by Cambridge on Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:04 pm
It used to be that if a child was born to a married couple, it was presumptively the child of the husband. Not anymore.
California and a few other states now have a law that states that within six months of the birth you have a right to have the child’s DNA tested. If the test shows the child to be someone else’s, then the husband can deny paternity. The purpose of this law is to encourage DNA testing, as it is so very important nowadays in medical diagnosis.
A weird case occurred here in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Married woman gets pregnant by bf. Hubby thinks its his and does not have the paternity test within the required six months. Married woman leaves hubby and marries bf, real father of the little girl. Now ex-hubby dutifully plays part of dad, seeing the little girl on weekends and holidays and paying $1,000/mo. in child support. One day, mother arbitrarily refuses to let him see the girl anymore. He petitions the court and mother cross-petitions, revealing for the first time that the child is not his, but her present husband’s. Ex-hubby amends his petition to say, if the courts do not grant him visitation because the child is not his, he should not have to pay child support for the same reason.
Held: (1) Ex-hubby never had DNA tested of child, so paternity permanently rests in him for child support purposes. (2) As for the child custody matter (in California and under the Uniform Child Custody Control Act, visitation is a part of the child custody issue), since ex-husband has no blood link to the child, as attested to by mother and tests during the litigation, he should have no legal interest in visitation. So you have a man “A” paying another man “B” to raise his “B’s” own child, while the man “A” can have no contact or visitation with the child.
The court acknowledged that it was a harsh consequence. But it said it’s ruling would have the effect of underscoring the importance of having children DNA tested. And so it was serving the public policy of assuring that the best of medical records be kept for children.
Funny, huh?