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.
Do me a favor: Don't tell me what 'Men' want unless you are somehow all men. You aren't.
That said, it has NOTHING to do with it. NOTHING. He accepted responsibility for the child, and is thus the child's father. I don't give a crap about who the sperm doner was. If he doubted the paternaty, he should have said something before he assumed his roll as the child's father.
A real man wouldn't back away from his responsibility.
When women are held to account for lying about the baby's father there will be less cheating by them. They will know that suckering the man into paying will be more difficult. That the financial burden will fall on her shoulders and the child's real father if she can find him
Anyways DNA tests will be done right off the bat for a lot more babies and these cases won't make it to court
So, you find out your little girl is biologically someone elses.. you are going to say you are going to throw away your entire relationship with her, because you cannot control the spite you would feel for your wife?
Interesting view of Christian principles you have there. Casting the sins of the mother onto the daughter.... Yea, sounds like something Christ said.
Now now don't get angry with me. I'm simply trying to speak to you in logical terms. A daunting task I'll admit
What a whore. And they wonder why less men are interested in marriage!
Perhaps men should learn to be better at picking their mates? Certainly nothing frees a cheating wife for responsibility for her actions.... but being better judges of character before one gets married, might cut down on the odds you being the hubby being cheated on... just a thought.
(Oh and this goes vice versa... lot of married guys out there who have kids with folks other than their wives, concieved while they were married).
Did you ever hear about the birds and the bees? Father seems to equal sperm in every other case when a woman is suing to have men who are not their husbands to support their children. Now all of a sudden when using that rule means the man wouldn't have to pay, the interpretation is reversed? That is a blatant double-standard and shows what a male-persecuting farce the family courts have become.
This man is not going to see a child who is the literal personification of his ex-wife's infidelity as his own. It's absurd that you think he should have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a fantasy that there will be some future father-child relationship left to break. (Cluetrain stopping in "Fait Accompli" - all aboard!)
The man who fathered the child must assume the father's responsibility. That is right and just. The trauma inflicted on the child is shared by him and the ex-wife, not the guy you want to enslave (and there really can be no other word for the demand of the court backed by the coercive force of the state).
If you truly believe the feminist dogma you are advocating then this is not the web site for you.
This is not the forum for him. He belongs at NOW or some other site where they have no problem with enslaving men and wrecking families to advance the goals of feminism.
LOL! Hot air alert!
#1 The cuckolded man was lied to about who the father was
#2 The cheating wife lied in court about the same
#3 Therefore why on earth should he pay child support for a child that isn't his? That he was lied to continually about? This defies logic in this age of DNA testing. Prior to DNA testing your case was much stronger
#4 Child support is the cheating woman's problem. Women and married women should think before they cheat. Guys can suffer from cheating and so should the women in cases like this
#5 Some men in this situation do have a strong bond and do support the child. But this must be elective. Not forced on them by the cheating wife and our feminized court system
"Ah, but he wilfully accepted the child as his own."
Under the premise that it WAS HIS!!! As the article states he is now (rightly) claiming fraud.
If there were records proving that the man was infertile, or had even consulted a physician in that regard, then it would hardly make sense for him to claim that he's fertile
I made the assumption that she's lying and he's hysterical; in that she has no proof that he's infertile; and that's why he claimed to have sired other children.
We are supposed to believe that they so wanted a child that they would arrange for her to have an affair but that they did not even consult with a physician about alleged conception problems??
We are supposed to believe "her words" but exhibit no sympathy to understanding his fury and hurt. She threw out a "shesaid/hesaid" lob into the foray. Otherwise, there's no reason at all for his assertions to fertility.
You are hiding behind the canard.
There is much more to being a father than providing an income stream, but what does the court order actually accomplish beside that stream?
Can he veto her on ANYTHING by asserting the "fatherhood" the court has constructed for him?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1542436/posts?page=365#365 going by post #365 I would say your debating partner, dogz, is a woman
Why the heck does that say I'm a woman?
I'm not.
I'm a man. I'm 25. I'm from Washington State, but I'm in California attending grad school. I come from a lower middle class background.
Would you like my social security number too?
I feel very badly for this poor little boy who seems to have such a couple winners for parents.
According to the article it wasn't a "casual agreement" but that they had mutually sought and agreed upon the donor.
This is indeed a "casual agreement". By all accounts, she should have the book thrown at her. She has breached the marriage contract.
Thus far in re given "knowns" -- it appears that no legal documents were drawn up in re the so-called "casual agreement". In the gay/lesbian "joint" sperm donation deals I've known of (turkey baster, insemination, etc.), at least the folks involved thought to involve formal agreements.
In the re the rest of your post: sure, this could be a he said/she said argument. But that is only so that the central point is obscured -- her infidelity, and that her son, not formally adopted by her legal husband, has been bastardized by her infidelity.
Very sad situation.
ONLY because his ex-wife assured him that the child was indeed his child. Now that he has established that this child is NOT his, he should bear no further responsibility to this child. He is NOT the father and he should NOT have to continue to support someone else's child if he doesn't want to.
I totally disagree with this notion that a man should be forced to support a child that isn't his when he clearly doesn't want to.
#1 Doesn't matter.
#2 Doesn't matter.
#3 Because the child needs a father, and he accepted responsibility for it.
Are you actually so naive that you think that everytime someone accepts responsibility for something they know all the details about it and what they are getting into? If so, wake up.
#4 Purely opinion, and I strongly disagree. The Child needs a father, and one man already accepted responsibility for it. The fact that he married a tramp is unfortunate, but it's not the childs fault.
#5 Purely opinion, and again, I disagree strongly.
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