Opinion ID: 449637
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reference to My Son

Text: 17 No less difficult to understand is the ALJ's view that the reference to my son was too ambiguous to constitute a written acknowledgement of paternity even if one were to assume that Willie Wilkins was the letter's author. Id. Read in light of the utter lack of contrary evidence, the letter leaves no room for doubt that Marjorie Vance is the sister and law mentioned in the letter. The ALJ expressly found that Vance was the sister of Queen. Id. Because Queen is the wife of Charles R. Wilkins, Marjorie Vance must be his sister-in-law. While, of course, the universe of possibilities includes the existence of another sister-in-law with whom Willie Wilkins might discuss child support, neither common sense nor a hint of evidence in the record provide the catalyst that might convert such abstract speculation into a reasoned conclusion. 18 If, then, Willie Wilkins was the author of the letter and Marjorie Vance is the woman referred to as his nephew's sister-in-law, only one piece of this hermeneutic puzzle remains to be put in place. In the context of describing a somewhat caustic conversation with Vance about child support, Wilkins refers to my son. The ALJ found the reference ambiguous because Wilkins had other sons by another woman. This analysis is even more difficult to understand than doubts about the identity of the author and recipient of the letter. The context and tone of the conversation described in the letter leave no reasonable doubt that the son refers to a child of Marjorie Vance. She, the letter makes explicit, called Wilkins. Apparently in response to her prodding, the two discussed Willie's intentions to take care of a child acknowledged by Wilkins to be his son. In the absence of some indication that Vance had an interest in or even knew of Wilkins' other children, it defies logic to suggest that the conversation concerned anyone other than her son, Reginald Ham. Again, the abstract possibility that the conversation referred to another of Wilkins' sons cannot be eliminated as a matter of certainty. But, without some explanation or support in the record, such wholly counterintuitive speculation provides a legally deficient foundation for the determination that the letter was not a written acknowledgment of paternity.