Court Opinion

ID: 9733184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:56:32.953939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:39.124283
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN N. LIMBAUGH, JR.,
Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I would hold that the minor child was “legitimated by legal process” under section 568.040 by the entry of the administrative order establishing paternity under section 454.490. “Legal process,” as the majority correctly notes, is not defined. But the statute does not purport to require a formal judgment in a suit filed in the circuit court as the exclusive means to establish that a “legal process” has been utilized, and contrary to the majority, State ex rel. Sanders v. Sauer, 188 S.W.3d 238 (Mo. banc 2006), did not so hold. “Legal process” is necessarily a broader term, and a formal judgment is merely a subset encompassed by that term. In my view, *650an administrative order under section 454.490, which has “all the force, effect, and attributes of a docketed order or decree of the circuit court ...,” is no less a legal process than a formal judgment. Moreover, the administrative order is all the more a “legal process” because ample due process is afforded to defendants through notice of the proceedings, a hearing before the administrative agency, an entitlement to de novo review before the circuit court, and an appeal thereafter. Dye v. Div. of Child Support Enforcement, 811 S.W.2d 355, 359 (Mo. banc 1991).
In essence, this case is no different than Sauer: A default was taken against both putative fathers, but neither took advantage of the legal process available to them to refute the determination of paternity. For this reason, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.