Court Opinion

ID: 9532637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:23:29.03323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:48.043600
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
I join the majority in its explanation of why appellant has standing to seek a declaratory judgment as to whether he is or is not the father of Jeffrey. I write separately only to add the following observations.
-1-
The majority says that appellant must allege the fact rather than the possibility of paternity. At 1163. Strictly speaking we need not reach this issue because appellant *198amended his petition in the lower court to add an allegation that he is the father. N.T. 14-16. However, given the majority’s statement, I wish to note that in my opinion, appellant’s original petition was sufficient.
Although it has not always been so, it is now clear that a declaratory judgment action may be brought to determine a question of fact as well as a question of law. The Supreme Court has so held, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company v. S.G.S. Company, 456 Pa. 94, 318 A.2d 906 (1974); Friestad v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 452 Pa. 417, 306 A.2d 295 (1973), and this holding has been codified in the new Declaratory Judgments Act, Act of July 9,1976, P.L. 586, No. 142, § 2, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 7539(a). See, Declaratory Judgments, Explanatory Note—1979, preceding Pa.R.C.P. 1601.
Declaratory judgment actions are governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure, which require the pleading of facts. Pa.R.C.P. 1601(a), 1501, 1019(a). Appellant’s original petition did plead facts.1 These facts, however, were not such as *199to enable petitioner to know that he is the father of Jeffrey, but only that he very well may be. For the majority to say that nevertheless, appellant must plead that he is the father amounts to instructing a litigant that he must plead as fact something that he is uncertain about and that he believes may not be fact. This instruction is inconsistent with the philosophy underlying our system of fact pleading—that an honest statement of the issues should be required at the pleading stage. It is also an unnecessary instruction, for appellant’s uncertainty is, without more, sufficient to give him standing to maintain an action. One who is a father has legal rights and obligations regarding his child. Appellant is therefore entitled to know whether he is the father of Jeffrey and as such, has those rights and obligations. See majority op. at 1164-1165.
The cases cited by appellant and the majority are different from this case, for in them paternity was not an issue; in other words, the actions were not to resolve an issue about which the petitioner was uncertain. Thus in A.B. v. C.D., 150 Ind.App. 535, 277 N.E.2d 599 (1971), it was not disputed that the plaintiff was in fact the father. The issue was whether he could be legally recognized as the father, given that the child was born to his wife while she had been married to another man. The issue was much the same in Kendrick v. Everheart, 390 So.2d 53 (Fla.1980). And in Slawek v. Stroh, 62 Wis.2d 295, 215 N.W.2d 9 (1974), the mother, who was not married when the child was born, admitted that the petitioner was the father but disputed his right to a legal relationship with the child.
-2-
I agree with the majority that the lower court does not have the authority to require anyone other than appellant, appellee, and Jeffrey to submit to blood tests. Majority op. *200at 1168. I am unable to agree, however, with the majority’s statement that “[i]f the judgment is that appellant is Jeffrey’s father, then none of the other possible fathers to whom appellant refers had any rights with respect to the child....” Id. at 1168.
The Declaratory Judgments Act provides that “no declaration shall prejudice the rights of persons not parties to the proceeding.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 7540. Suppose that on remand the lower court determines on the basis of the evidence, including the results of the blood tests, that appellant is the father of Jeffrey, but that despite that determination, another man files a declaratory judgment action alleging that he could be the father. It seems to me that the other man’s action will have to be heard, and that a finding of paternity in the present action will not be res judicata or otherwise a bar, as the majority suggests. Given this perhaps unlikely but nevertheless troubling possibility, I think we should be specific regarding the sort of blood tests we have in mind.
The many states by statute the results of blood tests are admissible only when they serve to exclude a man as the father. See, e. g., Ark.Stats. 34-705.1. The reasoning is that when the tests do not exclude the man as the father, it does not follow that he is the father; although not excluded by the tests, he may nevertheless still not be the father. However, modern techniques, in particular human leukocyte antigen testing, often referred to as “HLA,” greatly increase the probability of exclusion. See Carlyon v. Weeks, 387 So.2d 465 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1980), and the scientific authorities cited therein.
