Court Opinion

ID: 9705728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:18:14.055432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:14.376735
License: Public Domain

CAYTON, Judge
(dissenting).
I would return the case for a new trial. I think it is plain that the trial court improperly invoked and misapplied the presumption of legitimacy, in holding that the ■child had been born in wedlock. These parties had been separated for some twenty-eight months when, according to the wife, she had sexual relations with her husband in his office at a time which, under the evidence, may or may not have been within the gestation period.
This is by no means merely a question of . a wife’s charge and a husband’s denial. The wife admitted that her first child had been born two months prematurely and that her doctor told her he expected the second one also to be premature. Yet her doctor was not called to give evidence as to the actual length of the pregnancy, the weight of the infant, the nature of the delivery, or other facts or circumstances which would shed light on the crucial question as to whether the child was born after a full-term pregnancy, or a much shorter one. Nor did the mother provide any satisfactory basis - for determining this question.
There was an array of bizarre and highly suspicious circumstances in this case, including the wife’s alleged admissions in conversations and in telegrams, that another man, identified by name, was the real father. But even without these, I think there was clear error in applying the presumption of legitimacy.