Presumption Junction: Honey, You Weren't Part of the Function - A Louisiana Mother's New Right to Contest Her Husband's Paternity

Presumption Junction: Honey, You Weren't Part of the Function1-A Louisiana Mother's New Right to Contest Her Husband's Paternity

I. Introduction

In the midst of a divorce, Kassie Cravens sought to prove that Chad, her soon-to-be ex-husband, was not the father of Jon Michael Cravens, her three-year-old son, born during the first few months of their marriage. Aware that the child's biological father desired no relationship with Jon Michael, she had refrained from filing any previous paternity action. Now though, as Mr. Cravens sued her for a divorce, seeking interim alimony and permanent legal custody of Jon Michael, she counterclaimed for custody, challenging his paternity. The trial court granted her motion for a DNA test and Mr. Cravens obliged with a sample. As Mrs. Cravens expected, the DNA results admitted into evidence did in fact exclude him as the child's biological father. But in seeking custody, Mr. Cravens maintained his status as Jon Michael's legal father. Mrs. Cravens conceded not only that Mr. Cravens was a good father, but also that it would not be in Jon Michael's best interests to sever their relationship. Entering a final divorce judgment and awarding the Cravens joint legal and physical custody, the trial court declined to hold that the DNA evidence rebutted the presumption under Alabama statutory law2 that Mr. Cravens, Mrs. Cravens's husband at the time of Jon Michael's birth, was the child's father.

The appellate court rejected Mrs. Cravens's arguments that she had standing to challenge Mr. Cravens's paternity and that the trial court erred in holding the marital presumption of paternity irrebuttable despite DNA evidence to the contrary. Because Mr. Cravens "persisted in asserting his paternity," the court said Mrs. Cravens lacked standing to challenge such paternity.3

Such were the facts of a recent Alabama case.4 The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the holding that a presumption of paternity, persistently asserted by the presumed father, outweighed scientific evidence demonstrating a high probability that Mr. Cravens was not Jon Michael's biological father.5 Considering the outcome in light of its social and legal ramifications, an illogical consequence of the decision is apparent. While the decision protects the child from being deprived of a legal father, the court held that a mother lacked standing to challenge the presumption of paternity, despite scientific evidence disproving it. A husband can render the presumption irrebuttable simply by his act of will, i.e., by persisting in asserting it. What makes the decision of the Alabama court significant is that it prohibits a wife, the mother of a child born during marriage, from severing the child's legal relationship with her husband.

The effect of such a decision in a Louisiana court would mean that Mr. Cravens will pay child support until Jon Michael reaches eighteen,6 with corresponding custody and visitation rights,7 which are entitled to constitutional protection.8 His authority as father will be subject, of course, to the limitations of the custody order, but he can continually, as the mother may, have the order modified.9 If Mrs. Cravens remarries, her new husband will need Mr. Cravens's consent to adopt.10 Additionally, the obligation that Mr. Cravens has as the father to support Jon Michael beyond the age of eighteen, although diminished, would continue until his death; Jon Michael, too, has such an obligation to his father.11

Furthermore, in Louisiana, Jon Michael would not only be an intestate heir12 of his father, but also a forced heir,13 entitled to a reserved portion of Mr. Cravens's estate until his twenty-third birthday,14 despite any will or testament of Mr. Cravens to the contrary. The decision demonstrates that one's inability to contest paternity, as well as any judgment concerning it, is an issue of enormous importance, with lifelong ramifications for Mr. and Mrs. Cravens and Jon Michael.15

Indeed, had the Cravens' divorce proceedings instead unfolded in a Louisiana court, the court would have reached a similar result, for until the summer of 2005, a mother had no legal right to challenge the marital presumption. However, as a part of the comprehensive revision of the laws on filiation passed in 2005,16 a revision significant in itself, the Louisiana Legislature created a mother's right to contest and establish the paternity of her child.17

It has thus provided a mother with a means, albeit limited, of rebutting the ma...

If you are already a vLex customer, Access Here