With the refinement of deoxyribonucleic (DNA) testing in the past decade, the determination of paternity of a child is now virtually absolute; litigation involving the putative father is understandably emotionally charged for so many reasons.
The primary consideration must always be the child; who will be responsible for fatherly nurturing and support? The mother is always concerned that she may be left alone in her parental obligations if the father cannot be identified. And, of course, there is the alleged father who may wish to assume all parental obligations but only if the child is biologically his. Finally, there is the state which wants the father identified so that the child will not become a ward.
You would think, therefore, that the advent of DNA testing and the certainty that accompanies it would bring cheers from all parties and put most of the litigation to rest. You might be wrong. Strangely enough, there are circumstances where our courts have ruled that even in the face of a DNA determination that a man is the father of a child in question, public policy dictates that the biological father must be denied the privileges and obligations of paternity.
Before DNA testing became routine, there was a presumption at law that where a family is intact at the time the paternity is challenged, the husband’s paternity is assumed. And the presumption has been virtually irrebutable; i.e., irrespective of virtually conclusive evidence to the contrary, there is an overriding public policy consideration which favors the preservation of a family unit.
In a recent Dauphin County case (Thompson v. Hoover) a couple had been married for four years prior to a child’s birth but had separated for a six-month period during which the mother became pregnant; they reconciled prior to the birth and were living together at the time the litigation was commenced by Mr. Thompson (not the husband) who had been intimate with the mother during the period of conception and was claiming to be the child’s biological father.
The court rejected all evidence of Mr. Thompson, saying. “. . .third parties should not be allowed to attack the integrity of a functioning marital unit.” Further, “. . . it has been held that . . . no amount of evidence can overcome the presumption: where the family (mother, child and husband/presumptive father) remains intact at the time the husband’s paternity is challenged, the presumption is irrebutable.” (Emphases supplied.)
On the other hand the Pennsylvania Superior Court in a February 2006 case (Gebler v. Gatti) has ruled that where a woman fraudulently induced a man into believing that he was the father of her child (by concealing her intimate relationship with another man at the time the child was conceived) for over two years, the man would be permitted to establish by negative DNA results that he was not the father. He was relieved of any further obligations of support by the ruling. Of course in this circumstance the mother and alleged father were not living together, and there was no family unit to be preserved. Still, although the ruling alleviated the alleged father of support obligations (which now fall on the mother, and possibly the State ultimately), it is difficult to dispute the result.
Obviously, DNA testing will be invaluable in many paternity actions because it will eliminate uncertainty. But because public policies sometimes collide, results may not always be as absolute and predictable as they might seem.
— Ken Butera