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Man in Detroit must pay $30k for a kid that isn't his.
jungleroomx
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
http://kfor.com/2015/02/18/dad-by-default-judge-makes-surprising-ruling-in-child-support-case/
Long story short: This man is going to have to pay 30K for a kid that was never his, and he has proven through paternal testing he isn't the childs biological father.
There is a law where he had a certain amount of time to file an opposition to him being declared the parent. Why the hell would he even have to oppose something when it wasn't even proven he was the childs father to begin with?
Cherry on top: The biological father has been in the kids life.
Am I missing something here? Or is this just a gross misappropriation of applicable laws and the Judge is being kind of a moron?
Long story short: This man is going to have to pay 30K for a kid that was never his, and he has proven through paternal testing he isn't the childs biological father.
There is a law where he had a certain amount of time to file an opposition to him being declared the parent. Why the hell would he even have to oppose something when it wasn't even proven he was the childs father to begin with?
Cherry on top: The biological father has been in the kids life.
Am I missing something here? Or is this just a gross misappropriation of applicable laws and the Judge is being kind of a moron?
+4
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That... should not be legal. In any way. A person shouldn't need to name a second parent to get welfare assistance for their child, they shouldn't be able to name someone who isn't also claiming to be the parent, and welfare most definitely should not be tied to a single other individual paying.
The real issue is that the state requires single mothers seeking aid to provide the name of the father (whom the state, not the mother, pursues for reimbursement for the aid.) It's an absolutely asinine and punitive system.
In short: US family law be fucked up.
Welcome to the Wonderful Asinine World Of American Family Law.
If Snopes is correct, then Alexander initially agreed to be listed as the father. He done goofed.
The state has to ensure that the welfare assistance is, in fact, necessary. They do this, in part, by checking the financial status of both parents. Regardless of your stance on single mothers and female independence, it makes sense to ensure that neither parent can provide financial assistance before the state starts dispensing checks.
Having it be a requirement even when it's not certain or unknown is nonsense.
So if someone lists you as the father of their child without your knowledge, you're just shit out of luck? Even if you aren't the biological father and can prove it?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
When the paternity claim is filed (prior to approval), the individual listed as the father is notified. They have X days to dispute the claim.
This situation is not nearly as absurd as some people choose to portray it.
It looks like Snopes is basing that assumption off of one news article that makes that statement, but I can't find any others that corroborate it.
no, it really is pretty absurd
depending on the state, they just send a letter
if you moved or whatever and the state doesn't have your current address, welp you're financially obligated to support a child for 18 years
paternity challenges shouldn't have an expiration date
At first blush, that makes it not nearly as absurd.
But then one should remember the many stories of how mailing addresses don't get properly updated in departmental files even though the citizen went through all the proper steps, or it gets mailed to a completely wrong address by mistake, or the letter gets lost in the mail, etc.
And many times a city won't bother to send more than one notice for these kinds of things because they love collecting additional court fees.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
You never know when some random person you know is going to claim you as the father when asking for welfare assistance.
There are some miscarriages of justice, but not nearly as many as the MRA crowd wants you to believe. If you ignore a summons and act like a deadbeat, it shouldn't matter years later when you find out 'whew, it wasn't me after all'.
In every other aspect of law, if you don't show and defend yourself, you lose the case and are on the hook. Fail to show for a lawsuit or divorce? They get what they want. Should be the same thing here and being delinquent should be a tough shit, you had your chance thing.
Now if the process server lied about servi NH papers or something, that may be a different story...but simply ignoring repeated notifications isn't an excuse.
You may be innocent, but still don't skip on bail.
Meh, I agree with some parts of that, but in general family law as regards child support does kinda fuck some people over. Men in particular. It's just the nature of the best.
My favorite are states where you have like ninety days to figure out if your wife was cheating on you, or any kids she had are yours for eighteen years, regardless of paternity. I mean, we can go 'round and 'round about whether a father should be able to abdicate responsibility for a kid after years and years (and whether he's an asshole, even if you allow it)...but months? That's a ridiculously short period. There's absolutely no reason for it, other than the fact that we'd much rather put the child's not-father on the hook for the cash than the taxpayer, because fuck social safety nets. Fuck them in their stupid welfare-sucking faces.
What? :?
How is the mother in this case being "railroaded by the system" exactly? Her being "forced to make something up" is her getting railroaded? Except she wasn't forced to make something up. She was, however, forced to declare the name of the father, but instead knowingly lied and named a man she knew couldn't be the father. She gets to get away with lying about paternity and then having the state enforce that lie by putting a gun to the not-father's head to force payment. If he doesn't pay, he goes to jail. Sounds like he's the one being railroaded here.
Whereas the mother is benefiting from the system raildroading somebody else because "hey, she and her child gotta eat."
- Terence McKenna
There is so much wrong with this. Renouncing all claim to the child is irrelevant, since child support isn't some fee to pay so you have a say in his/her life (depending on custody arrangements, you might not have much claims/rights to the child anyways). If I renounce my parental right to a child, doesn't make a bit of difference when it comes time to feed and clothe the child.
He didn't knock her up.
This is in response to Astaereth, not the OP.
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Sorry if it wasn't clear, it was a sarcastic response to @Astaereth and his goosery.
Yes, actually. In fact, a women can duck obligation of child support by renouncing all claim on the child post-birth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law
A women can drop off an infant at the local police station/fire department/hospital surrendering her parental rights and incurring no further financial obligation to the child (leaving that burden on the taxpayer). So women are perfectly free to give up parental rights and the incurred financial expense. Men, not so much.
