Court Opinion

ID: 9664274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:11:18.647276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:04.078925
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
TERRY JENNINGS, Justice.
Appellant, Michelle Stamper, formerly known as Michelle Knox (“Stamper”), challenges a portion of a final divorce decree, in which the trial court ordered that appel-lee, Stanley Keith Knox (“Knox”), be joint managing conservator of her daughter. This portion of the decree is based on the trial court’s June 14, 2006 “Order Establishing Paternity,” in which the trial court held that Stamper is “equitably estopped from denying” that Knox is the father of the child, adjudicated that Knox is the father of the child, and established the parent-child relationship between Knox and the child.
In her second issue, Stamper argues that the trial court erred in adjudicating Knox as the child’s father on equitable grounds because, in doing so, the trial court did not consider the best interest of the child. The reporter’s record clearly reveals that the trial court, in determining parentage, chose not to consider the child’s best interests.
However, in determining whether the doctrine of equitable estoppel even applies in a case such as this, “the child’s best interests are of paramount concern.” In re Shockley, 123 S.W.3d 642, 652 (Tex.App.-El Paso 2003, no pet.). As explained by the El Paso Court of Appeals,
The application of estoppel in paternity actions is aimed at achieving fairness as between the parents by holding them, both mother and father, to their prior conduct regarding the paternity of the child. Estoppel is based on the public policy that children should be secure in knowing who their parents are. If a person has acted as the parent and bonded with the child, the child should not be required to suffer the potentially damaging trauma that may come from being told that the father she has known all her life is not in fact her father. In determining whether the doctrine should be applied to a particular case, the child’s best interests are of paramount concern. To that end, the courts are more inclined to impose equitable estop-pel to protect the status of a child in an already recognized and operative parent-child relationship.
Id. at 651-52 (internal citations and quotations omitted).
Here, Knox has not filed a brief in defense of the trial court’s order, and we must, therefore, “accept as true the facts stated” in Stamper’s brief. Tex.R.App. P. 38.1(f). As outlined in the majority opinion, the facts, which have been verified in the reporter’s record, clearly reveal that Knox is not the biological father of the child and any type of continued relationship with Knox is not in the child’s best interests. Thus, I would hold that the trial court erred in applying the doctrine of equitable estoppel against Stamper and precluding her from denying that Knox is the biological father of the child. The doctrine simply does not apply here. See In re Shockley, 123 S.W.3d at 651-52.
Accordingly, I would sustain Stamper’s second issue. I would further vacate the trial court’s June 14, 2006 order, reverse *547that portion of the divorce decree appointing Knox as Joint Managing Conservator of Stamper’s daughter, and decree that Knox is not the father of the child and no parent-child relationship exists between Knox and the child.