Court Opinion

ID: 9705460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:07:44.586174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:11.616974
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the result reached by the majority. I write separately, however, to address a recent decision by a panel of this court that might appear to support a different result.
In Kohler v. Bleem, 439 Pa.Super. 385, 654 A.2d 569 (1995), a panel of this court reversed the trial court’s ruling that appellant, Benjamin Kohler, was estopped from denying paternity. The action concerned a child born to Mrs. Kohler during her marriage to Mr. Kohler, but after Mr. Kohler had a vasectomy and tests confirmed his sterility. Mrs. Kohler told her husband that the father of the child was a man living in Buffalo whose exact whereabouts she did not know. Despite the circumstances, Mr. Kohler accepted the child into his home, held the child out as his own, and provided support for both Mrs. Kohler and the child. Five years later, Mr. Kohler learned that the father of the child was not a stranger, but rather was a neighbor and friend, David Bleem, with whom Mrs. Kohler had a long-term affair. One year after learning of the relationship between Mrs. Kohler and Mr. Bleem, Mr. Kohler left the marital home, stating that while he could live with the idea that a stranger had fathered his wife’s child, he could not tolerate the idea of living next door to the man.
Following the Kohlers’ separation, Mrs. Kohler brought a child support action against Mr. Bleem. In that action, Mr. Bleem asserted that both of the Kohlers were estopped from denying Mr. Kohler’s paternity of the child. The trial court agreed, finding that although it was undisputed that Mr. Bleem was the child’s biological father, there was no precedent for avoiding the doctrine of paternity by estoppel and that, under Pennsylvania law, the obligation for support of the child must be placed on Mr. Kohler.
The majority of the panel of this court reversed the decision of the trial court, finding that prior Pennsylvania cases did not *199address the application of paternity by estoppel to situations “where (1) clear and convincing evidence has been offered to rebut the presumption; (2) the party seeking to invoke estoppel in his or her favor is guilty of fraud or misrepresentation; and (3) there is no intact family.” Kohler, 439 Pa.Super. at 397, 654 A.2d at 575 (emphasis in original). In such cases, the panel majority stated, “it defies both logic and fairness to apply equitable principles to perpetuate a pretense,” id. at 397, 654 A.2d at 575, because the family unit which the doctrine of estoppel was developed to protect no longer exists and because “application of estoppel would punish the party that sought to do what was righteous and reward that party that has perpetrated a fraud,” id. at 397, 654 A.2d at 575-76. The majority noted that Mr. Kohler’s actions in accepting the child knowing that she was not his biological daughter would ordinarily give rise to paternity by estoppel. However, the majority found that in accepting the child Mr. Kohler was “operating under the misrepresentation that an ‘unknown’ man had fathered the child” and “[b]ut for this fact, Mr. Kohler indicated that he would have left his wife immediately,” id. at 398, 654 A.2d at 576. The majority therefore concluded that Mr. Bleem, who was aware of and participated in the misrepresentation, should be precluded from utilizing equitable principles. Accordingly, the majority held, it was error to allow Mr. Bleem to invoke the doctrine of estoppel to preclude Mr. Kohler from denying paternity.
The facts of the case now before us parallel those in Kohler in some respects. Mr. Zadori’s lack of access to Mrs. Zadori during the period in which the child was conceived and Mrs. Zadori’s admissions that the child was fathered by another man constitute clear and convincing evidence to overcome the presumption that Mr. Zadori is the father. Moreover, there is an allegation of fraud or misrepresentation in that Mr. Zadori asserts that Mrs. Zadori led him to believe that the child was his up until the child’s birth, when delivery of a full-term baby only three months after the parties began sexual relations made his non-paternity obvious. Finally, because the parties are separated, it appears that the Zadoris no longer have an *200intact family unit in need of protection. This case thus appears to fall within the three parameters outlined by the Kohler majority: (1) clear and convincing evidence has been offered to rebut the presumption of paternity; (2) Mrs. Zadori, the party seeking to invoke estoppel in her favor, is guilty of fraud or misrepresentation; and (3) there is no intact family.
However, Kohler diverges from a long and powerful line of cases which support paternity by estoppel. See, e.g., John M. v. Paula T., 524 Pa. 306, 571 A.2d 1380 (1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 850, 111 S.Ct. 140, 112 L.Ed.2d 107 (1990); Christianson v. Ely, 390 Pa.Super. 398, 568 A.2d 961 (1990); Seger v. Seger, 377 Pa.Super. 391, 547 A.2d 424 (1988); Matter of Montenegro, 365 Pa.Super. 98, 528 A.2d 1381 (1987); see also, Kohler v. Bleem, supra at 401-406, 654 A.2d at 577-80 (Tamilia, J., dissenting). The public policy underlying paternity by estoppel is one which favors legitimacy and prevents an individual who has knowingly assumed the duties of parent from later renouncing those obligations, thereby leaving the child in an unprotected position. Any departure from the well-established principles of paternity by estoppel requires equally strong, countervailing considerations of public policy.
The majority in Kohler found, on the unique facts of that case and in light of the strong policy against permitting a party who has acted in reliance upon an intentional misrepresentation to suffer harm as a result, a sufficient basis to make an exception to the doctrine of paternity by estoppel. However, the decision in Kohler, departing as it does from the well-established legal principles underlying the doctrine of paternity by estoppel, must be limited to the facts of that case in order to avoid any erosion of the important public policies which led to the development of that doctrine.
On the facts of the case before us, I am not persuaded, as was the panel majority in Kohler, that a fraud has been committed that is so egregious as to overcome the public policies protecting the child on whose behalf support is sought. Moreover, there is no allegation in this case that Mr. Zadori relied upon Mrs. Zadori’s misrepresentations in accepting and *201supporting the child. Accordingly, I see no basis for granting an exception from the principles of paternity by estoppel to Mr. Zadori, the adult who knowingly and voluntarily assumed the responsibilities of parenthood of a child who was not his biological offspring.
Accordingly, I agree with the majority that Mr. Zadori’s conduct estops him from denying paternity of Thomas and hence that the orders denying blood tests and ordering Mr. Zadori to pay support for Thomas should be affirmed.