not the

legal father of V.G. and R.S.G. (the children) under the Uniform

Parentage Act (UPA), §§ 19-4-101 to -130, C.R.S. 2025. We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In April 2024, the Boulder County Department of Housing and

Human Services (the Department) received a report that V.I.G.

(mother) was intoxicated and shoved V.G., who called the police,

resulting in mother’s arrest for child abuse. A caseworker from the

Department responded to the home, where V.G.’s siblings, O.S. and

R.S.G., also resided. The caseworker reported that she identified

and contacted O.S.’s biological father, E.S., but could not identify or

contact V.G. and R.S.G.’s fathers. E.S. agreed to take all three

children into his home.

¶3 The Department then filed a petition in dependency or neglect,

naming E.S. as O.S.’s father and A.R. as R.S.G.’s father; the

Department indicated that V.G.’s father remained unknown. E.S.

admitted to the allegations in the petition, and the juvenile court

adjudicated O.S. dependent or neglected as to him. At a

dispositional hearing, E.S. then asserted that he should be declared

1 V.G. and R.S.G.’s legal father, and the court directed him to move

for a paternity adjudication, which he did.

¶4 The juvenile court set the matter for an evidentiary hearing in

December 2024. As pertinent to this appeal, the Department

asserted that V.G.’s parentage had already been adjudicated and

offered a certified copy of an Oregon paternity judgment (Oregon

judgment) establishing that E.S. was not V.G.’s father. After

hearing the evidence, the court determined that (1) the Department

rebutted by clear and convincing evidence E.S.’s presumption

under the UPA that he was V.G.’s father based on his marriage to

mother with evidence of the Oregon judgment and (2) E.S. had not

established that he was entitled to the presumption of parentage

based on his receiving the children into his home and holding them

out as his natural children.

II. Admission of the Oregon Judgment

¶5 E.S. asserts that the juvenile court erred by admitting into

evidence a copy of the Oregon judgment declaring that he was not

V.G.’s father. We disagree.

2 A. Standard of Review

¶6 We review a juvenile court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of

discretion. M.A.W. v. People in Interest of A.L.W., 2020 CO 11, ¶ 32.

The court abuses its discretion when its decision is manifestly

arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair, or when it misapplies the law.

People in Interest of A.N-B., 2019 COA 46, ¶ 9.

B. Analysis

¶7 At the evidentiary hearing, the Department moved to admit the

Oregon judgment declaring that E.S. was not V.G.’s legal father. As

pertinent to this appeal, E.S. objected based on “authenticity and

rule of completeness” grounds. The court overruled the objection

and admitted the exhibit, finding that the two-page document was

“certified to be [an] accurate cop[y]” and “appears to be a complete

copy.”

¶8 On appeal, E.S. argues that the court erred by admitting the

Oregon judgment because it was not properly authenticated. We

disagree.

¶9 Under CRE 902(4), copies of public records are self-

authenticating and require no extrinsic evidence to prove their

authenticity if they are “certified as correct by the custodian or

3 other person authorized to make a certification, by certificate

complying with paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of this rule.” CRE 902(2)

contemplates certification by the signature of a person in their

official capacity accompanied by a certification, under seal, of an

appropriate public officer having a seal that the signer has the

official capacity and that the signature is genuine.

¶ 10 In this case, the Oregon judgment was certified as a true and

correct copy by the trial court administrator of Washington County,

Oregon, a person authorized to make such certifications. The

administrator signed the document and submitted it under seal of

the State of Oregon’s Judicial Department. Therefore, the

document was self-authenticating under CRE 902(2) and (4). See

People v. Shepherd, 43 P.3d 693, 700 (Colo. App. 2001)

(determining that certified copies of a California judgment of

conviction were self-authenticating under CRE 902).

¶ 11 We are not persuaded to reach a different conclusion based on

E.S.’s assertion that the exhibit “did not appear on its face to be a

complete copy.” Specifically, E.S. notes that both pages of the two-

page document were paginated as “Page 2” and the paragraph

numbers across the two pages skipped from paragraph one to

4 paragraph four. The juvenile court determined that, despite the

internal discrepancies, the document appeared to be complete.

Specifically, the court noted that the Department had attempted to

obtain the document “multiple times” and received the same

certified copy. The court had also “invited anyone disputing the

authenticity to get their own copies,” and no one had submitted

something different.

¶ 12 Our review of the document supports that the court did not

abuse its discretion by admitting the Oregon judgment. Besides the

numbering discrepancies, the document does not read as if any

information is missing from the Oregon judgment. The Oregon

judgment references another court order of July 2, 2013, but that

order appears to deal with mother, and E.S. makes no argument

that the July 2013 order is pertinent to or necessary for

completeness in adjudicating his parentage as to V.G. Therefore,

under these circumstances, we cannot say that the court abused its

discretion.

