Mores v. Feel

• Decision Date: 25 April 1973
• Citation: 73 Misc.2d 942,343 N.Y.S.2d 220
• Parties: In the Matter of the Paternity Petition of Mona MORES, * Petitioner, v. Winston FEEL, * Respondent.
• Court: New York Family Court

Page 220

343 N.Y.S.2d 220

73 Misc.2d 942

In the Matter of the Paternity Petition of Mona MORES,

^*

Petitioner, v. Winston FEEL, * Respondent.

Family Court, New York County.

April 25, 1973.

[73 Misc.2d 943] Norman Redlich, Corp. Counsel, by Joseph Lipstein, Asst. Corp. Counsel, for petitioner.

Friedman & Altschul, Mineola, for respondent.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., intervenor, pro se.

DECISION AND ORDER

SAUL MOSKOFF, Judge:

Respondent is this filiation proceeding questions the constitutionality of Section 517 of the Family Court Act, which provides two different limitation periods for the bringing of a paternity proceeding, depending upon whether the petitioner is a public welfare official (10 years) or any other person permitted by Section 522 of the Act to originate such a proceeding (2 years). ¹

The case arises in the following context:

Petitioner commenced the paternity proceeding in April, 1972, to procure an order declaring respondent the father of her three children. Respondent denied paternity as to each of the three children.

At the time the petition was filed, the two-year statute of limitations had already run out with respect to two of the three children. Petitioner, however, alleged prior acknowledgment of paternity by respondent. This allegation, if proved, would toll the statute. Respondent, however, has denied it.

On February 5, 1973, an oral motion was made by the assistant Corporation Counsel present to join the Commissioner of Social Services as a co-petitioner. Respondent's attorney objected to the granting of such motion upon several grounds-- among these being that the 10-year statute of limitations provided in Section 517(b) is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

An adjournment was granted to afford both sides an opportunity to submit briefs on the motion. Since the constitutionality of a New York statute is questioned, the Attorney General was notified and has also submitted a brief.

Respondent's main point is that Section 517, insofar as it makes a putative father subject to a two or ten-year period of liability depending solely upon the mother's income level at the time the action is brought, erects an arbitrary classification which cannot stand under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Petitioner's reply is that the classification contained in Section 517 is a 'reasonable' one--the ten-year statute of limitations applicable to actions commenced by the welfare commissioner being warranted by the State's interest in protecting the public treasury.

The Attorney General's brief echoes petitioner's argument and supplements it with citations to cases which have upheld legislative decisions to grant greater procedural rights to municipal bodies suing in the public interest than are granted to private litigants suing on identical causes of action.

The Court's conclusion is that the arguments made by petitioner and by the Attorney General are valid. Respondent, on the other hand, makes an appealing policy argument but otherwise misconstrues the judicial test which courts must apply in determining the constitutional validity of legislative classifications. The essence of this test is that 'unless a classification is arbitrary and not founded on Any substantial distinction . . . which suggests the necessity or propriety of (classification), a court has no right to interfere with the exercise of legislative discretion.' 16 Am.Jur.2d, Constitutional Law, Sec. 496. (emphasis added).

I. RESPONDENT'S EQUAL PROTECTION ARGUMENT

Matter of Wales v. Gallan, 61 Misc.2d 681, 306 N.Y.S.2d 614 (Fam.Ct., Richmond County, 1969), should be considered at the outset, in view of the close analogy which that court's decision bears to respondent's argument in the present case.

In Wales v. Gallan the constitutionality of the two-year limitation period applicable to petitioners other than the Commissioner of Social Services was challenged on equal protection grounds. The court agreed with this argument and decided that the benefit of the more favorable ten-year statute should be extended to all petitioners in paternity proceedings. Though it was apparently the petitioner-mother who raised the constitutional objections to Section 517 in the Wales case, the decision is based on the rationale that Section 517 discriminates irrationally against the unacknowledged illegitimate Child whose mother is not in the public charge category before its tenth birthday. The court said, at 684, 306 N.Y.S.2d at 618:

'It is entirely irrational and arbitrary to differentiate in the right of a child to the possible benefits of a suit to establish his paternity, depending on whether the child or his mother is or is not a public charge during his first ten years. The child's status for the rest of his life may be adversely affected on a basis that lacks rational connection with his deprivation. It is the effect of paternity proceedings on the child which renders this limitation provision unconstitutionally discriminatory, even though a distinction in the limitation period for private and governmental petitioners may be valid in other types of suits.'

Wales, however, does not explore the constitutionality of legislative classifications in that it does not (a) make a substantial inquiry into the legislative purpose underlying the statutory classification and (b) consider whether the classification is a 'reasonable' one when viewed in terms of the legislative purpose.

That such an inquiry is not only relevant but mandatory in cases of this type was made clear by the Supreme Court in McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, at 425--426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, at 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961):

'. . . (T)he court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment permits the States a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than others. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective.

State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality. A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it. ²'

Wales says, in effect, that the classification contained in Section 517 is 'irrational' because it incidentally furnishes Some illegitimate children with a better chance than others of having their paternity established in a filiation proceeding. But it would appear fairly certain that the legislative purpose in enacting the classification contained in Section 517 was Not that of assuring to all illegitimate children equal chances of having their paternity established. Nor can it be assumed that the Legislature was particularly concerned with making all fathers of illegitimate children equally liable to paternity suits--since it provided exceptions to the general two-year statute of limitations (a) where the putative father had previously acknowledged paternity, and (b) where the child was liable to be a public charge and a suit was brought by the welfare commissioner.

What, then, Was the Legislature's purpose in enacting Section 517? Though one can only conjecture at the true intent, note is taken of the statement in 10 Am.Jur.2d, Bastards, Section 75, that 'Filiation statutes are generally considered to represent an exercise of the police power of the state for the primary purposes of securing the support and education of an illegitimate child and of protecting society by preventing such child from becoming a public charge.'

When the classification set forth in Section 517 is examined in terms of the above objectives, it appears that the statute does indeed provide a very reasonable scheme for assuring that All illegitimate children will receive support and education, and that the burden of providing support will not have to be shouldered by the taxpayer where either the child's mother or putative father is capable of providing it. Therefore, on its face, Section 517 appears to present a classification which is quite reasonable in terms of the presumed legislative objective in enacting it.

It might yet be argued that the Legislature could have accomplished its objective to substantially the same degree Without having conferred on the welfare commissioner the benefit of a 10-year statute of limitations. It can readily be imagined, for example, that were the Commissioner held to the same 2-year limitation period applicable to other petitioners, there might be no substantial decline in the number of paternity suits instituted by the Commissioner but merely a greater diligence observed on his part in originating such proceedings.

The argument fails, however, to shake the constitutionality of Section 517, because it is not unreasonable to assume that the Legislature, in according the Commissioner the benefit of a 10-year limitation period, was not specifically concerned with the case of illegitmate children who become public charges between their second and tenth years. Cf., McGowan v. Maryland, Supra: 'A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.' ³

The Court concludes that the dual statute of limitations provided in Section 517(a) is reasonable when viewed in terms of the presumed legislative objective in enacting it, and (b) is not arbitrary or invidious.

II. THE DUE PROCESS ARGUMENT

An issue which was raised at least implicitly in respondent's brief, and which merits full consideration, is whether the 10-year statute of limitations does not have the effect of denying due process of law to certain respondents in paternity proceedings.

As a practical matter, it can be seriously doubted that a man who is brought into court on a paternity petition eight or ten years after the occurrence of the intercourse alleged in...