Posted on 11/30/2005 9:00:49 PM PST by 11th_VA
High Point, NC -- We all know the stories about deadbeat parents. Well, Billy Mason is not a deadbeat dad, he's not even a dad to one particular child. But, he still has to pay for a child that's not his.
Billy Mason says he was 15 at the time he went before a Guilford County judge on a child support case and said, "Didn't know anything about them kind of laws."
"The judge asked me if I was the father of the child. Yeah I'm the father. That was my girlfriend at the time. She was pregnant. I just went in. Thinking I was doing the right thing. Boom. Son you're going to pay this amount."
For years, Mason paid child support until he started to suspect the child wasn't his. So, he took a test.
"Went and took the DNA test. Hey boom, come back, hey you're not the father. No way possible. Zero percent. When I got that letter back from the DNA test, I had to take off work because I broke down. I couldn't mentally do nothing."
Mason went back to court, won his case, and a judge ended the child support. But, this is where the story takes a strange turn.
The county attorney under procedure appealed and a higher court reinstated the child support. Mason must pay for a child that's not his.
"Wasn't quick enough. After a year, supposedly can't come back and say I'm not the father."
"Hard cases make bad law. And this is as extremely unfortunate. The General Assembly has said by statute you have one year to do this. He's dad as far as the legal system's concerned," says Trey Aycock, an attorney who specializes in family law.
Administrative Rule 60 only gives a person a limited amount of time and reasons to appeal a case, and mason did not fall under it.
"The same rule we lawyers use technicalities to get around things all the time, he's stuck with," says Aycock.
Mason will have to pay for a child that is not his until the boy's 18th birthday. Aycock recognizes the injustice.
"But for him to have a continuing on-going child support obligation for 18 years, there is something about that, that just doesn't sit right in your belly."
"I look at all these posters, deadbeat dad, and I sit there, I'm not a deadbeat dad. I've been paying for years for a child that's not even mine," says Mason.
We talked to a judge and a county attorney about these type of cases. The court determines paternity, not biology, so once declared the father, you're it.
They also told us, you lose your legal rights if you don't seek them in a timely manner, and in this case, it is one year.
Well. Isn't that nice. I suppose the feminist Nazis are quite happy to have the courts doing their dirty work.
Family court isn't about families. It's about voilating the rights of men.
I knew this story would get under some people's skin ...
I'd go to jail before I'd pay a dime.
sure sucks to be that guy.
If I were him, I'd fight this one all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
No kidding. It's pure BS.
Well, it should. He may have made a stupid decision as a kid, but he shouldn't have to literally pay for it for all those years. This is just flat out wrong. IMO, he should get all that money back too.
They probably have a law on the books that says a judgment based on fraud is an absolute nulity.
They are just choosing to ignore it.
This is a judgment call - a bad judgment call.
In Germany, a couple of dads took their case to the German supreme court on this issue. They lost. The 'dads' had gotten private DNA tests proving they were not the fathers.
The court went as far to say that they thought the fathers should be jailed for a year for getting the private tests done.
more details mother denied having sex with anyone else ...fraud
http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/coa/opinions/2005/unpub/040618-1.htm
A few months ago there was another thread in FR. It was about a woman that asked the father for child support when the kid was 2 years old. The guy didn't even know about the child. Guess what?. He had to pay. Why doesn't the one year rule apply in this case?. If the woman fails to disclose the father in less than one year, then there is no father at all.
Yea getting gang raped in prison would really show her.....
It's a case of the state having found a sucker to take the rap has no intention of letting him off - because then the state would be paying for a child born out of wedlock.
"It's the money, stupid"
As I have said many times on FR, we have a system of Laws in America, but we lost Justice many years ago.
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