Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boynton Beach

It’s very common for divorcing parents to be ordered to attend a parenting class for divorcing parents.

Never-married parents may be required to attend the same class, but they frequently feel that it “doesn’t apply to them”.

Ohio’s Stark County is attempting to address that program flaw by instituting a separate class for never-married parents.

The course emphasizes communications skills and appreciating the importance of both parents to a child.

The new program provides mediators and a psychologist to educate parents on “psychological wellness for kids”.

It is hoped that the new program will benefit the growing numbers of children of unmarried parents as well as the unmarried parents themselves.

In future years, the new course will be funded through court fees.

Read more in this Stark County [OH] Press-News article: New parenting program offered to never married parents who are separating.

Mother and Father have two year old baby Daughter.

Father allegedly takes Daughter out for a walk.

And disappears.

Again.

Father is reportedly caught … in Mexico, thanks to a phone call.

Daughter is back with Mother and her fiance in Kentucky.

Father will be extradited there on charges of interference with child custody.

Mother plans to seek sole custody of Daughter, with supervision of Father’s visitation.

Mother acknowledges Father’s importance to Daughter, but hopes he seeks psychological help.

Read more in this [Laredo, TX] KGNS Pro 8 TV News article: Pro 8 News Exclusive: Mother of kidnapped girl speaks out to our Joey Horta.

Mother lives in Florida and Father lives in Ohio. Daughter is with Mother at time of events in question.

Father flies to Florida and allegedly physically collects Daughter and forces her into his car.

Father has a change of car waiting and uses second car to take Daughter to airport.

Father tries to board plane with Daughter when he is captured.

Father claims to have custody of Daughter, awarded to him by an Ohio court.

But Mother has an Order from a Florida court awarding her custody and staying the Ohio court’s order.

Conflicting custody orders from different states are typically avoided these days thanks to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, a body of laws widely adopted across the US to resolve which state has proper jurisdiction to decide custody of any particular child and mandating that other states remain hands-off.

Father is under arrest for interference with child custody.

Read more in this MS NBC article: Deputies: Ohio Dad Forces Daughter From Mom’s Tampa Home.

This case is almost as hard to follow as a sleight of hand trick.

Daughter, an American citizen, is in Mexico, with nonrelatives. That’s been the case for four years of the five year old’s life.

Her Father and Mother are US citizens in the US, although not together.

It all started when Daughter’s Mother married a Mexican man, identified him on Daughter’s birth certificate as Daughter’s father and then moved to Mexico when her new husband was deported.

Father only saw Daughter one time in her life.

But DNA testing confirmed that Father, not Mother’s husband, is Daughter’s biological father.

Mother returned from Mexico to the US for a few days, leaving Daughter behind with her husband.

And there Daughter has stayed ever since.

Mother was arrested and incarcerated.

Father was also incarcerated.

Mother and Father both agreed to give custody of Daughter to Father’s wife.

A Florida court even approved the custody agreement.

And so Father’s wife has been trying ever since to bring Daughter home to Florida.

But she’s gotten nowhere. She can’t even verify that Daughter is alive.

It turns out, Daughter is with Mother’s husband’s sister – who is fighting to keep Daughter there and has identified her as a Mexican citizen.

A hearing was finally held in Mexico.

Mother’s husband’s sister testified that Mexico was all Daughter knows and that her parents are both criminals who shouldn’t have her.

But the Mexican judge has not ruled, either way.

Allegedly because the Court was awaiting papers from the US government.

And Daughter remains in Mexico with nonrelatives.

Read more in this Ft. Myers [FL] News-Press article: Lee couple fight to get little girl back home.

Canadian billionaire Father cohabits with much younger immigrant woman, Mother, for 10 years.

They have three children together.

They are not married.

Father pays $35,000 Canadian per month in child support.

Mother wants more.

Challenging Quebec province and other Canadian law that denies property division and alimony to common law partners or mere cohabitants, Mother sues for both.

Florida law also generally precludes a cohabitant from claiming an interest in the other partner’s property or seeking alimony or support other than for children in common.

This case has generated a lot of media attention in Canada.

Read more in this Montreal CJAD NewsTalk Radio article: Quebec multi-millionaire mystery man testifies in alimony case.

Chinese Father. Israeli Mother. Son appears to be American. And home was United States.

Until Mother takes Son to Israel. And stays there. For three years.

Mother’s version of events:
Father raped her, and Son is the product of that rape. Father authorized passport and was aware of her plan to travel to Israel with Son.

2006 Court order under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction:
Son is to be returned to Father in the US.

Court order is found on Mother. Yet Mother claims not to have known about hearing.

Ironically, Mother is “caught” during a routine check having nothing to do with Son’s “missing” status.

