Court Opinion

ID: 9661509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:40:35.901718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:29.062646
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Justice SCOTT
Concurring in Result Only.
I concur in result only for the reason that I believe J.G.R.’s status as a “stranger to the marriage” is the fundamental reason for the legislative language in KRS 406.011. Thus, I believe that only the “parties to the marriage” can challenge the presumption of legitimacy under KRS 406.011. Indeed, the presumption is one of the strongest known to law, Tackett v. Tackett, 508 S.W.2d 790, 792 (Ky.1974), and thus, the presumption is theirs alone to challenge.
Although we have yet to address the question directly, many other courts have. See Ex parte C.A.P., 683 So.2d 1010 (Ala.1996) (petitioner lacked standing to bring action to have himself declared child’s father, where child was conceived prior to, but born during mother’s marriage to husband, thus making husband the presumed father); Lisa I. v. Superior Court, 133 Cal.App.4th 605, 34 Cal.Rptr.3d 927 (2005) (alleged biological father of child born out of wedlock lacked standing as presumed father under Family Code to pursue paternity action against mother, where child was conceived during mother’s marriage while she was separated from her husband, child was born less than 300 days after her divorce became final, and child was being raised by mother and her ex-husband, who had welcomed child into his home and held child out as his own); Tijerina v. Estrella, 843 So.2d 984 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2003) (holding that a putative fa*601ther does not have standing to seek to establish paternity of a child, where the child was born into an intact marriage, and where the married woman and her husband object to the paternity action); Callender v. Skiles, 591 N.W.2d 182 (Iowa 1999) (refusing to recognize any separate equitable parenting principles which would give a person outside a marriage the right to establish paternity); D.B.S. ex rel. P.S. v. M.S., 20 Kan.App.2d 438, 888 P.2d 875 (1995) (where child is born into extended marital family, putative father’s opportunity of establishing relationship with child conflicts with similar opportunity of husband of the marriage and it is not unconstitutional for state to give categorical preference to the latter); In re Walter, 408 Mass. 584, 562 N.E.2d 474 (1990) (alleged biological father is precluded from challenging presumption that husband is father of child born to wife during marriage); B.H. v. K.D., 506 N.W.2d 368 (N.D.1993) (man claiming to be father of child born during marriage of mother to another man lacked standing to rebut presumption of child’s legitimacy); David V.R. v. Wanda J.D., 907 P.2d 1025 (Okla.1995) (putative father was barred from disputing presumption of legitimacy of child he asserted was product of his extra-marital affair with mother, where child was born during marriage of mother and her husband, and child was being reared by mother and her husband as member of their family); CW v. LV, 788 A.2d 1002 (Pa.Super.Ct.2001) (third party should not be allowed to attack the integrity of a functioning marital unit when seeking to assert his own paternity as against the husband in an intact marriage); In re 807 S.W.2d 779 (Tex.App.1991) (only husband or wife is entitled to deny husband’s paternity of child who is subject of suit and who is born or conceived during marriage of parties); Pearson v, Pearson, 134 P.3d 173 (Utah Ct.App.2006) (putative father of child who was born during wife’s marriage lacked standing to challenge paternity of child).
Moreover, there is no constitutional right of a “stranger to the marriage” to assert paternity under such circumstances. See Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 109 S.Ct. 2333, 105 L.Ed.2d 91 (1989). An intact family deserves no less protection.
CUNNINGHAM, J., joins this opinion.