Court Opinion

ID: 9852046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:23:39.53007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:21.530916
License: Public Domain

Benham, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the majority opinion oversteps the bounds of judicial action, setting this Court above, rather than co-equal with, the legislature by applying a judicially-imposed standard to determine whether trial courts should follow statutory procedures instituted by the General Assembly, I must dissent.
The essence of the majority opinion’s holding is that although Mr. Baker’s status as legal father is only presumptive and may be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence, the question of whether the issue of actual paternity can be considered at all is to be decided by application of the “best interests of the child” standard. While every issue touching a child’s life should, in a more nearly perfect world, be governed by consideration of the best interests of the child, we are constrained as an appellate court to apply the law as it is, not to make law as we believe it should be. That is the role of the legislature, and the legislature, has performed its role and established a standard to be used when the paternity of a child is questioned. The statutory standards do not allow for an initial determination of which parent’s recognition would be in the best interests of the child before determining who is, in fact, the actual legal parent. Had the General Assembly intended such a threshold determination to be made, it would have provided for it. Instead, the legislature enacted a standard to be applied in every case in which paternity of a child bom in wedlock is challenged, a “strong presumption” of legitimacy which can be overcome by clear and convincing proof.21
The majority opinion characterizes this case as one “where a biological mother has essentially sought to delegitimize her child and prevent the legal and presumptive father from asserting any of the rights associated with parenthood,” but this is actually no more than a divorce case in which the trial court has been presented with an issue for which the legislature has provided a mechanism and a standard by which the issue is to be decided. The majority’s superimposi*785tion of a “best interests of the child” test on the statutory procedure for determining paternity, while admirably solicitous of the best interests of children, ignores the fact that the law which we are sworn to uphold recognizes certain rights in the biological parents of a child. I speak not of rights of ownership, for we can all agree that children are not chattel, but of the right to be recognized as a parent and to participate in the child’s life. The biological father of the child in issue here has intervened, apparently in an effort to assert just such an interest in the child’s life, but the majority opinion disposes of his interest in a footnote with a citation which is asserted to control his interest.
That citation is to Davis v. LaBrec, 274 Ga. 5 (549 SE2d 76) (2001), in which this Court applied a “best interests of the child” standard to a case in which the biological mother engaged in a fraudulent course of conduct. The majority also relies on Ghrist v. Fricks, 219 Ga. App. 415 (465 SE2d 501) (1995), a case involving even more egregious fraud than did Davis, supra. There, both biological parents engaged in fraudulent conduct regarding paternity while maintaining a years-long adulterous affair. Those cases represent aberrations, not the norm. In addition, while there is a great deal of dicta in Ghrist about the best interest of the child, the result was reached in only a few paragraphs based on collateral estoppel. The present case is not like those cases. There is no fraud here, as there was in both those cases. This is a divorce case, in which the dissolution of the family unit is the object, whereas the others were efforts from without to disrupt familial relations. In those cases, the appellate courts crafted new approaches because they were presented with facts that did not fit well within existing statutory processes. Here, where the conduct is not so reprehensible and the case is one for which the legislature has provided, imposing the “best interests of the child” standard to the possible exclusion of the procedures established by the General Assembly amounts to the exception swallowing the rule.
The majority opinion embarks on a perilous course in this case, usurping the policy-making prerogative of the General Assembly and elevating subjective value judgments above the considered and legally-adopted procedures that govern domestic matters. Because I believe this Court is stepping well beyond its bounds in this case, I must dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Carley and Justice Hines join in this dissent.
*786Decided June 2, 2003
Reconsideration denied July 11, 2003.
McArthur & McArthur, John J. McArthur, for appellant.
W. Roy Finch III, for appellee.

 (a) All children born in wedlock or within the usual period of gestation thereafter are legitimate.
(b) The legitimacy of a child born as described in subsection (a) of this Code section may be disputed. Where possibility of access exists, the strong presumption is in favor of legitimacy and the proof must be clear to establish the contrary. . . .
OCGA § 19-7-20.