Blanton v. Warn

• Decision Date: 09 August 1968
• Docket Number: No. 3677,3677
• Citation: 444 P.2d 325
• Parties: Bonnie Elaine BLANTON, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. Lawrence WARN, Appellee (Defendant below).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 325

444 P.2d 325

Bonnie Elaine BLANTON, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. Lawrence WARN, Appellee (Defendant below).

No. 3677.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Aug. 9, 1968.

Vincent A. Ross, Cheyenne, for appellant.

Frank J. Jones, Wheatland, for appellee.

Before HARNSBERGER, C. J., and GRAY, McINTYRE, and PARKER, JJ.

Mr. Justice PARKER delivered the opinion of the court.

Bonnie Elaine Blanton filed a complaint against Lawrence Warn alleging that she was the natural mother of Joyce Eileen, a child born out of wedlock, at Platte County Memorial Hospital, Wheatland, Wyoming, April 30, 1959; that the child was conceived July 16, 1958, at Wheatland; adn that Warn was the father of the child. She prayed that defendant be adjudged to be the father and be ordered to pay expenses resulting from or incident to the pregnancy and birth of the child and for the child's support, maintenance, and education, and that she be granted other relief appropriate under the provisions of the Uniform Illegitimacy Act ¹ (§§ 14-59-14-96, W.S.1957 (Compiled 1965), hereinafter referred to as the Act).

Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that § 14-91 barred the action, filing an affidavit therewith in which he asserted that there had been no judicial determination of paternity for the child, allegedly born to plaintiff on the specified date, that he had not in the past nor did he then acknowledge paternity, and that he had never furnished any support for the child.

The court granted the summary judgment for defendant on the grounds that the action was 'barred by the limitations contained in said Section 14-91 * * * for failure to file same within the time provided by law,' and this appeal has resulted.

Section 14-91, the thirty-second section of c. 45, S.L. of Wyoming, 1929, entitled 'Uniform Illegitimacy Act,' reads as follows:

'Proceedings to enforce the obligation of the father shall not be brought after the lapse of more than two years from the birth of the child, unless paternity has been judicially established, or has been acknowledged by the father in writing or by the furnishing of support.'

Plaintiff argues that 'Said statute does not state when paternity must be judicially established, does not state when the father must acknowledge the child in writing, nor does it state when the father must furnish support * * * it does not state that any of these exceptions must be performed during the first two years after the child is born.' She insists it cannot be assumed that the legislature meant paternity must have been judicially established within the two-year period after the birth since the statute does not spell this out and says the statute should be interpreted that no proceedings to enforce the obligations of the father shall be brought following the lapse of two years after paternity has been judicially established, maintaining that the action brought by the plaintiff was first to judicially establish paternity and if paternity should be so established the action for support would then become operative and subject to the jurisdiction of the court-the complaint allegedly being one for judicial determination of paternity, for support, and any other relief that the court might deem just and proper. Plaintiff quotes from Durante v. Consumers Filling Station Co. of Cheyenne, 71 Wyo. 271, 257 P.2d 347, 356, to the effect that this court may not disregard a plain and unequivocable requirement written into law by the legislature, emphasizing that it will not 'read into our laws that which is not there,' especially when to do so would offend against equity and good conscience, and accordingly concludes that § 14-91...