Florida case law update: bio fathers granted standing to assert rights

Two Florida district courts issued favorable rulings for biological fathers this month. Both fathers were granted standing and a chance to assert their claim over the objection of the presumptive legal fathers.

The Second District permitted a biological father to challenge the paternity of a man on the birth certificate. The court approved of the following:

  1. bringing paternity actions in dependency cases (the rules permit it);
  2. standing of bio fathers to challenge paternity based on fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact (in this case, the mother’s fraud and the legal father’s mistake of fact);
  3. not putting any weight on a court’s identification of the parents at a shelter hearing (it’s not a paternity hearing); and
  4. recognizing prospective parents as participants when in the best interest of the children  (the statute requires it).

In re Y.R-P. (Fla. 2nd DCA 2017).

There’s nothing legally new here, but it is a nice roadmap for handling those convoluted cases where two (unmarried) men are vying for the same child.

The Fourth District addressed the issue of standing when the legal father is married to the mother in Perkins v. Simmonds (Fla. 4th DCA 2017). The Fourth rejected an absolute bar to challenging the presumption of paternity when a child is born into an intact marriage, and instead re-affirmed its prior holdings that the presumption must give way when it “outrage[s] common sense and logic.” (Not a particularly helpful formulation, but better than an inflexible bar.) In this case, the child was given the bio father’s last name, was financially supported by the bio father, and had a strong relationship with the bio father. That was more than enough to give the bio father standing to assert paternity.

These seem like good outcomes. Maybe one day we can be done with the legal concept of legitimacy and all the problems it invites.

See also:

  • Theresa Glennon, Somebody’s Child: Evaluating the Erosion of the Marital Presumption of Paternity, 102 W. Va. L. Rev. 547 (2000) (via heinonline.org)
  • David D. Meyer, Parenthood in A Time of Transition: Tensions Between Legal, Biological, and Social Conceptions of Parenthood, 54 Am. J. Comp. L. 125 (2006) (via jstor.org)
  • Sarah McGinnis, You Are Not the Father: How State Paternity Laws Protect (and Fail to Protect) the Best Interests of Children, 16 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 311, 312 (2007) (via digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu)
  • Melanie B. Jacobs, My Two Dads: Disaggregating Biological and Social Paternity, 38 Ariz. St. L.J. 809, 810 (2006) (via digitalcommons.law.msu.edu)
  • Melanie B. Jacobs, Parental Parity: Intentional Parenthood’s Promise, 64 Buff. L. Rev. 465 (2016) (via digitalcommons.law.msu.edu)
  • Melissa Murray, What’s So New About the New Illegitimacy?, 20 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 387 (2012) (via ssrn.com)
  • Leslie Joan Harris, Involving Nonresident Fathers in Dependency Cases: New Efforts, New Problems, New Solutions, 9 J.L. & Fam. Stud. 281 (2007) (via heinonline.org)

 


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