States Grapple With Child Support Laws in the Era of Genetic Testing

When Dennis Caron found out his girlfriend was pregnant in 1989, he did what he thought was the right thing and married her.

By 1992 he had filed for divorce. Then, Caron said, “She hinted that I may not be the father of our child.” A DNA test confirmed it, he said.

The experience has turned Caron into a campaigner for changing Ohio’s child support law. He and the sponsor of a bill before a state Senate committee believe a man has the right not to pay child support if genetic testing proves he is not the father. Ohio isn’t the only state whose paternity laws are being challenged by angry men armed with DNA test results.

Opponents of the bill insist that what matters is the child’s interests, and that judges should have the final word.

In most states, courts rely on a 500-year-old English common-law doctrine that presumes a man is the legal father of any child born to his wife during their marriage. The law was designed to protect children because in medieval England a child shown to be illegitimate had virtually no rights.

But during the last 10 years, DNA-based paternity testing has more than tripled, to an estimated 247,000 cases in 1998.

Caron, 43, said he paid for his DNA test after his divorce. He said the result made him feel betrayed but he still loved the boy, now 9.

“It makes no difference to me,” he said. “I wanted shared legal custody of Tommy, but I also wanted her to identify the real father.”

Caron said he sued to stop paying child support only after his ex-wife, Gina Manfresca, cut off his contact with the child. He said she tells Tommy that he--Caron--is his real dad.

Andrea Yagoda, a lawyer who represents Manfresca, said she could not comment because of the pending lawsuit.

Since a judge determined Caron to be the father during his divorce hearings and ordered him to pay support, that obligation continues. Caron stopped making child support payments in 1997 but is setting aside $530 each month and has a bond against his home in case he loses his battle and has to pay up.

“The mother can raise the issue of paternity to make a man lose his parental rights, but courts can force fathers who raise the issue, even with genetic proof, to continue paying,” he said.

In Texas, Morgan Wise says he found out by accident three years after his divorce that he wasn’t the father of three of his four children.

The youngest was born with cystic fibrosis, and last year, after a blood test, the hospital told Wise that he didn’t have the recessive gene that passes down the disease.

“If he had never been sick, I would have never known,” Wise said.

Wise, a railroad engineer from Big Spring, Texas, went back to court and had a hearing on the DNA findings, but the court ordered him to continue paying $1,340 a month in child support.

His ex-wife, Wanda Fryar, has since remarried, and declined comment when reached at her Texas home.

Gerald Miscovich, a computer programmer from Douglassville, Pa., says he obtained DNA evidence of his non-paternity but lost a seven-year battle to avoid paying child support to his ex-wife.

Although his son was 22 months old when he separated from his wife, Miscovich did not take a DNA test until the boy was 4.

In December, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against him, voting to affirm a lower-court ruling saying “family interests” outweighed the ordering of blood tests. Miscovich failed to get a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.

He says he has spent about $70,000 in legal fees and has paid $35,000 in child support. He continues to have $537 a month garnisheed from his paycheck for child support, and he has six more years of payments to make.

“Somewhere out there is a deadbeat dad, and I am paying his bill,” Miscovich said.

Miscovich’s former wife, Elizabeth Selembo, who has since remarried, declined through her lawyer to comment.

Lab directors say that in about one-third of welfare cases and 10% of other cases, the father named by the mother turns out not to be the biological parent.

Ohio law lets a man ask a judge to correct a paternity ruling within a year. Men who don’t find out before then cannot end support payments even with DNA testing.

Caron testified before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 2 in support of the bill that would allow men to stop paying child support and sue to recover past payments if DNA testing proves they are not the father.

A version of the bill sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Peter Lawson Jones passed the House in November. He says current law is especially unfair to men who were tricked into acknowledging paternity.

But Jones notes that men who end their child support under his bill also could lose visitation rights. “They can’t have their cake and eat it too,” he said.

Opponents say the bill could disrupt children’s lives and bankrupt families.

“The bill started out as a good concept--the true father should be obligated to pay--but we have to be careful,” said Debbie Kline of the Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support, a nonprofit advocacy group.

“Think of the trauma for the child. . . . You think someone is your father and then he wants you to have genetic tests,” she said.

Yvette McGee-Brown, an Ohio county domestic relations judge, says it’s important to separate the question of child support payment from visitation issues. “There are things that are more important than just money,” she said.

Her colleague, Judge Russ Steiner, says the bill must allow more judicial discretion.

“There are always strange cases that warrant an exception to the law,” he said.

On the Net:

https://www.childsupport-aces.org is the Assn. for Children for Enforcement of Support.

https://www.pacegroup.org promotes equal access for both parents and equal sharing of responsibilities.