- Terence McKenna
Safe haven laws apply equally to both parties. If the mother gives the child up and the father takes custody, the mother would then be on the hook for child support. Depends on the state of course, but generally it's not a ree pass.
Safe haven is about ensuring a parent can give a child up without being charged with neglect, not to abdicate all responsibilities.
It is different in both cases if a third party chooses to adopt. But then the adopting party assumes all rights and responsibilities so it's not exactly comparable. A comparable situation to that would be the quite common situation where the custodial parent chooses not to pursue child support. Which if we are talking about sheer numbers happens to benefit far more men then supposedly get screwed by getting 'railroaded' into paying for kids that aren't thEirs.
There are problems with American family law, but most of the arguments and issues that MRA comes up with aren't really that. It's more the disparity - that's getting better - in outcomes of custody disputes.
Shit be fucked up, yo.
wxyz.com/news/judge-says-man-must-pay-30k-in-child-support-for-kid-who-is-not-his
Here's the article from the local news - the article from some random station in Oklahoma seems to leave out a lot of important details that WXYZ includes in their article.
Even if the process server lied, Carnell knew of this in the early 90's and waited 25 years to challenge this case in court. That seems to be the only official factthat's not coming from Carnell or his attorney.
The article itself acknowledges that aside from statements made by the judge in open court of the media misrepresenting the facts of this case, officials involved with this case have not been able to provide interviews and their reporting is based on a summary of the case.
I'm not going to say that this case isn't a miscarriage of justice, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that someone who waits 25 years to challenge a court's decision gave up their opportunity. We aren't talking a month past the deadline or something, after he was made well aware of the case, he knowingly waited a quarter century. The reason these deadlines exist is because it's almost impossible to determine facts when something happened that long ago.
He didn't respond, the case defaulted, he didn't file a motion in a timely manner when he was made aware of the outcome. While I am sympathetic that he may not have had the resources at the time to challenge the case, but that's not what people are getting worked up about here. That is an issue for a whole separate thread, and a different battle than the MRA 'crafty women makes man pay child support' fight.
Perhaps shit be less fucked up than I initially assumed.
Still, I feel for the guy.
That is just absurd.
The man has an 8th grade education and had no money for a lawyer. He had been relying on Friend of the Court assistance and they apparently never told him he needed to file the motion (he claims to have told every FotC he dealt with and every judge of the situation, and the documents provided to the station don't seem to contradict it as the reporter never mentioned such in the article)
In addition, it appears that he needed to file the paperwork within 3 years of the child's birth. We don't know when the child was born, just "late 80s," and he was informed in 1991. It's possible by the time he was informed it was too late.
But I'll admit I have my doubts about the legitimacy of automatically ruling against someone just because they failed to properly cross their T's and dot their I's, especially when it turns out the claim against them is false.
And I have no trouble at all believing that he was consistently poorly informed as to what steps he needed to take to resolve the issue if he didn't have a good lawyer, though that's just speculation on my part.
I might say that this is a good example of why a right to counsel should extend past criminal matters, even if you need to means test it. Not that I'd necessarily trust a public attorney to give the case their all, but with that much on the line he should have had a competent attorney telling him clearly what needed to happen, and ensuring it did.
I'll agree up front that this issue gets exaggerated by the MRA crowd. But when courts decide that kids who cannot legally consent to sex are still on the hook for child support to their convicted statutory rapist? When a husband who can prove non paternity before the kid even learns to walk is still liable? When welfare benefits require a male name on the birth certificate, and don't much care whose?
This is evidence of a system that is much more concerned with finding a man to pay...any man...because heaven forbid we place any burden on the taxpayers to provide that safety net. Not when we've got...that guy over there? These are edge cases, but they're edge cases that needn't exist.
Isn't this literally paternity fraud? I mean, I'm not blaming the woman, the rule that you have to name a father kinda ties her hands, but at the end of the day, it's fraud, isn't it?
I did a google search on this dude's name and found this article:
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/recent-articles?id=22163
No idea what sort of organization the NPO or "National Family Justice Association" at first glance, but this quote seems like it can't be right:
Man, this is a hazy area. So she knows she's intentionally lying... But she can't get support without doing so... Eugh. What a horrible situation.
Um. 'And she decides to raise the child.' Because she can have it adopted or just straight up leave at the hospital and then it doesn't have to prevent her from leading the life she wants.
And that is a very good thing.
It is basically the state's problem. We suck. People have unwanted pregnancies because we don't educate them. They keep children cause? Who knows?
Kids need to be raised in not poverty and their parents need to not be financially crippled.
Butbutbut people aren't responsible and people might abuse the system. WIC/childrens services spending is on par with what? NASA? The multiplier effect of child welfare spending is pretty decent, iirc.
Meh.
Especially if the clerk lied about it.
There isn't some great injustice to be had by going "well you're not the father, and you're contesting parenthood, and it appears you have pretty valid reasons to why so, and extenuating circumstances to being issued a summons here. We should probably grant this."
There's literally no reason we can't do this. There's no precedent to be set that will allow deadbeat fathers to skirt support here by this.
Family law is royally fucked up in the US as it stands. It's getting better, but still terrible. I wish I could agree that mothers are chased after for child support, but in most cases they're not. I'm having trouble locating the exact % but it's in the ballpark of 10 vs 80 for mothers and fathers who are paying child support who should be.
To be honest, the best solution is to not give a fuck who either parent is. If a person, no matter what age, needs welfare or social help, we give it to them, full stop.