General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Child support enforcement has a powerful new weapon in its arsenal: the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires travelers returning to the US from Canada, Mexico, the Carribean, Bermuda and central and South America possess passports.
The new laws require many people who did not previously have passports to obtain passports for travel outside the US.
Only they can’t if they owe more than $2,500 in child support arrearages.
So people who really want to travel outside the country must pay up - or stay home.
Connecticut, as an example, has seen support collection rise dramatically as a result of the implementation of the new rules.
And it’s not just Connecticut.
Whatever the benefit to national security, these new passport rules surely benefit someone - children owed child support.
Read more in this Government Technology article: New Passport Rules Boost Connecticut Child Support Enforcement.
A guardian ad litem appointed to advocate on behalf of a 14 month old baby has recommended to the court that his mother stop breast-feeding him.
The guardian was concerned about the child ingesting medications prescribed for his mother.
The mother maintains that she researched this issue carefully and that her baby nurse and one of her son’s doctors all encouraged her to breast-feed with full knowledge of her medication regimen. The mother also sought out the input of the author of a book on medications in mother’s milk and he too approved her choice to breast-feed.
Nonetheless, the dispute over whether the mother should breast-feed will be put before a family court judge and could influence whether he will leave the mother as the baby’s primary residential custodian.
Just in case, the mother is stocking up on formula for her son.
The unusual case raises troubling issues regarding the propriety of this intrusion into the mother’s parental rights and rights to privacy.
Read more in this Atlanta Journal Constitution article: Breast-feeding debate impacts custody battle.
It has been almost fashionable for the last year or two to rail against “rampant paternity fraud” in the US. See my previous post, Paternity Fraud: How Much of It Is There Really?
So-called “rampant paternity fraud” may not be universal, however.
In Barbados, ninety-nine (99%) percent of unmarried fathers who challenge paternity reportedly are in fact the biological fathers! It is alleged that these fathers mount their challenges in bad faith, to delay the inevitable support obligation as long as possible.
Try reconciling these two extremely different portraits of the world of paternity cases …
Read more in this Barbados NationNews.com article: Fathers ‘using DNA testing as delay tactic’.
After shelling out $110,000 in child support, a man discovered after some thirty years that he was not his son’s biological father.
It turns out the boy was reportedly the product of an affair by his mother - with a man who is now wealthy.
The de facto father, a retiree on a limited income, is now suing the former family friend and the boy’s godfather.
In an surprise ruling, the NJ Supreme Court, reversed the trial and intermediate appellate courts and, in essence, ruled that it is just too bad for the divorced father. The statute of limitations has long since expired.
Central to the state high Court’s ruling in the case is that the biological father did not actively trick or defraud the de facto father. He merely never volunteered that he thought he was the biological father.
The mother broke her apparently willful silence when her son married, to warn him that he may carry the gene for a potentially deadly disease that had taken the lives of other children of the biological father.
Otherwise, the de facto father might never have learned the truth.
On the specific facts of the case, financially struggling de facto father vs. wealthy bio dad, the outcome just doesn’t sit well.
But, of course, rules of law have to apply broadly to a wide spectrum of facts. Statutes of limitations are very common in our legal system and are intended to impose finality after an appropriate interval of time.
Read more in this New Jersey Star-Ledger article: Duped ‘dad’ out of luck, court says.
In a far-reaching case, the Florida Supreme Court has held that adoption agencies must notify unmarried biological fathers that their children are going to be placed for adoption and how to register in the state’s paternity registry to protect their rights. If the father still fails to register after thirty days, his parental rights may be terminated.
A statute imposing a time limit on biological fathers to assert their rights was intended to facilitate adoptions and give adoptive parents and the baby finality.
But there have nagging questions with regard to how many biological fathers are actually aware of paternity registries, both in Florida and in other states, let alone how to register with them.
In the case before the Court, the biological father promptly filed a paternity case in court, but failed to register with Florida’s paternity registry. The father maintained that he was unaware of the registry.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court for further fact-finding.
Read more in this Citrus County Chronicle article: Court rules for unmarried adoptive [sic] fathers.
An umarried Irish father has filed an application for return of his children from England under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
According to the father, the mother took the children to England without his consent.
Because the legal rights of unmarried biological fathers appear to be narrower under Irish law than than under our law, the father is reportedly arguing that the mother’s removal of the children denied him the opportunity to seek legal guardianship of their twin boys.
The case is being closely followed in Ireland in that the facts appear to support what could become a landmark ruling under Irish law.
Read more in this United Press International article: Father’s case may be landmark legal matter.
Fifty percent of American children grow up without a father living in their household for at least part of their childhood.
Once the relationship with their mother sours, many of those dads have little to no contact with their kids.
Uninvolved dads tend not to pay child support.
Even where these dads remain connected with their children, although the kids have higher self esteem, associated with parental involvement, they still experience more adolescent difficulties.
So much for happy father’s day.
Read more in this New York City Journal article: A melancholy occasion for millions of American kids.
A Pennsylvania court has held that a sperm donor may be a “third parent” and owe a duty of support to his biological children.
The sperm donor in question had an occasional, recurring relationship with his biological offspring and voluntarily provided money to them from time to time.
The sperm donor has since passed away.
But the court nonetheless sees a continuing duty of support, which may be met from the deceased biological father’s estate.
This is an unusual fact pattern, but many anticipate action from the legislature to clarify the proposition that a child can have only two parents, who owe a duty a support.
Read more in this York Daily Record article: Pa. could add a third parent.
Father has DNA test disproving his paternity of child for whom court ordered him to pay support.
But he didn’t get it until 3 years after a Florida court entered a child support order.
For that reason, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the child support order against the Father.
The Court noted that children are not disposable, which is consistent with a long line of cases from before Florida’s new paternity fraud law.
The Court reportedly did not even mention the new paternity fraud law, under which the Father is considering pressing a new legal challenge.
Read more in this Bradenton Herald article: Man may turn to ‘paternity fraud’ law.
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently held that a child can have only one legal father. If that doesn’t sound ground-breaking, consider this.
Man and woman date. Child is conceived during relationship.
Man acknowledges paternity of child. Man and woman live together and raise child together.
Man and woman break up. Man and woman battle for custody of child in paternity case.
Woman’s former boyfriend obtains DNA test proving his biological paternity. Woman’s former boyfriend brings action to establish legal paternity of child.
What’s a court to do? Here’s what the trial court did.
On the one hand, the court refused to revoke the man’s acknowledgment of paternity and, by extension, refused to quash the man’s status as legal father.
But, on the other hand, the court also entered an order establishing the woman’s former boyfriend as the legal father of the child.
Taking the two rulings together, the court, in effect, established two different legal fathers for the boy.
If that seems illogical to you, you’re in good company. The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed, reversing and remanding the case for new trial level proceedings.
The appellate court held that the court could not establish paternity of a second legal father without first revoking the acknowledgment of paternity by the first legal father.
The case may be viewed as a victory for legal fathers over biological fathers.
But it is more properly viewed as a victory for those who have already worn the uniform of dad and stepped up to the plate for their acknowledged children, over those who have not yet done so.
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