Posted on 11/02/2002 4:34:20 AM PST by Libloather
Man Sues After Finding Girl Not His Daughter
Fri Nov 1,10:43 AM ET
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian man is suing his former partner to recover more than $10,000 he spent on a little girl, for things such as presents, zoo trips and meals, after discovering she was not his daughter, a newspaper said on Friday.
"I want it all back -- every cent for every toy, every blanket, every bit of food," the man, who can't be identified for legal reasons, said.
"I wouldn't have spent all that money had I known five years ago she wasn't my kid," he was quoted saying by the Herald-Sun.
The claims include take-away McDonald's food over five years, four visits to an amusement park, three Barbie dolls, a Pooh Bear play tent, a day of skating, and child support payments.
The Herald-Sun said the man took the action after DNA tests found the girl was not his daughter.
The girl's mother said she was willing to repay the child support payments but that she should not have to pay back anything else.
"She had a good time with him that's the main thing," she was quoted as saying. "I don't think he should carry on too much about it. He should treat it like doing something nice with a friend."
Whoa! Women are prostitutes now, servicing men with no pleasure for themselves! You better back up, buddy. But maybe to you, women are pitiable things who can't be expected to follow the law---somewhat like the way liberals treat blacks--but I'm sorry. Women can and should be expected to behave as morally as men. Go condescend to women on DU. Some of us don't appreciate it here.
The law doesn't deal with moral issues very well. The fact that you can do something immoral under the law doesn't mean that you should.
It really pains me to think that a man could abandon a child because merely because his feelings are hurt.
As much as some folks around here howl about the feminist agenda and how fathers really are important to a child, that principle seems to be abandoned quite easily. Sad.
Look, no. There are plenty of cases in which you can be legally defrauded without having investigated to determine whether the person you were dealing with was really telling you the truth. Retail purchases are obvious examples. Indeed, none of the commerce in which you engage holds a prospective plaintiff to the high standards of being defrauded that you think ought to hold in child-support cases. It's hard to think of other cases in which the plaintiff's action would be dismissed because there were some clues that he was being defrauded if only he had investigated thoroughly. (That's why the Rolex-in-the-alley example is not a good analogy, unless, as I've said, you think that dealing with women in relationships is typically as crooked an affair as alleyway cons!!)
For what it's worth, too, your reference to "English Common Law" is inappropriate, since historically divorce meant that the man retained custody of the children and that the woman wasn't entailed to any marital property. Illegitimate children, or "bastards" as they used to be called impolitely, weren't entitled to squat. So there aren't any "historical" standards of fraud in child-support cases(!). What we're discussing is a very recent phenomenon. It dates only back to the 1960's in America.
Finally, even if you're right about everything you're saying-- and notice I don't think you are-- there is no "balancing" issue of rights of the child versus rights of the father, as you first said. The issue is solely whether or not the father had sufficient knowledge so that he wasn't defrauded. The question, even as you're now discussing it, is not given that the father was defrauded ought we to make him pay anyway?
When you sleep with Dogs-- You get Fleas
"You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas".
But it's often impossible to tell who the dogs are until after you have lied down. And the courts insist you give the fleas a free ride and let them suck your blood for years.
Human relationships are not just dollars and cents. Unless this guy is just slime with no heart (and that's a possibility), he has deep ties to this little girl. You don't tend and cuddle and play with a child for five years and then just drop her and walk away, even if her mom betrayed you so hatefully. He's just not acknowledging his emotional and spiritual connection right now because he's mad at the mom. Who can blame him? He has a right to be mad at her. He has a right to his child support back if he was truly deceived (and it seems like he was). What he does NOT have a right to do is be mad at the child, it's not her fault. And this sort of abandonment IS harmful, I've seen it happen. Even if it doesn't happen in every case, he needs to have a couple of good friends take him aside and counsel him not to take away from this girl the only daddy she's ever known. To her, he IS her daddy, no matter what the DNA says, and he needs to acknowledge and honor that need on her part. He needs to do the right thing here and not hurt this child out of rage and spite at her mom. I'm certain that such a courageous act on his part will be rewarded later in life, somehow.