¶ 13 Finally, we decline to address E.S.’s argument that, even if the

document was self-authenticating, the juvenile court should have

excluded it under CRE 803(8) because it lacked trustworthiness.

5 E.S. did not raise this issue at the evidentiary hearing, see People v.

Ujaama, 2012 COA 36, ¶ 37 (an issue is unpreserved if an objection

was made in the trial court but on grounds different from those

raised on appeal), and we do not consider issues raised for the first

time on appeal, see People in Interest of M.B., 2020 COA 13, ¶ 14.

Although E.S. argued in his pretrial pleadings that the document

was inadmissible hearsay, he did not reraise hearsay at the

hearing, see In re Marriage of Corak, 2014 COA 147, ¶ 23 (“A

litigant who abandons an argument in the trial court likewise

abandons it for the purposes of appeal.”), or make a specific

objection based on a lack of trustworthiness, Ujaama, ¶ 37 (an

objection made on “unspecific grounds” is unpreserved).

III. Parentage Presumptions

¶ 14 E.S. contends that the juvenile court erred by concluding that

he had not established one of the presumptions of parentage in

section 19-4-105(1), C.R.S. 2025. We disagree.

A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law

¶ 15 We review de novo whether the juvenile court applied the

correct legal standard. People in Interest of K.L.W., 2021 COA 56,

6 ¶ 42. But we defer to the court’s factual findings if they are

supported by the record. Id.

¶ 16 A juvenile court may determine a child’s parentage as part of a

dependency or neglect proceeding. People in Interest of J.G.C., 2013

COA 171, ¶ 10. However, when a parentage issue arises in a non-

parentage proceeding, such as this dependency or neglect case, the

court must follow the procedures outlined in the UPA. See People in

Interest of O.S-H., 2021 COA 130, ¶ 40.

¶ 17 First, the juvenile court must determine whether one of the

statutory presumptions of parentage in section 19-4-105(1) applies.

People in Interest of C.L.S., 313 P.3d 662, 666 (Colo. App. 2011). As

pertinent to this appeal, a person is a presumed parent if (1) the

person and the parent who gave birth to the child were married and

the child was born during the marriage, § 19-4-105(1)(a) (marriage

presumption); or (2) “the person receives the child into the person’s

home and openly holds out the child as the person’s natural child,”

§ 19-4-105(1)(d) (holding out presumption). If presumptions are

established, parties may rebut them by clear and convincing

evidence. § 19-4-105(2)(a).

7 ¶ 18 Second, if competing presumptions remain after the initial

step, the court must then “resolve the competing parentage

presumptions and determine which should control based on the

weightier considerations of policy and logic.” See K.L.W., ¶ 70. The

result of this process is to render one person the child’s legal

parent, while the other person becomes a “nonparent.” C.L.S., 313

P.3d at 667.

B. Parentage of V.G.

¶ 19 E.S. argues that the juvenile court erred by determining that

(1) the Department presented clear and convincing evidence to

rebut the marriage presumption and (2) he did not establish the

holding out presumption. As explained below, because the Oregon

judgment had already established that E.S. was not V.G.’s father,

the court did not need to address the presumptions. Therefore, we

affirm the court’s judgment, albeit on different grounds. See Blood

v. Qwest Servs. Corp., 224 P.3d 301, 329 (Colo. App. 2009) (noting

that an appellate court “can affirm on any ground supported by the

record”).

¶ 20 Section 19-4-109(1.5), C.R.S. 2025, provides that “[a] paternity

determination made by another state, whether established through

8 voluntary acknowledgment, administrative processes, or judicial

processes, shall be enforced and otherwise treated in the same

manner as a judgment of this state.” Section 19-4-116(1), C.R.S.

2025, also provides that “[t]he judgment or order of the court

determining the existence or nonexistence of the parent and child

relationship is determinative for all purposes.” Applying these

statutes to this case, the juvenile court had to treat the Oregon

judgment as if it was a judgment of this state, and as a judgment of

this state, the Oregon judgment was “determinative for all

purposes” as to the parentage of V.G. Therefore, the Oregon

judgment of nonpaternity was dispositive, and the juvenile court did

not need to consider the presumptions in section 19-4-105(1) before

it rejected E.S.’s parentage claim.

¶ 21 Nevertheless, E.S. maintains, for the following three reasons,

that the juvenile court erred by applying section 19-4-109(1.5). We

are not persuaded.

