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About 4 percent of men may unknowingly be raising a child that really belongs to the mailman or some other guy, researchers speculate in a new study. Here's the real news: With modern methods, the truth will become known more frequently. Researchers pawed through a host of scientific articles published around the world from 1950 through last year. The perceived "paternal discrepancy rate," as it is called, ranges from less than 1 percent to as high as 30 percent in the various studies. Most researchers believe the rate is less than 10 percent. The author's settled on four percent --...

CHICAGO - An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep. The ruling Wednesday by the Illinois Appellate Court sends Dr. Richard O. Phillips' distress case back to trial court. Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant. He said he didn't find...

Sat, February 5, 2005 Ruling a big red flag for men By MINDELLE JACOBS -- For the Edmonton Sun If men knew more about family law, they'd run screaming from single mothers prowling for relationships and father figures for their children. Any lawyer will tell you that the nature of your relationship with a child - not biology - determines whether you're on the hook for child support. Sperm has nothing to do with it, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled a few years ago. And that's unfortunate for Justin Sumner, who married a woman thinking he'd fathered her daughter...

The results of paternity tests can't be used in court unless the mother gave her consent for the test, the German Supreme Court ruled today behind closed doors. The child's personal rights would be violated, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said in an e-mailed statement.

Actor Wesley Snipes denies being the father of a child belonging to a Michigan City woman, who claims she met the action film star at a crack house in Chicago. And, in a court complaint calling the mother "a mentally ill former crack addict" who made claims about other celebrities, the lead actor in "Blade" and other major box office hits feels it's ludicrous that authorities in LaPorte County and elsewhere want a sample of his DNA to verify or disprove the claims. Snipes is suing LaPorte County Prosecutor Rob Beckman and his wife, Priscilla Jo, who runs the child...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Gov. Bill Richardson's office is calling for an investigation into how a man was forced to pay child support for a child that didn't exist. Steve Barreras was hauled into court, peppered with threats and paid out $20,000 in child support. Then his ex-wife was ordered to produce the child in court. So last week, Viola Trevino picked up a two-year-old girl and her grandmother off the street and promised them a trip to see Santa Claus. Instead, she allegedly took the girl into court and said she was her daughter. It's part of an elaborate ruse...

Patrick McCarthy was floored to learn after his divorce that his 14-year-old daughter had been fathered by another man. He was even more stunned to find out that he would still have to pay $280 a month in child support."You have to be a stone not to react emotionally to something like that," said McCarthy, 41, a delivery service driver from Hillsborough, N.J. "The thing I found more disturbing was the way they treat you in court."In New Jersey, as in most other states, children born during a marriage are the legal responsibility of the husband - even if he...

In most states, children born during a marriage are the legal responsibility of the husband. And even for single men, once paternity is acknowledged or established through the courts, it is next to impossible to change. Prosecutors and many children's advocates contend that is the way it ought to be to keep from unduly traumatizing innocent children by snatching away their emotional and financial support. But now a push is underway to cancel mandated child support payments -- and arrearages -- for men who can prove through DNA testing that they are supporting children who are not their flesh and...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Supreme Court this week will decide whether to hear the case of a Georgia man who is being forced to pay child support for a girl who is neither his biological nor adoptive child. Lower courts in Georgia have ruled that the man had plenty of time to find out if he was the father before signing child support agreements, but failed to do so. "Paternity fraud is the only crime where the victim is persecuted for the actions of the guilty party," said plaintiff Carnell A. Smith, who is under court order to continue paying...

When Larry Nicholson went to court after receiving a child support order, he knew something wasn't right. "I looked at the child," he says. "The child is white. I'm black. Now I'm not an expert in genetics, but I knew something had to be wrong." It sounds like an easy problem which any reasonable judge would remedy with one pound of the gavel, right? "I got a DNA test that excluded me as the father," Nicholson says. "The judge refused to consider the DNA evidence--not to mention the obvious evidence right in front of him--and made a child support...