Court Opinion

ID: 9729006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:23:32.073711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:54.672141
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief J usantes) Bell :
The majority Opinion reaches its result in the following erroneous and unjustifiable ways: (1) It ignores or circumvents and in effect overrules the well and long established rule in this Commonwealth, and for centuries throughout the civilized world, that a husband and wife cannot bastardize a child by testifying to their nonaccess to each other during the period when the child was conceived. This rule is based on the wise public policy of protecting at almost all costs “legitimacy.” In order to protect and safeguard this policy, the Courts have said in clear and unambiguous language that there is a tremendously strong presumption that children are legitimate and the evidence to rebut this presumption of legitimacy must be clear, direct, convincing and irrefragable. Cairgle v. American R. and S. S. Corp., 366 Pa. 249, 77 A. 2d 439; Thorn Estate, 353 Pa. 603, 46 A. 2d 258; Manfredi Estate, 399 Pa. 285, 159 A. 2d 697. Once an exception is made, you break down the dikes and undercut and change the public policy.
In the Cairgle case, the Court pertinently said (pages 255-257) : “For reasons of public policy it has been the law for centuries that there is a tremendously strong presumption that children are legitimate. The old rule, that the presumption of legitimacy could not be overcome by any proof less than the absence of the husband beyond the seas immediately prior to and during the whole period of gestation, was so contrary to human experience that it was abandoned in Pennsyl*302vania as early as 1814: Commonwealth v. Shepherd, 6 Binney 283; District of Columbia’s Appeal, 343 Pa. 65, 76, 21 A. 2d 883. The presumption of legitimacy is, however, still one of the strongest known to the law and can be overcome only by proof of facts establishing non-access or that the husband was impotent or had no sexual intercourse with his wife at any time when it was possible in the course of nature for the child to have been begotten: Dennison v. Page, 29 Pa. 420, 422; Dulsky v. Susquehanna Collieries Co., 116 Pa. Superior Ct. 520, 525, 177 A. 60; Janes’s Estate, 147 Pa. 527, 530, 23 A. 892. This is the modern rule.
“We may well repeat what was so aptly said by the Court in Dennison v. Page, 29 Pa. 420, 422, 423, 425, 426: ‘Where a child is begotten and born whilst its mother is a married woman, its legitimacy is presumed until the contrary is clearly made to appear. ... A child born in wedlock, though born within a month or a day after marriage, is legitimate by presumption of law. . . . Where the husband . . . has access to the mother of the child, the presumption that he is its father is concluswe. . . . [T]he fact that the wife was living in adultery was not sufficient to destroy the legitimacy of a child born in wedlock [unless there] . . . be evidence from which a jury could find non-access.’
“In order to successfully rebut the presumption of legitimacy, the evidence of non-access or lack of sexual intercourse or impotency must be clear, direct, convincing and unanswerable (Thorn Estate, 353 Pa. 603, 606, 46 A. 2d 258; Mays’ Estate, 141 Pa. Superior Ct. 479, 489, 15 A. 2d 569; McAnany’s Estate, 91 Pa. Superior Ct. 317, 327), although it is not necessary that the possibility of access be completely excluded: Mays’ Estate, 141 Pa. Superior Ct. 479, 15 A. 2d 569; Commonwealth v. Barone, 164 Pa. Superior Ct. 73, 63 A. 2d *303132; Commonwealth v. Gantz, 128 Pa. Superior Ct. 97, 193 A. 72; Dulsky v. Susquehanna Collieries Co., 116 Pa. Superior Ct. 520, 531, 177 A. 60; Commonwealth v. DiMatteo, 124 Pa. Superior Ct. 277, 188 A. 425; In re Findlay, 253 N.Y. 1, 170 N.E. 471 (opinion by Judge Cardozo). Moreover, our public policy is so firmly established and so strong that the courts have repeatedly declared that non-access cannot be testified to by either the husband or wife in order to overcome the presumption of legitimacy: * Com. v. Shepherd, 6 Binn. 283; Dennison v. Page, 29 Pa. 420; County of Tioga v. South Creek Twp., 75 Pa. 433’: District of Columbia’s Appeal, 343 Pa. 65, 76, 21 A. 2d 883. In Janes’s Estate, 147 Pa. 527, 531, 23 A. 892, the Court said: ‘A child born or begotten in wedlock is presumed to be legitimate, and neither the mother nor her husband can bastardise it by testifying to non-access.'’ . .
