Court Opinion

ID: 9710270
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:05:31.135619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:55.506538
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
BECK, J.
¶ 11 concur in the result.
¶ 2 Appellant formally acknowledged paternity and one year later sought to invalidate his acknowledgement. Under the law, a person must challenge his acknowl-edgement of paternity within sixty days of its issuance unless he can prove fraud, duress or material mistake of fact. 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 5103. Appellant insists that he proved fraud because, according to him, *1078Mother reneged on her promise not to tell her son that Appellant was not his father, a promise Mother made in exchange for an acknowledgement of paternity that both parties knew to be false. Even assuming the truth of appellant’s assertions, I do not believe he has established fraud under § 5103.
¶ 3 The fraud exception set out in the statute, I believe, addresses those instances in which a man acknowledges paternity because he believes he is the child’s father and his belief is based on fraudulent misrepresentations upon which he reasonably relied. Section 5103 was not meant to cover collateral agreements between parties who know conclusively that the man is not the father but who nonetheless reach some agreement about how they will behave in the future. In my view, the alleged pact between Appellant and Mother not only reveals the parties’ irresponsible approach to this very serious area of the law, it also has no relevance in this case. The law simply does not protect a party who, despite being certain he is not the biological father of a child, acknowledges paternity of that child.
¶ 4 At the time Appellant signed the acknowledgment, he knew he was not the child’s father; therefore, he was not the victim of fraud with respect to the child’s paternity. Absent fraud, he is without an avenue of relief.