Posted on 01/09/2006 12:19:01 AM PST by RWR8189
A former Broward County man has been ordered to continue to pay child support for a child he did not father. He said his wife cheated on him; she denies it.
Richard Parker said he never suspected that his wife had been cheating on him when she got pregnant seven years ago.
When the Hollywood couple divorced in 2001, he agreed to pay her $1,200 a month in child support.
But less than two years later, when his son was 5, he says he learned the awful truth: The boy he had raised as his own wasn't his.
Parker sued his ex-wife, Margaret Parker, claiming fraud. He wanted to terminate his child-support payments and recover the money he had paid out. His court battle, so far unsuccessful, raises delicate questions about fatherhood and men's rights in an age in which it has become relatively simple to prove -- or disprove -- paternity.
For the most part, courts say the bonds of matrimony trump biology.
A Broward County judge dismissed Richard Parker's claim of fraud in January 2004, and an appeals court in November upheld the decision, effectively ending his quest for return of the child support he had paid to his ex-wife. Moreover, Parker must continue to pay $1,200 a month in support.
The court said Richard Parker should have questioned the blood line sooner -- within a year of the divorce -- if he had any doubts.
''It could have been over, and I could have been in control of my money,'' the 55-year-old dental implant salesman said of the dismissal, an outcome that didn't surprise him.
Margaret Parker, 41, insists that she never deceived her husband. She said they had trouble conceiving, so she had sex with a ''mutually agreed upon individual'' in order to get pregnant.
''He is the fraud,'' she said, describing her ex-husband as a louse, eager to dodge his responsibility.
Richard Parker, who now lives in Boston, said he didn't question his son's paternity until someone else suggested that there wasn't much of a resemblance.
''When kids are all really little, they all look the same,'' said Parker, a man of Irish and Italian ancestry. He said that both he and his son have dark hair, and that the boy has dark eyes shaped like his mother's.
But when his child was 5, his girlfriend's 90-year-old grandmother looked at a photo his father was carrying and told him that the child was certainly not his.
Parker confirmed the elderly woman's hunch with a DNA test he saw advertised on a billboard.
In June of that year, he sued his ex-wife.
In a petition before Broward Circuit Judge Renee Goldenberg, he said Margaret Parker intentionally misled him to believe that he was the father, and he asked the court to make his ex-wife pay him damages to compensate for past and future child-support obligations.
Goldenberg rejected his claim without wading into the issue of whether Richard Parker had been deceived. In late November, an appeals court upheld the decision.
`A TIME LIMIT'
Time was not on Richard Parker's side, said Joanna L. Grossman, a professor at Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, N.Y.
''The law provides a remedy for fraud, but imposes a time limit for raising the claim,'' Grossman wrote in an e-mail. ``Since his wife made the representation about the child's paternity during the divorce action, that proceeding was the appropriate time for him to raise any concerns he might have had.''
His lawyer, Scott A. Lazar, questioned the fairness of such a time limit, considering, as he alleges, that Parker was duped into believing he was the father.
''No one's going to tell you they are having an affair,'' Lazar said.
But Margaret Parker said she wasn't having an affair.
She said her ex-husband was infertile, a claim he called a ''a total lie,'' adding that, in fact, he has impregnated women in the past.
As part of her ruling, Judge Carole Y. Taylor of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach acknowledged that Richard Parker might feel victimized by the court's ruling. But she said the child's needs are paramount.
She said that the father's appeal could trigger ``psychological devastation that the child will undoubtedly experience from losing the only father he or she has ever known.''
Moreover, Taylor noted, cheating is hardly rare. Quoting from a law article written by Temple Law Professor Theresa Glennon, the appeals judge wrote:
``While some individuals are innocent victims of deceptive partners, adults are aware of the high incidence of infidelity and only they, not the children, are able to act to ensure that the biological ties they may deem essential are present. . . . The law should discourage adults from treating children they have parented as expendable when their adult relationships fall apart.''
Andrea Moore, executive director of Florida's Children First, a statewide advocacy organization based in Coral Springs, applauded the court rulings.