Mother is arrested. Son is taken into protective custody.

Read more in this Israel Haaretz article: Woman stopped in routine check, held for ‘kidnapping’ child from U.S. dad.

South Dakota Mother and Father split up before 5 year old Son is born.

Couple fight over custody and child support.

Mother is awarded temporary primary custody of Son, and Father is ordered to pay monthly temporary child support of $150. Later the amount is upped to $363.

Father continues to pay $150 for the next two years though. Father blames it on cash-flow problems in his farming business.

At trial, the court dismisses the child support issues as irrelevant to custody, and awards primary custody of Son to Father. Further, the Father manages to clear his arrearages by the second day of the trial.

But the main reason the trial court awards primary custody to Father is that Mother is allegedly alienating Son from Father.

On appeal, however, South Dakota’s highest court appears to second-guess the trial court’s factual findings, specifically rejecting the trial court’s finding that Mother has alienated Son from Father.

The South Dakota Supreme Court goes on to conclude that it would not be in Son’s best interests for Father to have primary custody, because Father hasn’t adequately provided for Son financially when Son was living with Mother.

Two judges dissent. The dissent seems more consistent with legal trends beyond South Dakota’s borders.

Read more in this Sioux City [IA] Journal article: Supreme Court overturns child custody ruling.

Unmarried New Orleans Mother and Father separate.

Two year old Son lives with Mother.

Father chooses to have no contact with Son.

Court reportedly orders Father to pay child support arrearages of $4,000 for Son.

Father suddenly decides to exercise visitation with Son.

Father allegedly murders Son and leaves his body in a playground.

Father calls police and claims that Son has been abducted, although his story keeps changing.

Father is arrested on a charge of first degree murder.

Father confesses, saying he’s “sorry”, but that he has been under “a lot of pressure” because he doesn’t want to pay child support.

Read more in this New Orleans Times-Picayune article: Father kills 2-year-old son, dumps him in park, police say.

Ohio Mother and Father have affair and conceive Baby.

Relationship apparently breaks up.

After Baby’s birth, Mother leaves Baby at a church in June without Father’s knowledge.

This abandonment does not comply with Ohio’s safe havens laws.

Mother is charged with child endangerment.

Baby, and Mother’s three other children, are all placed in foster care.

DNA test later determines paternity of Father in November.

Father and his family want Baby with them.

Court orders visitation with Baby at Father’s home.

Court adopts plan for Father to have custody of Baby before Christmas, with final hearing to take place in January.

Read more in this Mansfield [OH] News Journal article: Dad wins custody of baby left in Bellville and this WFMD News article: Mother Of Abandoned Baby Charged.

Arkansas man (Father) and woman (Mother) obtain marriage license and have a church wedding. For whatever the reason, the minister doesn’t sign the license and it is not filed with the county.

Mother and Father have Baby. Mother and Father break up eight years after wedding.

Mother files action to establish paternity of Baby.

Father ignores paternity case. Court rules that Father is the father of Baby and orders visitation and child support.

A few months later, the Mother marries another man, without obtaining a divorce from the Father of Baby.

Mother and her new Husband pursue stepparent adoption of Baby by Husband.

Father challenges adoption.

The trial court denies Father’s challenge, concluding that Father and Mother were never legally married because the marriage license was not filed and that Father had abandoned Baby by not paying support.

The intermediate appellate court reversed the adoption, finding that Father and Mother had been legally married, despite the licensing deficiency.

The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the default trial court judgment ruling that Mother and Father had never been married was binding, as well as the ruling determining that Father is the Father of Baby. The stepparent adoption was upheld.

Other states have come out differently on this issue.

Read more in this Arkansas News article: High court reverses ruling that ceremony, not license, validates marriage.

Unmarried Japanese citizen and foreign national conceive and have Baby in Japan.

Is the Baby a Japanese citizen?

Until recently, the answer would be no – unless the Japanese father acknowledges the Baby before its birth – or the father marries the mother before the Baby’s twentieth birthday.

But under a new Japanese law, if the Japanese father recognizes the Baby even after its birth, the Baby may apply for Japanese citizenship until just before its twentieth birthday.

Those most impacted?

The children of Filipino women who have relocated to Japan to get work.

The Japanese remain concerned about the possibility of paternity fraud.

The children of Japanese women with foreign men have fared better, even without a special statute. They have been allowed citizenship since 1985.

Read more in this Reuters UK article: Japan opens nationality to kids born out of wedlock.

Texas had a higher rate of teen pregnancy than the national average. And unmarried fathers often weren’t involved with their kids.

In an effort to remedy both problems, Texas added Parenting and Paternity Awareness to its high school curriculum this year.

