Man owes child support, child not his

[OneTimeSBX]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/11/pat...ses/index.html

this is not the first time i have seen this happen...This Fl man owes 10k for a child that is not his. even the paternity test proves he is not the father, but the courts are insisting he pay since he missed a deadline to contest it.

what do you all think? is it fair to make a man pay child support for a child who is not biologically his, assuming he has not adopted the child or any other odd circumstances...

This is ridiculous. I can't believe any judge would allow such a thing as a result of a technicality.

My step-father divorced his first wife years ago but continued to pay child support for the last two of his four children. He had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't his (their physical traits were kinda obvious), so he finally got a paternity test done. By the time the tests and court crap were done, both children were already adults. Still, the court made his evil ex-wife pay him back for all the years of child support he paid.

He still loves the children as his own and provides for them as much as he can still, but his ex-wife knew that my step-dad wasn't the father all that time. Turns out she was having an affair with another guy for 10 years while they were married (the kids are 7 yrs. apart) and still she made my step-dad pay $$$. What a bitch.

[Drolefille]

It's not that unusual for judges to enforce child support, usually the welfare of the child is cited as a reason. It's not fair to the fathers at all, but there's unequal treatment in family court for mothers and fathers.

[Kevin]

It sounds as if we're getting this report in the middle of the case.

[UGAalum94]

Maybe we're at the point as a society at which part of the child support legal paperwork should require a DNA test.

I don't think men should be required to pay child support for a child who isn't theirs, and in cases where the mother knows the kid isn't his, I think she should have to pay it back and face fraud charges.

(You'd think any women would have the decency figure out definitively who the father is, but I suspect in some cases, she really does think that man paying is the father.)

I do think there's a little danger in courts not assuming that the husband is the father of a wife's baby*, but when there is no marriage or there's a divorce with support ordered, it's worth doing a test.

*You could get into some weird stuff with estates. Would every heir need to prove that he or she was biologically the offspring of a deceased man to receive an inheritance? You'd also have to use a different standard, obviously, for adopted children. The man shouldn't be allowed to shift the financial burden on to the mom if he elected to adopt the kid despite neither of them being biologically related.

[Rudey]

Personally, I'd shoot the judge if I was him. And then ask the court to make another man spend time in jail instead of me.

-Rudey

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

Maybe we're at the point as a society at which part of the child support legal paperwork should require a DNA test.

Sadly, I think you're right. Of course, it will absolutely kill the Montel circuit.