I've seen it happen before. I know a man who stepped into the breach without a moment's hesitation when the children's mother died (the father had died years before and the stepdad had married their mom.) When I knew him he was old - in his 80s - and his stepchildren adored and honored him and cared for him like a prince when he couldn't live alone any more because of health reasons. He lived across the street from us, and we would often go over to visit. He used to tell me, "Any man can be a daddy, but it takes a real man to be a stepdaddy."
Yes, but while in the best of all possible worlds both of our societies follow our respective laws, the mullahs don't amend their laws - We do. We are therefore free to change the letter of our laws as much as common consent will allow, instead of allowing the "spirit" of the law to be determined by judicial activists. (Yes, I know that activists get their day in the sun too, that's not the point). That, I think is the fundamental difference, that when someone says "rule of law", we all know what he's talking about, and either agree with the rule of law or work to change it without fear of being a soccer-game half-time show.
The woman should do the time for her crime-no problem. The child has committed no crime-her heart belongs to daddy-not the sperm donor-daddy's heart belonged to her-not one damn thing has changed between the innocent pair-their relationship is a little different than they were led to believe-so what?
Absolutely no argument with you there. The "father" and child's relationship are thier's alone to work out.
I think you misapprehend the potential relationship between the "sperm donor" and the daughter. Because of the woman's deceit, they may never have a father/daughter relationship, and the denial of that right by the mother is purely evil, regardless of her intentions.
their relationship is a little different than they were led to believe-so what? THey are still the same two people.
The man who was duped has found out that his relationship is a LOT "different" than he was led to believe, and the unknown fellow who is the biological father has a pretty powerful relationship that he knew nothing about.
Will the child be hurt? Absolutely. Who's actions made that hurt inevitable? I don't think we disagree that any harm that comes to the little girl is undeserved. To make that harm inexcusable is the fact that this was all avoidable from the start.
Sorry
Huh?
Reasonable investigation IF you are put on notice that something is fishy is an absolute element of ALL fraud cases. The elements of fraud are: (1) A false statement (2) Scienter (the party knows the statement is false) (3) Made with the intention of deceiving the other party (4) Reasonably relied upon by the other party (5) to the other party's damage or detriment. Item (4) requires that reliance be reasonable. Whether that's a new car salesman engaged in "puffing" (not actionable), a street seller of doubtful watches, or a woman who was pregnant when you married her telling you the baby is yours, the principle is exactly the same. Whether your reliance is reasonable is a question of fact and that varies with the facts of the case. But ALL claims for fraud have to meet the reasonable reliance standard.
Where have I herd that before? Florida, New Jersey, Hawaii, etc.
You folks learn how to think past the first coat of paint. Look around you. The nation is falling into brainless socialism precisely because of such thinking. It is liberal thinking. Are you a conservative?
This is what I keep telling people but they never "get" it. They think that everything will be hunky dory if we get Bush in the White House, or if we get a Republican Congress, and Senate, etc.
What does it matter in the long run if you win elections only to impose the very same policies, and create the very same society, you were originally opposed to?
Conservatives of 50 or 100 years ago would shun many "conservative" people on FR as crypto-Bolsheviks or worse. Most of today's conservatism is nothing more than right-wing social democracy, or right-wing anarchism; it is yesterday's hand-me-down leftism.
Nobody thinks anymore; they feel. It's "for the children".
No, the bottom line, is that you have a problem with reality. Just like a liberal, you wish to assign responsibility to some, and rights to others that dont exist, just because you dont like the outcome.
The facts are that there IS no responsibility of this man, because he IS NOT the father, and never was, no matter what the girl thinks. He is no more thoughtless to this child then you or I, because we have the exact NON-PARENT status as he does.
When you are willing to call yourself irresponsible and thoughtless for not taking care of this child yourself, then you might have a case, but in REALITY that man is as much that childs parent as you or me.
Sorry, it sucks, but its the truth. You cant go around changing the truth to suit you just because it hurts sometimes. Grow up.
I am stunned that the hypocrisy and double-speak of these folks has not dawned on them. Every point they make comes straight from the Liberal handbook, and I find it distressing that it would appear on this forum.
That said, I am off again, but my thanks for a clear logical voice, in a cloud of Conservative-By-Convienence emotional driven drivel.
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