Court Opinion

ID: 9646596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:04:15.272308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:39.359915
License: Public Domain

*240MONTEMURO, Judge,
dissenting:
I strongly dissent. The crux of this case is whether the provisions of the Uniform Act on Blood Tests to Determine Paternity takes precedence over the equitable considerations implicated by appellant’s repudiation of Paul Vance Nixon as his child. I am unpersuaded by the reasoning for the majority’s affirmative answer. Rather,
equitable estoppel recognizes that an informal promise implied by one’s words, deeds or representations which/leads another to rely justifiably thereon to his own injury or detriment, may be enforced in equity.
Novelty Knitting Mills, Inc. v. Siskind, 500 Pa. 432, 457 A.2d 502, 503 (1983). The fact that the injured party is a child renders the application of this principle well nigh obligatory.
Absent any overriding equities in favor of the putative father, such as fraud, the law cannot permit a party to renounce even an assumed duty of parentage when by doing so, the innocent child would be victimized.
Commonwealth ex rel. Gonzalez v. Andreas, 245 Pa.Super. 307, 369 A.2d 416 (1976).
. My position, simply stated, is that given the numerous instances in which appellant has held Paul out as his son, the results of the blood tests have no relevance. While the majority finds that equitable estoppel is “normally” applied only where access is not problematical, the putative father in Chrzanowski v. Chrzanowski, 325 Pa.Super. 298, 472 A.2d 1128 (1984), was held responsible for the child although lack of access to .the mother was stipulated, and both the mother’s testimony and blood tests were conclusively negative on the subject of his biological involvement in the child’s existence. In that case we held that, “parental relationships can be established constructively and that such relationships and their concomitant duties merit judicial recognition and enforcement.” Id., 325 Pa.Superior Ct. at 306, 472 A.2d 1132.
Responsibility toward a family, not withstanding the geographical remove, is not a sometime thing to be undertaken *241or renounced at the convenience of the putative parent. The majority’s adoption of a better late than never theory with regard to the child’s support, and indeed to his origins, is truly the exaltation of form over substance, and completely disregards our mandate to do substantial justice. I would affirm.