Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
ight hoops, and is not listed on a notarized acknowledgment of paternity. Guardians ad litem<br />
MUST be appointed first to represent the child’s interests, and I suspect their findings and<br />
recommendations to the court will be given deference.<br />
Query: does the court consider what is in the “best interests” of the minor child? What is<br />
in the best interests? On one level, it would be clear that a child with two parents would stand in<br />
better position financially than the same child with only one parent. This would include the right<br />
to receive dependent social security benefits should the legally recognized father become<br />
disabled or die during the children’s minority. Also the child would have the right to inherit from<br />
any estate of the father, and possible from his extended family. These are only the financial<br />
benefits that could accrue to the child. I will leave it to others to discuss the emotional and<br />
societal bonds and benefits the child would potentially receive from having a father. Clearly<br />
society and the courts are concerned with other than a pure biological relationship between<br />
child and father. Otherwise we would not allow adoptions or anonymous artificial insemination.<br />
The Unicameral has opened a Pandora’s Box with this legislation, in my opinion. A howitzer<br />
has been sent in to swat a fly. I think it is clear that the law already afforded<br />
adequate legal protections to men named in lawsuits to be biological parents.<br />
You snooze, you lose. That seems no longer to be <strong>Nebraska</strong> law, however.<br />
Cases pre-existing the passage of LB 1014 (Unicameral 2008)<br />
include:<br />
Day vs. Heller, 264 Neb. 934, 653 N.W.2d 475 (2002)<br />
Facts: Wife became pregnant during marriage with child of boyfriend.<br />
Wife held out pregnancy and child born to her as being husband’s child.<br />
Parties divorced 4 years after birth of child. Husband was ordered to pay<br />
child support and granted visitation. Eight years of child support payments<br />
and visitations later ex-husband discovered that he was not biological<br />
father of child. He was pissed, and sued.<br />
Question Presented: Will <strong>Nebraska</strong> recognize a tort or assumpsit cause of<br />
action against a mother for her misrepresentation and concealment of biological<br />
fatherhood?<br />
Holding: In effect, ex-husband is saying, “He is not my son; I want my money<br />
back.” “[A] tort or assumpsit claim that seeks to . recover for the creation of a<br />
parent-child relationship has the. Effect of saying “I wish you had never been<br />
born” to a child who, before the revelation of biological fatherhood, was under the<br />
impression that he or she had a father who loved him or her.” “We decline to<br />
allow a party to use a tort or assumpsit claim as a means for sending or<br />
reinforcing this message.“<br />
Ex-husband’s tort and assumpsit causes of action are contrary to public policy.<br />
“We do not believe that having a close and loving relationship “imposed” on one<br />
because of a misrepresentation of biological fatherhood is the type of “harm” that<br />
the law should attempt to remedy.<br />
It does not lie within the power of any judicial system to remedy all human<br />
wrongs, and to attempt to correct such wrongs or give relief from their effects<br />
may do more social damage than if the law leaves them alone. (citation omitted)<br />
The court does not address ex-husbands res judicata and collateral estoppel<br />
arguments.<br />
- 54 -