Opinion ID: 1582059
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Heading: Effect of Illegitimacy.

Text: Showing she is not the daughter of Leslie Plants, of course, does not establish Lorena's right to inherit from Harold Hawk. She must establish (1) that she is the daughter of Harold Hawk and (2) either that she was openly and notoriously recognized by him as his daughter, Iowa Code section 633.222, or legitimatized by the marriage of Hawk and her mother. Iowa Code § 595.18. A. Evidence of Hawk's paternity. A showing of paternity requires only a preponderance of the evidence. Forman v. Wilcox, 305 N.W.2d 703, 704 (Iowa 1981); Brown v. Middleton, 259 Iowa 1140, 1142, 147 N.W.2d 40, 41 (1966); Kuhns, 258 Iowa at 1276-77, 141 N.W.2d at 926-27; Spears v. Veasley, 239 Iowa 1185, 1186-87, 34 N.W.2d 185, 186 (1948). The blood grouping tests of the type showing nonpaternity of Leslie Plants are of no help in resolving this issue; no sample of Hawk's blood was available for analysis. We must look to other evidence on that question. While other evidence, including photographs, lend support to Lorena's claim, we believe the most compelling is the testimony of Lorena's mother that Hawk was the father. While the trial court's findings are entitled to weight, see Forman, 305 N.W.2d at 704, especially since it had a better opportunity to weight the credibility of witnesses, we take a different view of the evidence. Nancy Hawk is obviously in the best position to know who the father of her child was. It is true she had earlier demanded child support from Plants on the ground Lorena was his daughter, but the blood test showed that was not the case. And, while it is also true, there was speculation at the trial that other men had been seeing Nancy at the time Lorena was conceived, there was no evidence as to who they were, or the extent of their relationship with her. Moreover, while the trial court found Nancy to be motivated by a misguided sense of motherly protectiveness in testifying to Hawk's paternity, we note that she stood to gain nothing financially from it, and in fact, acted against her own interests when she testified to this illicit relationship. Upon examination of the whole record, we conclude that a preponderance of the evidence supports Lorena's claim that Harold Hawk was her father. B. The effect of the marriage. Following Nancy's divorce from Plants, she moved in with Hawk, who was also divorced, and the two began a common-law marriage. No one disputes that the parties were legally married. See In re Marriage of Winegard, 278 N.W.2d 505, 510-11 (Iowa 1979) (recognizing common law marriages in Iowa). Assuming, as we have found, that the presumption of legitimacy has been rebutted and Hawk's paternity is established, the issue presented is whether the common law marriage of Hawk and Nancy legitimatize Lorena under Iowa Code section 595.18, which provides: Illegitimate children become legitimate by the subsequent marriage of their parents. Children born of a marriage in violation of section[s] 595.3 [license provisions] or 595.19 [void marriages] are legitimate. These plaintiffs contend, and the trial court held, that this section is inapplicable because it applies only to an illegitimate child, which Lorena was not, and only if Lorena proves Hawk was her father, which she failed to do. We have, of course, resolved those issues adversely to the plaintiffs. Lorena was legitimatized by the common law marriage, under section 595.18. Other courts addressing this issue under similar statutes agree. See, e.g., In re Succession of Mitchell, 323 So.2d 451 (La.1975); Sacks v. Sacks, 267 So.2d 73 (Fla.1972) (birth made legitimate by common law marriage), Robinson v. Ruprecht, 191 Ill. 424, 61 N.E. 631 (1901); Annot., Legitimation by Marriage to Natural Father, 80 A.L.R.3d 219 (1977). We conclude that Lorena has established her right to share in the estate of Harold Hawk and accordingly reverse the trial court. REVERSED.