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.
'Bout a year back, a lovely family was torn apart by the mother's infidelity. So what did the courts do? They awarded primary custody of the two young sons to... drumroll... the Mother.
We obviously disagree on the definition of 'his' child.
I would say that while it might not biologically be his child, it is still his child in the sense that he accepted responsibility for it and was raising it like his child. That is a lot more important then biology.
As I've said before, a father is not a seman factory. He's a lot more then that. The person who is biologically his father is nothing more then a seman factory. The man in question is not.
I'll give yet another example: Let's say a woman talks a man into adopting a kid, saying she'll stay with him, but then runs away from their marrage, hooks up with some other guy, and leavs him with the kid.
Since he was lied to by the woman, should he now be able to turn the child back in and say it isn't his responsibility? Because it would seem by your logic, that yes, he would.
Oh, wait, I figured it out.
"I'm not your mother" is a figure of speech.
You ever heard a bartender tell someone maybe they shouldn't have another one, but then, when they insist, say "OK, well, I'm not your mother. Here's your drink."
2 quick comments to those who think this situation is fair - 2 principles according to this judgment:
-The fraudster gets away with the fraud if the fraud isn't uncovered "in time"
-While the woman is pregnant the kids count for less than nothing as she can exercise her "choice" at ANY time before TOTAL birth. However, once they are born, they are the responsibility of the man whether he EVER wanted them (even if he had told her to get an abortion - Only she has the right to "choice), and now he is obliged to support them even when he finds out they're not his.
Just like affirmative discrimination (I mean Affirmative action), unfair laws create their own backlash, that end up hurting the people these laws were designed to protect. Men are not just going to accept playing the sucker. Either they will refuse to follow the law, or they will not put themselves in that position (ie not marry). Women will need to live with it.
Think about it. If we only look would the at the best interest of the child, we could justify taking infants from poorer parents and granting parents to richer, more nurturing ones. Biology should mean something. And fraud should mean something. Courts shouldn‘t be in the business of rewarding adultery and deception. But in this case, Florida‘s court, and many other courts around the country, seem to be doing just that.
Wow, the following is a very powerful argument, as I did invest years in involvement with the "adoption" issues.
[Mr.] PARKER: Obviously, not. You have to understand, I was an adopted child. When I was 13, the courts were required to have the adopted parents tell their children that they were adopted. Mason will be in this similar situation at around this time, when he‘s old enough to understand what it means
And in re divorce and cases like these "deception" cases? IMHE, it's always been about the MONEY -- the "deeper" pockets.
ABRAMS: Mr. Lazar, let me ask you a legal question. Does the biological father have money, as far as you know?
SCOTT LAZAR, ATTORNEY FOR RICHARD PARKER: He has some money. Child support is calculated based upon your respective incomes. So you know, it‘s directly in line with what he makes. So it‘s not, you know, he has a certain amount of money and that‘s what the child support is based on.
ugh... the dissomaster....
I think MARTIN GUGGENHEIM, NYU FAMILY LAW PROFESSOR, is an arrogant piece of Hillary Clinton agenda. His philosophy is antithetical to healthy society. What an arrogant fool. I still have the original "text" to Clinton/Edelman's "UN Rights of the Child". I think Guggenheim should go work for Kofi Annan.
Therefore... no doubts the courts will make Mr. Parker pay for a child that is not his. It's the socialist mantra of "income redistribution" and "by any means necessary".
Disgusting.
Nope -- he didn't. And according to the Abrams report, the wife continued to lie right on through the divorce proceedings. She didn't come clean at all.
That line is what made me like the movie. Because, it is true. Feminism weakens women.
If he loses his appeals he should take his assets and get the hell out of the country. Maybe he can claim asylum in Canada.
He has a "father" -- and the bio father should make himself known to his son. Or, if this has to do with what's best for the child? How about the courts award custody of children to the "non-problematic parent", or rather, since women file for divorce in most all cases whether there's genuine grounds or not under "no-fault divorce" laws, the children be awarded to the dad. That would be in the best interest of the child. Or do you see this differently?
BS. And in fact, I find most your posts to be blittering socialist nonsense and never responding to the points actually made to you. I guess you are a "for the children" advocate, huh? Always good to put up goods for your own position, no? Are you a child? Maybe a woman who herself is in adulterous liaisons and looking for deep pockets -- in order to best provide "for the children"? Or maybe a male in an adulterous liaison -- clamoring to ding good men, and for your own philandering?
How can you defend your "for the children" stuff, while advocating that honor and integrity be abused and in the COURTS of all places. Fer cryin' out loud..
These "deception" games are never "for the children" -- it's for the bloody damned self-centered "so-called" grownups who refuse to act like adults. And want someone else to pay for any consequences of their own wrongdoing and immature behaviors.
Wrong. Marriage is based on trust, especially after the vows are taken. One PLEDGES their fidelity.
He should have done the paternity test the moment the decision of divorce was in action.
Still, I haven't yet gotten clear who initiated the divorce proceedings. Do you know?
Why not ban all laws while you are at it. Toss out honor, integrity, pledges, contracts. I mean, if it's all about "the children", that is...
Bingo. And not to also MENTION that he'll be paying child support for a child not his (welfare by another name) on top of any future "children" he might have biologically.
OH! (slapping forehead)... a man should take responsibility for having married the "loose woman" in the first place! That's what you Mean! He shouldn't marry -- he just should always be the sucker who screws but never marries. Poor saps who marry, and haven't figured out they married a lying, adulterous woman. I get it now...
I've known good men who have done exactly this -- left the country. They've seen persecution, first hand in the so-called "Family Courts" of the U.S.A.
It's the only rational thing to do in that circumstance if there's any flicker of yearning for freedom left in one's heart.
Funny how each "example" or "comparison" bears woefully little resemblance to the issue at hand. Kinda like the Liberal switcheroo of excusing one evil with another.
Bottom line is that if you are married and a child is born out of it, it's officially yours by law.
Cheating, the ex screwing everyone within 25 miles has nothing to due with the fact you were married to her at the birth of the bastard.
Bottom line thinking is IMO that if they don't make the ex pay, then far more would be on welfare where we all pay.
I've been on track with this issue for many, many years. Going back to the 70s. I've known of men, around the world, who've hung themselves, committed suicide and because they were so wronged by the so-called "courts". I've seen men bankrupt themselves. I've seen men come quite close to losing their minds and because of the feminist laws.
Anyone wanna tell me the feminist don't celebrate these horrid events and laws? They do.
And what do the children "get out of this"? They get "disturbed". They see not justice; but persecution. But in the meantime, some women live well, if they plan the deception just right.. and with the right judge.. and the right lawyer(s). Seen it way too many times.
It's evil.
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