JANET ERWIN, APPELLANT,
v.
PATRICK EVERARD, APPELLEE
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A mother's misconduct cannot bar a child from establishing paternity and receiving support from the natural father.
The child was born to the appellant mother and appellee father while the mother was married to another man. The trial court ruled the appellee was not…
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DAUKSCH, Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment which determines that appellee is the natural, biological father of appellant’s child but that appellee is not required to support the child. We reverse.
Every parent has the legal duty to support his or her child. A person who is not the parent of a child has no legal duty to support the child. The child here was born of appellant and appellee while appellant was married to another. Because of that circumstance and because appellant’s husband has cared for the child like a parent the trial judge ruled “... the Plaintiff is barred by the principle of equitable estoppel from contesting the paternity of the minor child ...” We strongly disagree with the principle adopted by the trial court that a mother can cause her child to lose her natural legal father by some misconduct on the part of the mother. Such a ruling is inequitable to the child and there is no precedence for it or logic to support it.
An inevitable consequence of the judge’s ruling, the husband of the mother is left to be the legal father or there is no father at all. The first is not lawful because that man was never made a party to the suit, the evidence is unrebutted that he is not the father, as the court so found. The second is, of course, impossible.
The judgment is reversed and this cause remanded for entry of a proper judgment and a determination of support money, suit money and all other attendant matters.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
HARRIS and PETERSON, JJ., concur.
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Swain v. Swain, 567 So. 2d 1058 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990)…ely found estoppel, this is, if anything, a stronger case than Wade for the imposition of child support obligations on a non-biological father. A finding of estoppel based on facts established at a non-jury trial, played no part in Erwin v. Everard, 561 So. 2d 445 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990); Albert v. Albert, 415 So. 2d 818 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982), rev. denied, 424 So. 2d 760 (Fla.1983); Kern v. Kern, 360 So. 2d 482 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978); or, Bostwick v. Bostwick, 346 So. 2d 150 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977)— the authorities relied…1 / 2
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Williams v. Genoav Beagle o/b/o Katina Beagle, 777 So. 2d 1213 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001)…lliams does not contest the adjudication of paternity, but claims the hearing officer erred in calculating his support obligation under the statutory guidelines. We agree. Every parent has a legal duty to support his or her child. Erwin v. Everard, 561 So. 2d 445 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990). In furtherance of this duty, public policy favors imposing on parents an obligation to contribute to the child’s support. Wollschlager v. Veal, 601 So. 2d 274, 276 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). Thus, section 61.30(9), Florida Statutes (2…
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State v. Autumn Danielle Pare, 177 So. 3d 663 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015)…al court denied the petition because there was no legal order determining Donsen’s paternity and because he did not have legal custody of the child. This was error. Both parents have an equal duty to support their minor children. Erwin v. Everard, 561 So. 2d 445, 445 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990); O’Brien v. O’Brien, 424 So. 2d 970, 971 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983). Although there is no formal order determining paternity in this case, Pare admits that Donsen is the biological father of the child and the record shows that his p…