¶ 22 First, E.S. contends that he did not receive proper notice of the

Oregon proceeding. See In re Marriage of Lohman, 2015 COA 134, ¶

28 (“A judgment entered without personal jurisdiction is void in the

forum state and is not entitled to full faith and credit by any United

9 States court.”). In support, E.S. testified that he knew nothing

about the nonpaternity judgment and that he did not live at the

location listed in the service of process. But the court did not find

this testimony credible, noting that the court documents submitted

by the Department indicated that E.S. appeared in the case, was

represented by counsel, and submitted to a genetic test. Because

we must defer to the court’s credibility determination when, as

here, it is supported by the record, we reject E.S.’s assertion. See

People in Interest of A.J.L., 243 P.3d 244, 249-50 (Colo. 2010).

¶ 23 Second, we disagree with E.S.’s claim that, because the

Oregon judgment is a nonpaternity determination rather than a

“paternity determination,” section 19-4-109(1.5) does not apply. We

acknowledge that section 19-4-109(1.5) refers only to a “paternity

determination.” But reading the UPA as a whole, see People in

Interest of S.A., 2022 CO 27, ¶ 4, we are persuaded that the phrase

“paternity determination,” as used in section 19-4-109(1.5),

includes judgments determining both “the existence or

nonexistence” of a parent-child relationship. § 19-4-116(1)

(describing the effect of a judgment or order); see also § 19-4-

107(2), C.R.S. 2025 (noting that a party can bring an action “for the

10 purpose of determining the existence or nonexistence of the father

and child relationship” based on a presumption in section 19-4-

105).

¶ 24 Third, E.S. maintains that, even if the Oregon judgment

precluded him from raising the marriage presumption, it did not

preclude him from raising the holding out presumption. We

disagree because a judgment determining the nonexistence of a

parent-child relationship under section 19-4-116(1) is

“determinative for all purposes.” Therefore, the court did not need

to consider whether any of the presumptions applied. As a result,

we need not address E.S.’s argument as it relates to the holding out

presumption as to V.G.

C. Parentage of R.S.G.

¶ 25 E.S. also contends that the juvenile court erred by concluding

that he had failed to establish the holding out presumption with

respect to R.S.G. We disagree.

¶ 26 The court found that, although E.S. had a “close relationship”

with R.S.G. and R.S.G had “referred to him as dad,” E.S. had not

“welcomed [R.S.G] into his home and held him out as his child.”

The court noted that the evidence showed that E.S. had cared for

11 R.S.G. in mother’s home, but he did so “only on a temporary basis.”

The court also determined that there was “no evidence that [E.S.]

had held himself out to others as [R.S.G.’s] father.”

¶ 27 E.S. contends that the juvenile court erred because it “fixat[ed]

narrowly on the question of exactly when E.S. and [R.S.G.] had

lived together.” We are not persuaded.

¶ 28 He points to evidence that he had a close relationship with the

child and the child called him “dad.” But the court considered this

evidence and was more persuaded by the lack of evidence that E.S.

represented to others that the child was his natural child. Because

the record supports these findings, we cannot reweigh the evidence

or substitute our judgment for that of the juvenile court. See

K.L.W., ¶ 62. Therefore, although E.S. had lived with mother in her

home for temporary periods, the court did not err by holding that

E.S. had never “receive[d] the child into [his] home” as required by

section 19-4-105(1)(d). Cf. In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning

A.D., 240 P.3d 488, 491 (Colo. App. 2010) (noting that the evidence

established a presumption under subsection (1)(d), where the father

“publicly acknowledged [the child] as his natural child”).

12 ¶ 29 Finally, we agree with the juvenile court’s conclusion that E.S.

could not establish the holding out presumption based on events

that happened after the Department placed R.S.G. with him during

the dependency or neglect case. If we were to adopt E.S.’s position,

a court could sidestep the termination and adoption statutes by

declaring a foster parent or kinship placement the child’s legal

parent by way of the holding out presumption. Such an

interpretation would lead to an absurd result and could not be the

General Assembly’s intent in enacting the holding out presumption.

See J.G.C., ¶ 10 (reviewing courts must avoid interpretations of

statutes that lead to an absurd result).

¶ 30 In sum, E.S. did not establish that he was a presumed father

under section 19-4-105(1)(d), and the burden did not shift to the

opposing party to rebut the presumption. See § 19-4-105(2)(a);

C.L.S., 313 P.3d at 666 (“Once presumptions are established, they

may be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.”). As a result,

this case did not involve any competing presumptions. See § 19-4-

105(2)(a); K.L.W., ¶ 70. Ultimately, because the record supports the

juvenile court’s findings and its legal conclusions comport with

13 applicable law, we decline to disturb its judgment determining that

E.S. was not R.S.G.’s father.

IV. Conclusion

¶ 31 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE HARRIS and JUDGE SCHOCK concur.