In the class, kids learn how to calculate Texas child support and to anticipate the cost of raising children.

They also cover some basic family law legal terminology. And the father’s role in parenting.

Will it reduce teen pregnancy? And increase teen responsibility for out of wedlock babies?

Only time will tell …

Read more in this San Antonio News article: Teens learn what it means to have a child.

Sweden just may win the prize. In at least one Swedish case, establishing paternity takes 14 years … and counting.

In Sweden, an unmarried mother is supposed to report her out-of-wedlock child’s birth to a social welfare administrative board (Board), so that it can determine the child’s father and implement child support.

The process of establishing paternity in Sweden is supposed to be completed within one year after the mother’s report.

But in this particular case, the father still has not been determined 14 years after the mother’s report.

As a result, the Board is now under review (and attack).

The Board’s defenses are that the father has been hard to get a hold off – and the mother has moved around a bit.

The more likely culprit may be that it appears that the case was mistakenly “archived” during a restructuring of storage of government records.

In the same area of Sweden, however, there are fourteen other open cases that have not been resolved within a year.

By comparison, Florida courts look positively speedy. Our typical paternity case is concluded in well under 14 years.

Read more in this Sweden’s Local article: Paternity test takes 14 years.

Mother and two Children all live in North Dakota, as does Father.

Mother has custody and Father has visitation.

Mother is found in contempt of court for denying Father access to Children.

Mother absconds with Children to Indian reservation in South Dakota – and fails to appear at modification of custody hearing in North Dakota.

North Dakota Court awards custody of Children to Father.

Mother appeals North Dakota modification of custody.

North Dakota Supreme Court dismisses Mother’s appeal under the “fugitive dismissal rule”.

It is generally not helpful to one’s cause to simply not show up for a trial. Nor to abscond with children in an attempt to circumvent an existing court order or an anticipated court order.

Read more in this [Bismarck, ND] KFYR-TV 5 article: ND Supreme Court Bars Appeal in Child Custody Case.

Idaho Father and Mother get pregnant. Father and Mother get engaged.

Six months into the pregnancy, Mother calls the engagement off, breaks up with Father and cuts Father out of her life completely.

Father claims to contact state department of health and welfare to find out how to protect his rights to his child. They supposedly tell him he must wait until baby is born.

Next thing Father knows, he hears Mother’s baby has been adopted. Without a word to him.

Father took his case all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court. But he lost.

Because he didn’t timely register with Idaho’s Putative Father Registry. Because he says he didn’t know about it.

A number of states, including Florida, now have a putative father registry scheme and a requirement to timely register with it to assert parental rights and block any adoption.

Despite Father’s wishes, Mother says it was best for the baby to put it up for adoption.

Read more in this [Pocatello, ID] KPVI TV 6 news article: Man Loses Son in Adoption Without His Consent.

Brazilian Mother and Chinese Father have Child together in Brazil. They all live in Brazil.

Until Mother dies when Child is about 4 years old. Then Father takes Child with him back to China.

Then Father dies. Child’s Chinese uncle takes him in.

A year or two later, Child’s Grandmother in Brazil sues for custody of Child. Grandmother wins.

Child goes back to Brazil with elderly Grandmother in 2004. And now Grandmother dies.

And now the Brazilian child welfare agency has placed Child into foster care, presumably because he has no other living relatives in Brazil.

But he still has living relatives in China. They are considering seeking custody of Child again.

Read more in this Tapei Times article: Iruan Ergui Wu now in foster care.

A 22 year old Minnesota man has been convicted of strangling his 19 year old ex-girlfriend … in front of their 2 year old son.

For his murder weapon, the man constructed a noose from shoelaces – and allegedly killed her because the young woman was a half an hour late picking him up for a shopping excursion.

After she was dead, he set fire to her body in her car.

At the time of the murder, the man was in the process of finishing out his probation for a previous assault on the young woman.

Under the terms of his probation, he was required to attend anger management … and avoid contact with the young woman.

It is unclear whether he attended the anger management …

The man now faces multiple life sentences.

The couple’s baby boy is now staying with his mother’s mother and her husband. The boy’s maternal grandparents are pursuing custody of the child and hope to adopt him.

The poor toddler sees a psychologist for night terrors.

Read more in this Twin Cities [MN] Pioneer Press article: Man guilty of murder for strangling ex-girlfriend with shoelace.

Nineteen year old woman (Mother) and a fifteen year old boy (Boy) have sex, and a Baby is conceived.

The Mother is under a grand jury indictment for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, which could lead to incarceration for a year and one-half as well as having to register as a sex offender.

Mother got acquainted with Boy and moved in with the Boy’s family after complaining of abuse by her stepfather.

