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.
Is it just me or is this one of the worst worded articles ever written? The speakers don't even use complete sentences to convey their thoughts. Whatever happened to proper English?
There are often exceptions to that principle when children (especially teenagers) engage in adult activity, such as creating a child. Even when minority prohibits you from signing a legal contract, often that contract is ratified after a certain period of time once the minor has turned 18. Some statute of limitations allow minor to begin the clock once they turn 18, so if that were true in this case, he would have until age 19. Past that, you can't act on your claim no matter how young you were at the time.
It's confusing when people like yourself claim a child will be abandoned because a man is not the father or was lied to about being the father and that man feels an injustice of coerced responsibility.
It's confusing because a child is not abandoned if the child has a mother.
Why do you think the mother should not carry the responsibility of raising the child on her own? Has she no responsibility here?
You've never been in jail I presume.
One thing has not been commented on. Out there, somewhere, someone is laughing his butt off because he got the goodies and someone else got the bill. Shouldn't there be an effort to find this fine fellow and sue the smirk off of his face?
"I knew this story would get under some people's skin ..."
That's what this is all about .... getting under the skin.
Good point.
Because often, if the mother can't handle it, the responsibility then falls on the third party- the state. Why should taxpayer pay because this "father" failed to be vigilant about his rights? Most civil actions has a limited period of time in which you can file a claim beyond which you are out of luck, no matter how "unfair" it may be.
Which is the fundmental travesty of law-- empirical truth is secondary to process.
Surely the mother has some idea who the real father is, within a range of maybe a football team or so, and within that group, a DNA test could do the the rest in pinpointing the sperm donor.
The legal system has grossly betrayed Mr. Mason, by denying him the justice that modern techknowlegy is capable of providing.
Maybe the Judge or some of his kin contributed the sperm.
So he should be fraudulently enslaved for the next 18 years to protect a bastard that's not even his? What lesson are we teaching the child here. Fraud your way to success? Steal from people who owe nothing to you?
Justice is denied for all when it's denied to any
Love should never be defined by biology alone.
But parenthood should be. Lacking adoption papers or a paternity test showing he is the father a man should NEVER be enslaved to support a child that's not his. He will hate that child and pray daily for it's untimely death. I know I would under the same circumstances.
In any event this is not about love. It's about money.
If he was too stupid to know what he was doing, well he's stuck with it.
So if I'm mentally unable to be charged with murder I can get away with killing someone but if I'm mentally unable to understand paternity I get enslaved for 18+ years? Tell me you really don't think this.
If there's a moral to the story here, read the fine print before you sign away your rights. 'Nuff said.
A child cannot sign away his rights.
I understand how the courts can take the position they're taking - what with all the gay "marriage" and all. However, the mother should be on the hook for paying this man back and she should be thrown in jail. After she gets out, if she still hasn't paid him back, her check should be garnished. She has robbed this man for many years.
You know, at one point, I wondered if my child from my then-wife was actually "mine." I thought long and hard about it. Then I decided that it didn't make a difference. I love my daughter more than life, and even if she wasn't biologically mine, she's still my daughter and I'm still her Daddy.
He likely has no idea. The mother is liable for fraud and should do jail time as an example to other promiscuous women that they had better name the right father or they will end up in the slammer.
It's not about the "courts"- it is the strict interpretation of the particular law or rule in question. The NC legislature is free to abolish the time limitations, or write a paternity law that allows fathers to challenge paternity at any time.
Because she didn't perjure herself. Obviously, she was having sex with two males at approximately the same time, or else Mason wouldn't have agreed that the child was his. She may have even been using some form of birth control with one, the other, or both. With no other evidence to the contrary, she had every reason to believe that Mason was the father of her child.
Such fraud, IMO, should only apply in cases where the parties are married. If you are sleeping with someone and you are not married to her, you should assume that she may be sleeping around with other men and plan accordingly. If your willing to commit fornication, one sin, you would not neccessarily feel obligated to remain faithful to that one person.
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