John's point, that the law presumes the child of a marriage to be the child of the father, is an important one that frequently gets overlooked.
The only person who can challenge the child's paternity in that situation is the husband of the mother. The mother cannot challenge the paternity of the husband, and the lover cannot challenge the paternity of the husband. Well, not if the couple is living together and the husband allows his name to be put on the birth certificate and the mother does, too. In that case, there is a presumption which, to my certain knowledge in Virginia cannot be put aside. I had a case like that a couple of years ago, where I represented the husband in a custody fight. He got custody of all the children, including the one he knew was conceived outside the marriage but raised as his own anyway.
It's the fact that he knew that the child wasn't his but raised it as his anyway which creates a presumption which even he can't get around, even if he wanted to.
Flip that around. The parents are not married, the man dies, and the child wants to establish paternity. How do you establish paternity with a corpse? The blood test statutes deal with the living.
If the father acknowledged the child as his during his lifetime, that may be a different matter, but it's still something which has to be proven. If someone else's name is on the birth certificate, probably impossible. So, no inheritance, no social security, no insurance. Nothing.
In Virginia, they won't put a man's name on the birth certificate without his approval. I don't know about other states. |