Moreover, as Mr. Justice (later Mr. Chief Justice) Stern, speaking for a unanimous Court, aptly said in Thorn Estate, 353 Pa., supra (page 606) : “Our consideration of the case properly starts with a recognition of both the factual presumption that children are legitimate and the rule that, to overcome it, there is required clear, direct, satisfactory and irrefragable proof to the contrary: Senser v. Bower, 1 P. & W. 450; Thewlis’s Estate, 217 Pa. 307, 66 A. 519; McAnany’s Estate, 91 Pa. Superior Ct. 317; May’s Estate, 141 Pa. Superior Ct. 479, 484, 15 A. 2d 569, 571.”
In Manfredi Estate, 399 Pa., supra, this Court, in a unanimous Opinion, said (page 289) : “For reasons of public policy it has been the law for centuries that there is a tremendously strong presumption that children who are born in wedlock are legitimate: Cairgle v. American R. and S. S. Corp., 366 Pa. 249, 77 A. 2d 439, and cases cited therein. In that case the Court *304said (pages 256-257): ‘ “A child born or begotten in wedlock is presumed to be legitimate, and neither the mother nor her husband can bastardize it by testifying to non-access.” ’ ” See also, Commonwealth ex rel. O’Brien v. O’Brien, 390 Pa. 551, 556, 136 A. 2d 451; Commonwealth v. Carrasquilla, 191 Pa. Superior Ct. 14.
In the Carrasquilla case, the Court, in a unanimous Opinion, said (page 16) : “‘The presumption of legitimacy is one of the strongest known to the law. It stands until met with evidence which makes it clearly appear that the husband cannot be the father of the child ... So strongly does the policy of the law favor legitimacy that neither husband nor wife may testify as to non-access’: Commonwealth v. O’Brien, 182 Pa. Superior Ct. 584, 128 A. 2d 164, affirmed 390 Pa. 551, 136 A. 2d 451. While non-access need not be proven absolutely, Commonwealth v. DiMatteo, 124 Pa. Superior Ct. 277, 188 A. 425, it was said in Thorn Estate, 353 Pa. 603, 46 A. 2d 258, that the evidence to overcome the presumption of legitimacy must be ‘clear, direct, satisfactory and irrefragable.’ ”
(2) The majority Opinion, by a Procrustean stretch which out-Procrustes Procrustes, holds that a husband and wife can testify to nonaccess if the wife prior to the birth of a child was having intercourse with another man who subsequently married her after her divorce and after the birth of the child. This modification (a) makes a mockery of the above-quoted, long established and recently reiterated rule in Pennsylvania, and (b) is entirely unnecessary because the second husband can achieve his desired result by adoption proceedings.
(3) Not only does the majority ignore and in practical effect overrule the rule which prohibits a husband and wife from testifying to nonaceess, but it bases its final decision on testimony which it says “is *305fully sufficient to rebut the presumption.” Apart from the inadmissible testimony of the interested husband and the embittered wife who want her second husband to support the child, the evidence which the majority says is “fully sufficient” is very far from being clear, convincing and irrefragable. The following is the evidence on which the majority principally relies: (a) that the husband came to visit his wife only occasionally when she was living with another man and during the period of conception; (b) that three neighbors had testified that they had not seen the husband at the house where his wife lived (three blocks away) for a period of thirteen months before the child’s birth; and (c) finally, that the husband’s 15-year-old son had testified that his mother never spent any nights with her husband and this was corroborated by another child. The fact that several (3) neighbors had not seen the husband at his wife’s home during the period of conception is miles away from proving that he wasn’t there during that nine-month period. Furthermore, everybody in the world (with the apparent exception of a majority of this Court) knows that a woman does not have to spend nights, or any night, with a man in order to have a child by that man.
For these reasons, I vigorously dissent. I would affirm the Order of the Superior Court and I would reaffirm the long established rule of this Court.

 Italics throughout, ours.