Mother’s stepfather was allegedly convicted of domestic violence against Mother’s minor sister, specifically, striking, choking and pointing a gun at her.

For now, Mother and Baby are living with the Mother’s family, including the stepfather.

The Boy’s parents are seeking to obtain custody of the Baby due to the asserted unfitness of Mother and reported abusiveness of Mother’s stepfather.

In the meantime, an Ohio Family Court has ordered the Boy-victim to pay Mother $50 per month in child support.

It is unknown whether the amount of child support was based on an afterschool job or on the Boy’s allowance from his parents.

The Boy was also awarded seven hours per week of visitation with the Baby.

Read more in this Columbus Dispatch article: Boy’s Parents Sue to Get His Baby From Mom, 21.

Japan may be a modern country technologically. But not legally, according to reports.

In approximately 80% of divorce and paternity cases in Japan, the father loses all parental rights, excluding the “right” to pay child support. In the remainder of cases, it is the mother who is stripped of her parental rights.

Visitation? That’s not a concept that is part of Japanese family law.

When parents break up, the “other parent” fades out of their children’s lives. Another family member may even adopt their children without their consent.

How does a parent win custody in Japan?

One alleged way to get a leg up on a custody award in Japan is to abscond with the child, even across international boundaries.

Statistics suggest that some 10,000 children in Japan have no access to their foreign parent.

Japan is a not yet a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Although there are rumors that it will adopt the convention in a couple of more years, one has to wonder whether it will really matter.

Japanese family law is in need of a paradigm shift. Without that, change may be a pipe dream.

Japan did sign the Convention of New York, the purpose of which was to assure children access to both parents. It didn’t.

Family law activists in Japan are lobbying for a long overdue overhaul of the Japanese family law.

Read more in this Singapore Straits Times article: Over 160,000 Japanese children split from one parents every year.

Seven year old Florida girl. Father and Mother were never married, didn’t even date.

Since girl’s birth, Father and Mother have taken turns reporting one another to social services and seeking restraining orders against each other.

Each parent has refused to return the child after timesharing with her.

Both parents have tried to inject others into the middle of their battle, including the girl’s preschool.

The Court file was stuffed with hundreds of pages. Then things really got going.

The Mother reportedly withheld visitation one time too many – and was threatened by a judge with incarceration if she pulled that one more time.

And then the girl turned up for visitation with her Father with bruises on her face.

One of the Mother’s boyfriends subsequently pleaded no contest to the charge of battery on the girl. He was sentenced only to probation, but was ordered not to have any further contact with the girl.

Yet the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) kept returning the girl from her Father to her Mother. Despite cases like this until that point, Florida’s custody laws are gender-neutral; the law does not favor either parent based solely on their sex.

Then things really escalated in the case. The Mother reportedly accused the Father of sexually abusing the girl.

At which point DCF instituted dependency proceedings, to terminate the Father’s parental rights permanently.

The Court appointed a guardian ad litem (lay advocate)(“GAL”) for the girl in the case. Interestingly, the GAL did not buy the Mother’s version of events.

But still DCF and the Mother proceeded to trial. But the Mother changed her testimony mid-stream.

In the end, the Court did not terminate the Father’s parental rights. Probably not so surprising.

But what happened next was …

In a hearing on whether to terminate the Father’s parental rights, the Court swapped the stakes and awarded the Father primary residential custody of the girl! Over DCF’s objections.

Further, the Court ordered the Mother to undergo counseling and awarded her only supervised visitation with the girl.

It turns out that the abuse allegations were inspired by the Father’s application of medicine for the girl’s recurring urinary tract infections.

The Father’s attorney criticized DCF for not doing a thorough investigation into the allegations in the first place. According to him, the girl was coached, later recanted and was then scolded for recanting.

The girl has been living with her Father and his wife over a year now. She is reportedly thriving there.

The Mother has not seen the girl since the Court’s ruling – although Father has reportedly tried to facilitate same.

Mother filed an appeal of the ruling, but it was dismissed. Mother was not represented by counsel at the hearing, because she intended it to be “her hearing”, to terminate Father’s parental rights.

Her appeal was based on the premise that she should have been afforded the opportunity to retain counsel when the hearing morphed into Father’s modification of custody hearing.

But, when you play with fire, you have to expect that you may get burned …

Meanwhile, the Father plans to sue DCF for its negligence, impliedly arising from bias against fathers. He has since become a fathers’ rights advocate.

Dads can win custody of kids, sometimes even when they really don’t go looking for it.

Read more in this Lakeland Ledger article: Custody Case Opens a Window on Family Court.

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.

Read more in this Michigan Lawyers Weekly article: order of filiation cannot be granted when acknowledgment of parentage already exists, regardless of who the biological father is.