DNA Testing Won’t Necessarily Spare a Payor From Accumulated Arrears on a Child Support Order | Janet Langjahr's Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law

Texas Man has been paying child support through garnishment of his pay for thirteen years. He is still delinquent by $21,000 though.

Man does not have any relationship with the child for whom he is paying support. No contact or communication whatsoever.

There’s a reason for that though. Man is not the child’s father.

DNA testing confirms what the child’s mother admitted in a letter to the Texas family court … after designating Man as the father on her child’s birth certificate.

The state of Texas apparently concedes that Man should not be obligated to pay future child support … or any additional child support after the date the DNA test was done and furnished to the court.

But it isn’t quite as agreeable about the accumulated arrears up until that point. Those it insists that Man must still pay.

This comes up often enough that it is reportedly stated on the Texas Attorney General’s child support website.

Whatever else, cases like this should drive home the point that 1) it is never a good idea to ignore communications from the family court regarding a child support (or any other) case pending before it in which you are named as a defendant and 2) and if there is any question whatsoever about paternity, the time to have a DNA test is when the original child support case is heard.