Court Opinion

ID: 9771313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:39:08.360611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:28.535315
License: Public Domain

OPINION
EVANS, Chief Justice.
The appellant complains of a final judgment entered in a paternity suit, that purports to declare that the appellee is the biological father of a child bom to the appellant’s wife during her marriage to the appellant. We reverse the trial court’s judgment, and order the, paternity action dismissed.
The paternity issue was initially raised in a divorce action brought by appellant’s wife against the appellant. In her petition, appellant’s wife alleged that appellee, and not the appellant, was the biological father of her youngest child and asked that the court terminate the parent-child relationship between the child and the appellant. Thereafter, during the pendency of the divorce action, the appellee filed this paternity suit, also asserting his paternity of the child, which suit the trial court consolidated with the divorce proceeding. At the beginning of trial of the consolidated cause, the trial court ordered the paternity suit severed from the divorce action and directed that the divorce action be heard first. No appeal is taken from the order of severance. The divorce suit was concluded by a consent judgment, in which the court found that the child was legitimate by reason of the fact that it was bom during the marriage of appellant and the child’s mother. The consent decree provided for joint managing conservatorship and imposed child support obligations on the appellant. Neither the appellant nor his wife have appealed from that decree.
At the conclusion of the divorce action, the court expressed concern about whether the appellee had standing to assert the paternity cause of action, but proceeded to hear that suit based on evidence that had been presented in the divorce action. The court then entered a judgment in the paternity suit, which purported to declare that a parent-child relationship existed between the appellee and the child, “as if the child was bom to the father and mother during marriage” and named the mother as managing conservator and the appellee as the possessory conservator. The decree also provided for the appellee’s visitation privileges and imposed child support obligations on the appellee.
In four points of error, the appellant contends that the appellee lacked standing to bring the paternity suit and that the trial court erred in hearing and deciding the paternity action after it had already determined by the divorce decree that the appellant was the child’s legitimate father.
The appellant’s wife did allege and give testimony in the divorce action that supported the appellee’s claim that he was the biological father of her child. But the consent decree that was entered at the conclusion of the divorce action expressly declares that the child was legitimate because it was born during the parties’ marriage. The decree names the appellant and his wife as the joint conservators of the child, and provides that all claims other than those expressly granted are denied. The appellant’s wife did not appeal from the consent decree, and she is thus bound by the court’s judicial determination that her child was the legitimate progeny of her marriage to the appellant.
At the time the appellee brought this action, the Texas Family Code, sec. 11.03 provided that a suit affecting the parent-child relationship could be brought by any person with an interest in the child. Ch. 424, sec. 3, 1983 Tex.Gen.Laws 2353. The statute defined an interested person as one entitled to service of citation under the provisions of section 11.09(a). That section provides that an alleged father of a child is entitled to service of citation in a suit to determine paternity. Tex.Fam.Code Ann. sec. 11.09(a)(9) (Vernon 1986).
We will assume first, for the purpose of discussion, that because of the pleading allegations of appellant’s wife that appellee was the biological father of her child, the appellee may initially have had standing under the Texas Family Code to assert a claim affecting the parent-child relationship in the divorce action. But even if this *724assumed, the appellee’s paternity claim was necessarily derivative of and dependent upon the claim asserted by the appellant’s wife in the divorce action, which she abandoned at the time of entry of the consent decree. Thus, we conclude that when the divorce court entered the consent judgment, declaring the child to be the legitimate child of the parties’ marriage and denying all other claims for relief, any right of the appellee’s to assert his paternity no longer existed.
Apart from any derivative standing that appellee may have obtained as a result of the wife’s divorce action pleadings, ap-pellee had no independent right to bring a paternity suit. The provisions of chapter 13 of the Texas Family Code govern paternity actions. Under this chapter, a suit may be brought to establish the paternity of or to voluntarily legitimize a child, but only if the child is “not the legitimate child of a man.” See Tex.Fam.Code Ann. secs. 13.01, 13.21 (Vernon 1986). Section 11.-01(a)(8) of the Code defines an “illegitimate child” as one “who is not and has never been the legitimate child of man....” Thus, a suit may not be brought to establish the paternity of or to voluntarily legitimize a child who has already been determined to be the legitimate child of a man. Tex.Fam.Code Ann. secs. 12.02, 13.01, 13.-21; Middaugh v. Merritt, 576 S.W.2d 490, 492 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1979, no writ); see Collier v. Wichita County Child Welfare Unit, 722 S.W.2d 198, 201 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1986, no writ).
In this case, the court’s judicial determination that the appellant was the legitimate father of the child constituted an insuperable barrier to the appellee’s subsequent attempt to assert paternity. A finding of fact by the trial court in a divorce judgment that a child was born to the marriage of the parties is equivalent to a finding that the husband is the father of the child, Thompson v. Thompson, 572 S.W.2d 761, 764-65 (Tex.Civ.App.—Tyler 1978, no writ), and the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars relitigation of that fact issue in a subsequent suit. See id.; Walters v. Walters, 565 S.W.2d 586 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1978, no writ); Byrd v. Travelers Ins. Co., 275 S.W.2d 861, 863 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1955, writ ref'd n.r.e.) (res judicata also applicable to non-parties to the divorce). The appellee did not challenge the order severing his paternity action from the divorce proceeding, and neither the appellant nor his wife appealed from the final divorce decree declaring appellant to be the child’s legitimate father. That decree is now res judicata of the legal issue of the child’s legitimacy, which may not be relitigated in a subsequent suit.
Further, the appellee had no independent right to contest the child’s legitimacy. The presumption of legitimacy of a child born during marriage is one of the strongest presumptions known to law. See D.W.L. v. M.J.B.C., 601 S.W.2d 475, 477 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1980, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Adams v. Adams, 456 S.W.2d 222, 224 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1970, no writ). Unless the husband or wife of the marriage deny the husband’s paternity and seek and obtain a judgment nullifying the child’s legitimate status, no one else may properly do so. See Tex.Fam.Code Ann. sec. 12.06 (Vernon Supp.1988); Davis v. Houston, 734 S.W.2d 210 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1987, orig. proceeding). Although section 11.09 may be a general legislative determination of the persons who have a relationship with the child of sufficient legal dignity to be entitled to participation in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship, this section is modified by subsequent, more specific sections of Title 2, such as section 12.06. Pratt v. Texas Dep’t of Human Resources, 614 S.W.2d 490, 495 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1981, writ ref’d n.r.e.).
Thus, the appellee had no independent right under the Family Code to contest the legitimacy of a child bom during the marriage of appellant and his wife, Tex.Fam. Code Ann. sec. 12.06, or to sue to establish his paternity of a legitimate child, Tex. Fam.Code Ann. ch. 13, and any derivative claim he obtained from the appellant’s divorce and custody suit was adjudicated by the consent decree in that suit. We hold that the trial court erred in permitting the *725appellee to assert this paternity action against the appellant, after the issue of the child’s legitimacy has already been established by the final decree of divorce between the appellant and his wife.
The paternity judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the appellant’s paternity cause of action is dismissed.
DUNN, J., dissents.