Opinion ID: 1760491
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Heading: Legal Father Under La.Rev.Stat. 9:305

Text: The first issue before us is whether the child's mother's sex partner, who has executed an authentic act acknowledging paternity of the illegitimate child, is entitled to utilize La.Rev.Stat. 9:305 to obtain a suspension of the period for filing a disavowal action. Section 305 provides: Notwithstanding the provisions of Civil Code Art. 189 and for the sole purpose of determining the proper payor in child support cases, if the husband, or legal father who is presumed to be the father of the child, erroneously believed, because of misrepresentation, fraud, or deception by the mother, that he was the father of the child then the time for filing suit for disavowal of paternity shall be suspended during the period of such erroneous belief or for ten years, whichever ends first. The phrase husband, or legal father who is presumed to be the father is the focus of our analysis of Section 305. If we determine that an acknowledger (such as Rousseve) falls within this definition of legal father, then he is entitled to claim the optional period of suspension provided by Section 305. Neither the Civil Code nor the Revised Statutes provide a comprehensive definition of the term legal father. However, La. Rev.Stat. 9:305 refers to the chapter in the Civil Code dealing with legitimate children. In that chapter, La. Civ.Code art. 184 provides: The husband of the mother is presumed to be the father of all children born or conceived during the marriage. This presumption historically has been regarded as the strongest presumption in the law. Neil S. Hyman, Comment, Louisiana's New Disavowal Legislation: A Critical Appraisal, 22 Loy.L.Rev. 963, 963 (1976). La. Civ.Code art. 185 provides that when a child is born within 300 days of the dissolution of the marriage, the child is presumed to have been conceived during the marriage. La. Civ. Code art. 188 also creates a form of presumed paternity when a man knowingly marries a pregnant woman, or when a husband consents to the artificial insemination of his wife. [4] These presumptions all arise by operation of law in connection with a marriage between the child's mother and the presumed father, either before or after the birth or conception of the child. The term legal father in La.Rev.Stat. 9:305 applies to the husbands and former or subsequent husbands included in Articles 184-189. Inasmuch as Rousseve was never the husband of the child's mother and the child is illegitimate, none of these presumptions apply to him. There are different presumptions of paternity concerning illegitimate children. La. Civ.Code art. 203 provides for acknowledgment by authentic act or by registry in birth or baptismal records. Acknowledgment by registry requires only the acknowledging parent's signature on the birth or baptismal record and expressly creates a rebuttable presumption of paternity. La. Civ.Code art. 203 B(2). [5] On the other hand, La. Civ.Code art. 203 B(1), dealing with acknowledgment by authentic act, does not expressly provide a presumption of paternity, but states only that an acknowledgment by authentic act is sufficient to establish an obligation to support an illegitimate child without the necessity of obtaining a judgment of paternity. In effect, Article 203 B(1)'s dispensation with the necessity of obtaining a judgment in a paternity action also creates a presumption of paternity, at least as to the obligation of child support. [6] Against this background of the presumptions of paternity for legitimate and illegitimate children, we address the question of whether a person presumed to be an illegitimate child's father by virtue of an acknowledgement by authentic act under La. Civ.Code art. 203 B(1) is the child's legal father within the contemplation of La.Rev. Stat. 9:305, as the court of appeal concluded. By its terms, La.Rev.Stat. 9:305 gives a legal father an avenue for overcoming a presumption of paternity of a legitimate child that rests upon him perhaps against his will or at least without any specific affirmative act by him. Section 305 expressly applies to an action in disavowal. As Planiol explains, [d]isavowal is the term applied to the act the purpose of which is to wipe out the presumption of paternity established against the husband, when he cannot be the child's father. See 1 Marcel Planiol, Trait imentaire du Droit Civil § 1422 (La. State Law Institute transl.1959). Disavowal generally is available solely in the husband's interest to liberate him from a legal presumption which is found to be false. 1 Planiol, at § 1422. On the other hand, a man who acknowledges paternity of an illegitimate child under La. Civ.Code art. 203 B(1) does so by an act of will, and not as an incident to marriage to the child's mother. The acknowledger is not in the same class, for purposes of La.Rev. Stat. 9:305, as a husband or former or subsequent husband whose paternity is presumed solely by operation of law and the circumstance of the past, present or subsequent marital relationship. Moreover, Section 305's express reference to La. Civ.Code art. 189 (pertaining to the period within which a husband presumed by law to be the father of a legitimate child may bring a disavowal action) suggests that Section 305 was not intended to apply to a person presumed to be the father of an illegitimate child based on a voluntary act of acknowledgement, but only to a presumed father of a legitimate child based on being the husband or former or subsequent husband of the child's mother. We therefore conclude that a man whose paternity of an illegitimate child results solely from his authentic act of acknowledgment of the illegitimate child is not a legal father within the contemplation of La.Rev.Stat. 9:305. He is not, strictly speaking, entitled to disavow the child, and the advantages of Section 305 are not applicable to him. Because Rousseve is presumed to be the father of Aleigha Jones solely by virtue of the act of acknowledgment, Section 305 is inapplicable to him. But our analysis does not end here. To hold that Section 305 does not apply to one who formally acknowledges paternity of an illegitimate child is not to say that such a person may not challenge the acknowledgment. See 1 Planiol at §§ 1485-1494. We only hold that one who is a putative parent because of acknowledgment of an illegitimate child is historically and conceptually different from one presumed to be a parent of a legitimate child by operation of law, and should not be treated the same for purposes of Section 305.