Opinion ID: 1788015
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unconstitutional Statute of Limitations

Text: [¶ 8.] The United States Supreme Court in Clark v. Jeter applied the intermediate scrutiny standard to decide whether a paternity statute that treated illegitimate children differently than it treated legitimate children violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 486 U.S. 456, 461-62, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 1914-15, 100 L.Ed.2d 465 (1988). There, the Court ruled that a statute that required an illegitimate child to bring a paternity and support action within six years after the child's birth but did not similarly restrict a legitimate child's right to bring a support action was not substantially related to an important governmental objective. Id. at 462-65, 108 S.Ct. at 1914-16. [¶ 9.] The Supreme Court wrote that the six-year period did not necessarily provide a reasonable opportunity to assert a claim on behalf of an illegitimate child. Id. at 463, 108 S.Ct. at 1915. The Court recognized that the mother may not be willing or able to present the child's claim because of her relationship with the natural father or because of the emotional and financial strain of having an illegitimate child. Id. at 463-64, 108 S.Ct. at 1915-16. The Court reasoned that the six-year limitation was not substantially related to a state's governmental interest in preventing stale and fraudulent claims from being presented because, in other circumstances, the law allowed litigants to bring paternity and support claims later than six years after the child's birth. Id. at 464, 108 S.Ct. at 1915-16. The decision further discounted the problem of stale and fraudulent claims being initiated by stating that, with the increased sophistication of genetic testing, the problem was less prevalent. Id. at 465, 108 S.Ct. at 1916. [¶ 10.] In a case strikingly similar to our own, the Montana Supreme Court relied on the Clark decision to determine the case of State of Arizona v. Sasse, 245 Mont. 340, 801 P.2d 598, 601 (1990). In Sasse, the mother was married when she had sexual relations with a man who was not her husband. Id. at 599. She gave birth to a child, and the mother's husband was presumed to be the father. When the child was twelve years old, a paternity action was commenced on behalf of the mother and the child against the man with whom the mother had extramarital sex. Id. [¶ 11.] Montana had a statute providing that a child with a presumed father had to bring an action within five years after the child's birth to declare the nonexistence of the father-child relationship. Id. Montana also had a statute allowing a child with no presumed father to have up to two years after the child reached the age of majority to bring an action. Id. The Montana Supreme Court agreed with the district court's conclusion that the statutes created a classification which distinguishes for disparate treatment children with presumed fathers and children without presumed fathers. Id. [¶ 12.] Montana's discriminatory classification was based on the state's interest in maintaining stable families and in the prevention of stale or fraudulent claims. Id. at 601. The Montana Supreme Court noted that the five-year limitation may not be adequate because a mother may not be willing to commence an action on her child's behalf during the limitation period. Id. The Court recognized that other Montana statutes allowed paternity and support claims to be brought much later than five years after the child's birth and that the advances in genetic testing have removed much of the fear of false or fraudulent claims of paternity. Id. Relying on these findings, the Montana Supreme Court declared that the five-year limitation was unconstitutional because the limitation was not substantially related to an important governmental objective. Id. at 602. See also In re the Marriage of K.E.V., 267 Mont. 323, 883 P.2d 1246 (1994) (expanding ruling in Sasse, declaring statute unconstitutional for all purposes). [¶ 13.] The South Dakota Legislature requires a child with a presumed father to bring a claim within sixty days after the child's birth to declare that the father-child relationship does not exist, otherwise paternity is unassailably presumed in the absence of fraud. SDCL 25-8-59. This type of action is necessary before the child may establish that another man is his natural father. A child without a presumed father, however, may bring an action to establish paternity at any time before the eighteenth birthday of the child. SDCL 25-8-9. Like the Montana statutes discussed in Sasse, South Dakota's statutory scheme discriminates between children with presumed fathers and children without presumed fathers. To comply with the equal protection guarantees, the classification must be substantially related to an important governmental objective. [¶ 14.] What more vital governmental interest can there be than safeguarding children's rights to support? Children have a fundamental right to be supported by their parents. We do not know the financial status of the presumed father here, other than that he has a court order in hand declaring that he has no support obligation. Perhaps that order may be amended in some future hearing. Yet, one need not imagine too expansively to see the mischief our sixty day limitation period can wreak on children. What if the presumed father became incompetent or died? Under our statute, the natural father could still avoid any obligation to support his child by asserting that the child is presumed legitimate and that the dead or incompetent presumed father's paternity cannot by challenged because the sixty day limitations period has expired. For children who do not have presumed fathers, no such limitation exists. Our statute is discriminatory on its face. [¶ 15.] This Court may address constitutional issues sua sponte. State v. Beck, 2000 SD 141, ¶ 15, 619 N.W.2d 247, 252; State v. Baker, 440 N.W.2d 284, 293 (S.D.1989); Bayer v. Johnson, 349 N.W.2d 447, 449 (S.D.1984). In a case like this, it is vitally important that we do so because this constitutional question is a matter of considerable importance to the public policy of the state. Boever v. South Dakota Bd. of Accountancy, 526 N.W.2d 747, 751 (S.D.1995). Child support is just such a vital concern. In such circumstances, it is entirely appropriate for this Court to address the issue sua sponte even if the objection before the trial court was inartful or otherwise insufficient to preserve the error for review. Beck, 2000 SD 141, ¶ 15, 619 N.W.2d at 252 (citations omitted). We need go no further than to state that the sixty-day limitation period in SDCL 25-8-59 is unconstitutional. Next, we must consider the two conflicting presumptions that remain.