Court Opinion

ID: 9596421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:49:25.477404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:35.086576
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE PRINGLE
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the position which the majority takes makes Article 7 of the Children’s Code unconstitutional. I firmly believe that the majority, by its action today, denies equal protection to “illegitimate” children. To say that a “legitimate” child may obtain judicial aid to require his father to support him at any time until his 18th birthday and that an “illegitimate” child cannot receive the same judicial aid unless he seeks it within five years of his birth is, in my view, invidious discrimination forbidden both by the United States Constitution and the Colorado Constitution. I said in Munn v. Munn, 168 Colo. 76, 450 P.2d 68, that it is the biological relationship and not the strained common law legal relationship which sets the class here and prohibits the state from drawing legal distinctions such as the majority approves here.
We have, it seems to me, now passed the time when we distinguish between so-called “illegitimate” children and “legitimate” children. See Weber v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, 44 U.S.L.W. 4460, announced April 25, 1972; Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436. In my view, however, the two statutes are not incompatible and properly applied, Article 7 would not be unconstitutional. There are entirely different remedies pro*20vided for in Article 6 than in Article 7. For instance, Article 7 affords only support money for the child. Article 6 provides, among other things, for necessary expenses incurred in connection with the confinement and for other expenses in connection with pregnancy. Article 6 establishes a remedy only against the father. Article 7 makes the remedy available not only against both parents but against other legally responsible persons as well. I think then that these remedies are mutually exclusive and that the five-year limitation does not apply in Article 7. Such an interpretation would then make Article 7 constitutional, in my view.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Groves and Mr. Justice Erickson join in this dissent.