PUTTING CHILD FIRST
''Why would society allow a child to suffer for the mistakes of the parents?'' Moore said. ``If you look at it from the child's perspective, the child needs parents who consistently provide and care about them. That should come first. I am not so sure the youngster would care who the biological father was if the man had acted like the father.''
The child, now 7, still believes Richard Parker is his father, both parents said. His name has been withheld to protect his identity.
To be sure, Parker said he still wants to help the child. He said he would like to control where the money goes, and added that he and his current wife are already starting a college fund.
Miami attorney Gerald Kornreich said that courts sometimes order an accounting of such payments, but added that it's not standard because the amount -- in this case, $1,200 a month -- is based on a guideline stemming from the parents' combined salaries.
''Disgruntled dads often say, `I am giving all this money and the mom is using it to go out at night or use it with her boyfriend,'' he said.
''But usually it's too little and not too much'' support.
Biology isn't everything, conceded Parker, himself a child of adoption. He said his son should know as much as he can about his biological father's health history.
''Let's find out who this guy is,'' Parker said.
THAT is SCARY.
It's okay to rip the child away from the only father he has known. Just leave the money.
How about trying her for GRAND LARCENY?
This sounds SO Hillary. "We did it for the children."
The family bond is the foundation of child raising. Not the individual people who make up the family. The divorce broke that bond. The guy is now no more than somebody who makes the kid feel good. Any man can do that. The damage to this kids was done at the divorce, the rest is just sophistry.
I believe that having a parent die in a loving family is less damaging to a child than a divorce. This whole argumen is sickening.
Never mind that the entire concept of this "family" is based upon FRAUD? "Sophistry" is defined as a "plausible but fallacious argumentation." You, my friend, are GUILTY.
Oops. I misread your post. You hit the nail on the head. The biological father is issue, not the poor sap who got lied to.
In several states, your precious "law" says otherwise. There, they even feel that kid's are better off without a father. That is why the law has been so sadly twisted. Single women raising children without fathers, just "some man's paycheck."
All of your arguments support this perversion of the family.
Leni
Calling this "a family" after the divorce, and argueing how damaging it would be to the child for this guy to cut out (when the real damage has already been done by the divorce)...is sophistry.
the gentleman who is being extorted either needs to quit his job and become a liberal or illegal alien. choice no. 2 is to get a gun and do justice on his own, god knows the jackals in black robes dont know a thing about justice.
A direct result of radical feminism.
Not if I'm not the co-owner of the account. Spouses can't access *anything* these days without permission or joint ownership.
Yah, so what? A lot has changed since the Constitution was originally written too. Does that make all of it's ideas void?
What makes the ideas void is towering intellects like yours contriving ways to justify discrimination. You sit impassively for women acquiring unconstitutional privileges, but expect men to take the same responsibility as when women were subordinate.
That is perposterous unless you consider parenthood to be nothing more then having sex with results. A father is more then a sperm doner.
Not when it comes to abortion he isn't. Fathers don't abort: mothers do.
No, he's of questionable character if he would ditch a person he called his son or daughter because of his own convenience.
Being victimized is not "convenience."
It's also worth noting that he claims not to want to ditch the boy, but rather to control how the money is spent, and that he and his current wife have opened up a college account. Of course, there's always the chance he could be lying, but from the sound of things he's certainly the most honorable one in this whole equation.
And, yeah, I've pretty much rejected the whole 'mutually-arranged sperm donor' defense from the wife..
I agree.However,it must be noted,and noted clearly,that only one parent has sinned here.The other parents "sin" was that he trusted that his wife wasn't as "morally flexible" as she was.
Another thing I wonder is if the law is changed what happens to children born to infertile couples if either an anonymous egg or sperm donor is used to conceive?
In the case of a divorce and DNA test that shows that one parent is not biological then what happens? Do they go back to the sperm clinic and try to find out who the donor is to sue him for child support?
If I were to ever use DNA donation to conceive I would make sure I had an iron-clad agreement with my spouse to make sure that they couldn't weasel out if the marriage went south, just by virtue of the DNA not being theirs.
LQ
DINGDINGDINGDING...WINNER WINNER WINNER!
If it was about supporting the children, there would be flat rate child support for each locality.
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