No Pennsylvania appellate decision has addressed the admissibility of the results of HLA tests. In Commonwealth ex rel. Atkins v. Singleton, 282 Pa.Super. 390, 422 A.2d 1347 (1980), the results of HLA tests had been admitted by the lower court. The majority did not reach the issue of the admissibility of the results. The dissenting opinion assumed they were admissible but did not specifically discuss their use to help establish, rather than exclude, the possibility of paternity. Id., 282 Pa.Super. at 805, 422 A.2d at 1355 (BROSKY, J., dissenting).
*201The Pennsylvania version of the Uniform Act on Blood Tests to Determine Paternity, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6131 et seq., does not contain the language found in the statutes of some states restricting the use of blood tests to exclude a man as the father. I therefore conclude that the statute should not be construed as limiting the admissibility of the result of blood tests to cases in which the results exclude a man as the father. It seems to me to follow from this conclusion that on remand, we should instruct the lower court to order blood tests of appellant, appellee, and Jeffrey, including HLA tests, if other tests have not excluded appellant. See Joint AMA-ABA Guidelines: Present Status of Serologic Testing in Problems of Disputed Parentage, 10 Fam.L.Q. 247, 256 (1976). If the results of the tests are to exclude appellant as the father of Jeffrey, the court should resolve the issue of paternity accordingly, as a matter of law. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6136. If the results of the tests do not exclude appellant as the father, still the court should consider the results of the tests along with all the other evidence. See, Cramer v. Morrison, 88 Cal.App.3d 873, 153 Cal.Rptr. 865 (1979); Shaw & Kass, “Illegitimacy, Child Support, and Paternity Testing,” 13 Houston L.Rev. 41, 60 (1975). With HLA testing it is possible for the probability of exclusion to exceed 98 per cent. See Carlyon v. Weeks, supra; Tuinstra v. Chorley, 7 Fam.L.R. 2069 (Mich.Cir.Ct. Nov. 5, 1980) (when probability of accuracy of blood test in establishing paternity approaches 98 per cent, result of test is admissible as “relevant evidence” even in face of statute limiting blood tests to exclusion of paternity).
-3-
Finally, I wish to acknowledge explicitly a conclusion that is implied by our holding in this case, and by the constitutional principles and statutory authority on which our holding rests, see majority op. at 1164-1165.
Since a man has rights, which will be legally protected, incident to his status as father of a child, and not just obligations, such as support, which will be enforced only at the initiative of the mother or the state, it must follow that *202an unmarried woman does not have the unqualified right to refuse to cooperate in legal proceedings intended to determine the paternity of her child. I recognize, as did the lower court, that this conclusion may result in some intrusion on a woman’s privacy. See lower court slip op. at 3. Nevertheless, in a case such as this one, that interest must yield.
With these additional considerations I join the opinion of the majority.

. The relevant paragraphs of appellant’s original petition are as follows:
1. The Petitioner is James McGarrity, an adult individual residing at 900 DeKalb Street, Norristown, PA.
2. The Respondent, Kathy Mengel, is, and was at all times material hereto, an unmarried adult residing at 2036 Bayless Place, Norristown, PA.
3. Jeffrey Mengel is an infant residing with his mother at 2036 Bayless Place, Norristown, PA.
4. Jeffrey Mengel is the child of Respondent and was born on December 29, 1979.
5. Upon information and belief, no father was named on Jeffrey’s Birth Certificate, the Respondent has not named anyone as the father since birth, and no one has acknowledged paternity of the boy.
6. The Petitioner has sufficient contact with the Respondent in March and April to make it Physically possible that he is Jeffrey’s father.
7. From last April until mid-December the Respondent claimed that petitioner was the only possible father of her child.
8. During that time, Respondent held out Petitioner as father of her child to family and friends.
9. During that time, Respondent claimed that Petitioner was father of her child under circumstances that made no sense to so claim unless Petitioner was the father.
*19910. Shortly before Jeffrey’s birth, Respondent told Petitioner that he was not the father of her child and refused, and continues to refuse, to discuss the paternity other than to say an unnamed married individual is the father.
11. Respondent has refused to voluntarily submit to any tests to determine the paternity of her child.