Opinion ID: 2567467
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: When a Marital Father Has Voluntarily Assumed Parental Responsibilities and Has Established a Father-Child Relationship, Any Challenge to His Presumption of Paternity Is Disruptive and Unnecessary

Text: ¶20 In Schoolcraft, we held that granting the guardian ad litem standing to challenge the presumption of paternity was not disruptive to any father-child relationship because the child in that case had no relationship with either his mother's husband or his biological father, and thus the child had no expectations as to who his father [was]. [20] ¶21 In Teece and Lopes, the children who were the subject of the paternity challenge did not have relationships with the fathers into whose marriages they were born. In Teece, the marital father refused to accept responsibility for his wife's child and consequently did not develop a parental relationship with the child. In Lopes, the child was not born at the time the marital father initiated divorce proceedings and the presumption of paternity was challenged, so no father-child relationship had developed. ¶22 In this case, Z.P. has established a relationship with Kelly and recognizes him as his father. Kelly is listed as Z.P.'s father on his birth certificate. Kimberlee treated Kelly as Z.P.'s father for at least the first sixteen months of Z.P.'s life, even after the couple had separated. Kelly developed a strong father-son relationship with Z.P. during the marriage that has continued beyond the Pearsons' divorce. ¶23 On the other hand, Thanos had very little contact with Z.P. during the first years of his life and did not develop a relationship with Z.P. until Kimberlee and Kelly had separated. Z.P. views Thanos as an additional caregiver, while he considers Kelly to be his father. ¶24 In assessing the disruptiveness of a challenge to Z.P.'s paternity, the district court relied heavily on the findings of the custody evaluator, Dr. Sanders. Dr. Sanders's report stressed the importance of Z.P.'s relationship with both Thanos and Kelly but never specifically concluded whether it would be disruptive for Thanos to displace Kelly as Z.P.'s recognized legal father. The district court erred when it used Dr. Sanders's finding that Thanos's presence in Z.P.'s life was not disruptive to support its conclusion that Thanos's challenge to Kelly's paternity would not be disruptive. Thus, the district court misapplied the Schoolcraft test to Dr. Sanders's findings. ¶25 While parties interested in the well-being of a child may be entitled in certain cases to some third-party access, a child can have only one legal father. As the court of appeals recognized, The entire motivation for Thanos's attempt to intervene was to establish that he, rather than [Kelly], was to fulfill the paternal role in Z.P.'s life. [21] We agree with the court of appeals that Dr. Sanders's report was not responsive to the question of whether a challenge to Z.P.'s paternity would be disruptive and unnecessary. [22] Although Thanos's relationship with Z.P. is beneficial, a challenge to Kelly's paternity of Z.P. is disruptive in light of Z.P.'s established expectation as to the identity of his father. ¶26 Because Kelly voluntarily assumed parental responsibility for Z.P. during the course of Kimberlee and Kelly's marriage and established a father-son relationship with Z.P., any challenge to Kelly's paternity is disruptive and unnecessary.