Court Opinion

ID: 9645518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:27:37.059664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.067641
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge,
concurring:
I join Judge Brosky’s concurring opinion. I heartily agree that this Court is not possessed of original jurisdiction to decide either the constitutionality of 42 Pa.C.S.A. Section 6704(e) or the retroactivity of 23 Pa.C.S.A. Section 4343(b). The trial court is the proper forum for the parties to address their arguments, and for the initial decision of law to be issued.
I write separately to note my concern that a child’s fundamental interest in obtaining a paternity determination, and financial support from both parents, should not be forever foreclosed because of a mother’s failure to seek a paternity determination within the applicable statute of limitations.
... [I]mposing disabilities on the illegitimate child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing.
Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 31 L.Ed.2d 768 (1972).
The preceding statute, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6704, provided that in a suit to determine paternity, the moving party may be any person “to whom a duty of support is owing, or ... on behalf of a minor child, ... without appointment of a guardian ad litem ...” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6704, repealed 1985, Oct. 30, P.L. 264 No. 66 § 3. Thus, an illegitimate child, as one to whom a duty of support may be owing, had the right to bring suit on his or her own behalf, within six years of birth. However, few, if any, children of such tender years were in the position to bring suit on their own behalf by age six; consequently, their right to a determination of paternity and to support was dependent on the ability of the custodial parent to institute suit. I note that such a dependency often operated to leave a child without any effective *531opportunity to exercise his or her legal rights.1 Accordingly, the law operated to impose a disability on the child without regard to responsibility or wrongdoing. Weber, supra.
The child in this case may be denied years of paternal support due to her inability to bring suit on her own behalf by age six. Cases in this jurisdiction have so far failed to address the issue of the child’s interest in bringing suit, as distinguished from the mother’s interest. The child’s needs and rights must be viewed as separate from the mother’s, as there are numerous financial, social and emotional problems which “may inhibit a mother from filing a paternity suit on behalf of the child ...” Pickett v. Brown, 462 U.S. 1, 13, 103 S.Ct. 2199, 2206, 76 L.Ed.2d 372, 382 (1983).
Therefore, I remain concerned that even if the issues we send to the trial court for argument, consideration and disposition are decided in appellant’s favor, the vital issue of the illegitimate child’s individual right to seek paternity determination and support has been heretofore ignored.

. Recently, a Michigan Court has held a statute which denied a child the right to commence an action was in violation of the Equal Protection Clauses of both the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions. Spa-da v. Pauley, 149 Mich.App. 196, 385 N.W.2d 746 (1986). While Pennsylvania has allowed a child a right to commence suit, it nonetheless operated, in a practical sense, to deny the child effective exercise of that right, by reason of its six year statute of limitations.