Court Opinion

ID: 9608672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:15:39.101281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:47.031342
License: Public Domain

Smith, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
Words define our very being and the way in which we are viewed and treated by society. The power of this Court is the power of words; the way this Court uses words determines how citizens are regarded. As stated by Justice Weltner in his commencement address at Oglethorpe University, August 16, 1991:
The Court commands and restrains public power and private interest. Yet, it has no sword and no purse. These belong to the executive and the legislature. How can the Court stay the hand of one, and void the act of the other? Because to the Court belongs the word. The sword may not be drawn, nor the purse filled or emptied, contrary to that word. The power of the Court is the power of words, as spoken from its bench and inscribed upon its writ. ... A court that dispenses Justice alone, and is heedless of Truth and Mercy, forfeits its power. . . .
Heedless of Truth and Mercy the majority forfeits its power to protect this child and other illegitimate children by refusing to strike the statute as unconstitutional and erroneously declaring that the only rights affected by OCGA § 19-7-22 are the father’s rights.
The law favors legitimating children when it “can be done with safety to society.” Harrison v. Odum, 148 Ga. 489, 495 (96 SE 1038) (1918). When, as in this case, all reasonable doubt as to the father has been eliminated, there can be no threat to society to legitimate the *543child, and yet this father refuses to legitimate his son.3 The very important right of the child to be rendered legitimate is the issue, and under our statutory law, that exclusive power and control is in the hands of the father. OCGA § 19-7-22. A child born out of wedlock, despite a judicial order and decree giving the child the rights of a legitimate child, is still a “child who is not legitimate” within the meaning of OCGA § 19-7-20. Thus we have three potential classes of children: legitimate children, illegitimate children, and illegitimate children with most of the rights of legitimate children.
The public policy of this State has changed dramatically over the last few years; historically, the innocent child bore the stigma of his parents’ illegal union by being labeled a “bastard.” The father, who was necessarily engaged in an illegal act of fornication, adultery, or rape when the innocent child was conceived, was protected by the law while the innocent child was punished. The “bastard” was forbidden from using his father’s name or inheriting from his father’s estate.4
The “bastard” and the taxpayers bore the weight of the father’s folly: The child wearing the cruel appellation, “bastard,” and the taxpayers bearing the burden of financially assisting the single parent. The law is changing. The term “bastard” has been replaced with “child born out of wedlock,” and both parents have the joint and several duty to provide for the maintenance, protection, and education of such children. OCGA § 19-7-24.
A child born out of wedlock is “not legitimate,” OCGA § 19-7-23 (3), within the meaning of OCGA § 19-7-20, but he can be rendered legitimate if the “reputed” father subsequently marries the mother and “recognizes” the child as his own. OCGA § 19-7-20 (c). Alternatively, a child who is not legitimate may be “rendered” legitimate if his father files a petition in the Superior Court to legitimate his child. OCGA § 19-7-22. Thus the father has the exclusive right and power to determine legitimacy. Without the father’s permission, no court can render an illegitimate child legitimate.5 The most any court can do is to grant certain rights to the illegitimate child. It cannot declare legitimacy despite overwhelming evidence that the reputed father is the biological father. Similarly, the wishes of the child or of the mother mean nothing if the father refuses to legitimate the child.
The statute, OCGA § 19-7-22, should be declared unconstitutional because by granting the father the exclusive right to legitimate *544his child, it simultaneously grants to him the exclusive privilege to deny his child the right to be called legitimate. In the present case, the appellant/mother asked the appellee/father to legitimate their son but the father refused. Now, the mother brings this action to legitimate their son, but the trial court and this Court assert that only the father can legitimate the child.
Decided September 6, 1991.
Alice F. Brown, Sims W. Gordon, for appellant.
Monroe Ferguson, for appellee.
The majority sees this appeal as a distinction without a difference, but they have forgotten the power of the word. This child is, according to Georgia law, still an illegitimate child, OCGA § 19-7-23 (3), but now he has certain rights. Rights without the power of the words are only partial rights. Would the rights of black citizens have been considered complete if the law granted them the right to sit anywhere on public transportation while allowing the driver to announce each arrival and departure with a racial epithet? This case cries out for the Court to affirm the power of words; this Court must heed “Truth and Mercy.”
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham joins in this dissent.

 The appellee admits in his brief that he and Ms. Pruitt are the parents of the child. Paternity tests established a 98.43 percent probability of paternity. The appellee plead guilty to a charge of child abandonment and was ordered to pay child support.

 A child born out of wedlock is capable of inheriting from the mother in the same manner as a legitimate child. OCGA § 53-4-4 (b).

 This opinion does not address the effects of a decree of adoption, OCGA § 19-8-19, but only the rights of the biological father and the child.