Court Opinion

ID: 9683356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:27:12.248879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:47.329164
License: Public Domain

ZINTER, Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 33.] Today this Court, on its own motion, declares that a statute of limitations violates equal protection guarantees. This Court also adopts a new test in this jurisdiction for resolving conflicts in paternity presumptions. Neither issue was raised before the circuit court or briefed and argued before this Court. While this Court may address issues sua sponte, “the invocation of this doctrine has been used most sparingly and then only in important cases of permanent state wide implication.” State v. Beck, 2000 SD 141, ¶ 26, 619 N.W.2d 247, 254 (Gilbertson, J., dissenting). However, neither the Department of Social Services nor Wright suggests that this is such a case. Indeed, their only argument before the trial court and this Court was that the divorce stipulation extended the statute of limitations sufficiently to maintain this action. Moreover, a resolution of these new. issues requires a balancing of a number of conflicting policy considerations. Therefore, in my view, we should decline to decide such issues without the opportunity to hear the “other view.”
[¶ 34.] The majority opinion addresses these issues for the laudatory goal of safeguarding children’s rights to support. See supra ¶ 14. The Court asks “[w]hat more vital governmental interest can there be than safeguarding children’s rights to support?” Id. However, there are more considerations involved in the calculus than child support. Consideration must also be given to competing governmental interests in maintaining the stability of families, as well as public policy relating to maternal and paternal motivations to establish paternity, marital rights and obligations, the putative father’s rights and obligations, the biological father’s rights and obligations, and the best interests of the children. Because the outcome of both new issues is dependent upon all such governmental interests, we should not decide this case solely upon a child support consideration. We should consider both issues only after we have been presented with all of the competing governmental policies and objectives supporting the statutes involved.
[¶ 35.] Because no one challenged the rebuttable presumption of legitimacy nor the constitutionality of the sixty day statute of limitations at any level of this proceeding, we have been denied the benefit of a “properly developed record and the benefit of proper briefing and appellate argument.” Beck, 2000 SD 141, ¶ 26, 619 N.W.2d át 254 (Gilbertson, J., dissenting). This omission has specifically deprived us of the opportunity to consider the opposing view raised by the dissent in the Montana case upon which this Court relies. See Sasse, 801 P.2d at 604 (dissent distinguishing opposing authority and pointing out that the classification only involves children that already have presumed fathers, *594and presumed fathers are still legally required to support their children).
[¶ 36.] Moreover, the Attorney General has not had the required notice of the Court’s constitutional challenge to SDCL 25-8-59. See SDCL 15-6-24(c).
Ordinarily, we will not rule on the constitutionality of a statute unless the Attorney General has been notified because when an adjudication of unconstitutionality may seriously affect the general public, it is proper for the Attorney General to appear on behalf of the Legislature and the people.
West Two Rivers Ranch v. Pennington County, 1996 SD 70, ¶ 15, 549 N.W.2d 683, 687 (citations omitted). This is particularly significant in this case because again, the Montana authority upon which this" Court relies involved a case in which the Montana Attorney General was given notice and an opportunity to appear and defend the constitutional challenge. Sasse, 801 P.2d at 599.
[¶ 37.] Finally, it must be noted that the majority opinion and special concurrence are premised on the supposition that this child has no father to look to for support. In fact, the Court opens its opinion with the wholly unsupported assumption that this is “an instance where the presumption of legitimacy resulted in a child not receiving financial support from either her presumed father or her putative father.”1 Supra ¶ 1. While common sense and human nature may suggest that possibility in- some cases, it must be recognized that there is absolutely no evidence to support that occurrence in this record. Obviously, in reviewing this case, we are constrained to a review of what is in the record. Because there is no evidence that the presumed father will not support this child, we are only left to speculate concerning Stein’s and Byer’s future likelihood of providing support. Moreover, we must remember that under the record we have today, Stein is the child’s legal farther; and therefore, Stein is charged with the duty of supporting her. SDCL 25-5-18.1; SDCL 25-8-57; SDCL 25-7-6.1.
[¶ 38.] Therefore, while I do not disagree with the reasoning and result of the Court, I would not, considering the facts and posture of this case, raise and analyze these issues sua sponte. I would certainly not attempt to choose the best method of analyzing conflicting paternity presumptions without the opportunity to consider the alternatives. I must therefore dissent.
[¶ 39.] GILBERTSON, Chief Justice, joins this dissent.

. The court repeats this unfounded assumption speculating that Stein "apparently is not supporting the child....” Supra ¶ 7.