Williams v. Williams, 2001-CA-01666-SCT.

• Decision Date: 24 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 2001-CA-01666-SCT.,2001-CA-01666-SCT.
• Citation: 843 So.2d 720
• Parties: Willie L. WILLIAMS, Jr., and the Minor Child, Marcus A. Williams, By and Through his Next Friend, Willie L. Williams, Jr. v. Angela G. WILLIAMS, Willie L. Williams, Jr., and Dan Hubbard.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

843 So.2d 720

Willie L. WILLIAMS, Jr., and the Minor Child, Marcus A. Williams, By and Through his Next Friend, Willie L. Williams, Jr. v. Angela G. WILLIAMS, Willie L. Williams, Jr., and Dan Hubbard.

No. 2001-CA-01666-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 24, 2003.

Walter Kevin Colbert, Natchez, attorney for appellants.

Stanley N. Merritt, Natchez, attorney for appellees.

EN BANC.

WALLER, J., for the Court.

¶ 1. Willie L. Williams, Jr., appeals a judgment of the Adams County Chancery Court which dismissed his and Marcus A. Williams' petition to determine Marcus' paternity, thereby effectively requiring Willie to continue paying child support for someone who is not his child. Finding that result fundamentally unfair, we reverse and remand.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. Willie L. Williams, Jr., and Angela G. Williams married in 1988 and divorced in 1996. The couple separated in October of 1993, and Angela gave birth to Marcus A. Williams on August 22, 1994. When Marcus was approximately one month old, he and Angela moved from their home in Dallas, Texas, to Natchez, Mississippi. Willie and Angela were subsequently divorced on November 25, 1996. In the divorce decree, both Angela and Willie swore that Marcus was their son. Willie was never ordered to pay child support until 1999, when the Mississippi Department of Human Services instituted a support action against Willie in Texas on Marcus' behalf.

¶ 3. Willie and Marcus never really had much of father/son relationship, for they had only visited each other no more than four times in seven years. On one of these visits, Willie noticed a lack of similarity of physical features between Marcus and himself. Suspecting that Marcus might not be his son, Willie had a paternity test conducted in September of 1999 which concluded that Marcus was, in fact, not his son.

¶ 4. Willie filed a motion in Adams County Chancery Court to modify his and Angela's divorce decree to reflect Willie's nonpaternity of Marcus. The motion was denied on the grounds of res judicata and collateral estoppel because of Willie's attestation of paternity in the divorce decree. The chancellor also concluded that public policy prohibited the bastardizing of a legitimate child and that it was in Marcus' best interest that Willie continue support payments. Willie never appealed this ruling.

¶ 5. Instead, Willie filed a petition as next friend of Marcus against himself, Angela, and Dan Hubbard, a man whom Willie thought was Marcus' biological father. The chancellor ordered Willie, Angela, Marcus, and Hubbard to undergo DNA testing. The chancellor also appointed Eileen Maher to serve as guardian ad litem.

¶ 6. The DNA testing confirmed the earlier test that Willie was not Marcus' father. However, the test also excluded Hubbard. The chancellor found that the testing conclusively excluded Hubbard as Marcus' father and consequently dismissed him.

¶ 7. At the hearing, Angela testified that she had engaged in a one-time sexual encounter with a man other than Willie and Hubbard around the time that Marcus was conceived but could not remember his name. She could, however, remember where he worked and where he lived. The chancellor was convinced that Angela was not withholding Marcus' biological father's name.

¶ 8. The guardian ad litem, on the other hand, was convinced that Angela knew the biological father's name. She recommended that Willie be relieved of his support obligation because Marcus clearly had a right to know his biological father and concluded that forcing Willie to continue paying was a perpetration of fraud upon Marcus.

¶ 9. Notwithstanding the clear scientific evidence of nonpaternity and the guardian ad litem's recommendations, the chancellor dismissed Willie's petition and imposed court costs and the cost of DNA testing on him. Willie appeals, arguing that the results of the DNA testing rebutted the presumption of paternity.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 10. We will not disturb the findings of a chancellor when supported by substantial evidence unless the chancellor abused his discretion, applied an erroneous legal standard, was manifestly wrong, or was clearly erroneous. Cox v. F-S Prestress, Inc., 797 So.2d 839, 843 (Miss.2001); Holloman v. Holloman, 691 So.2d 897, 898 (Miss.1996).

DISCUSSION

¶ 11. The chancellor justified his holding on the grounds that maintaining the status quo was in Marcus' best interest and that allowing Marcus to bastardize himself would only benefit Willie's interests. We agree with Willie that the presumption of paternity has been effectively rebutted and that it would be unjust and unfair to require him to continue paying child support.

¶ 12. Our recent decision in M.A.S. v. Mississippi Department of Human Services, 842 So.2d 527 (Miss.2003), is on point and dispositive of this case. In M.A.S., M.A.S. agreed in a paternity decree when he was seventeen years old that he was the father of S.M. and agreed to pay child support. 842 So.2d at 528. He later married another woman and had another child. Id. That child subsequently died and, to determine the child's wrongful death heirs, a Lawrence County chancellor ordered DNA testing. Id. The tests concluded that M.A.S. was not S.M.'s biological father. Id.

¶ 13. With these results, M.A.S. sought to have the prior paternity order set aside. The chancellor refused to grant M.A.S. relief because he had waited nine years to contest paternity, and res judicata precluded review of that prior stipulation of paternity. Id. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Id.

¶ 14. On writ of certiorari, we reversed the Court of Appeals and held that M.A.S.'s failure to contest paternity until S.M. was nine years old did not prejudice S.M.'s mother because she received child support payments from the wrong person. We also stated:

In our opinion, finality should yield to fairness here. M.A.S. has paid child support for someone else's child for over ten years. He will be obligated to support that child for many more years unless the flawed paternity and child support order is vacated. The chancellor's refusal to withdraw the paternity order in the face of unrefuted proof that M.A.S. is not the child's father, was an abuse of discretion.

Id. at 531. We concluded that forcing M.A.S. to continue making child support payments when S.M. was shown not to be his child would result in a manifest injustice.

¶ 15. This conclusion of allowing men to be relieved of prior support obligations upon a showing of irrefutable proof of nonpaternity finds support in other jurisdictions. In NPA v. WBA, 8 Va.App. 246, 380 S.E.2d 178 (1989), the wife, NPA, became pregnant during the couple's separation. She told her husband, WBA, that she had sexual intercourse with another man during that time. Id. at 179. The couple later reconciled, and, at the child's birth, the wife told her husband that if he had any doubts about his paternity he should take a blood test. He accepted her statement that he was the father, did not take the blood test, and treated the child as his own throughout the couple's marriage. Id. ¶ 16. When the wife filed for divorce four years later, the husband alleged that he was not the father of that child and a later-born child. Id. at 180. Tests revealed that he was not the father of the first child. In affirming the trial court's holding that the husband was not liable for support, the Virginia Court of Appeals noted:

We are mindful that the child, who well may have an affinity for the husband as his father, is an innocent victim of his parent's problems. However, in the absence of consanguinity, legal adoption, or a knowing and voluntary assumption of the obligation to provide support, the law will not compel one who has stood in the place of a parent to support the child after the relationship has ceased.

Id. at 181. NPA demonstrates that courts will terminate support obligations even when the child and his purported father have established a relationship infinitely more substantial than the one between Marcus and Willie. See, e.g., In re Bethards, 526 N.W.2d 871 (Iowa Ct.App. 1994)

(finding sufficient change in circumstances to warrant modification of divorce decree and cease child support obligation when testing established nonpaternity). See also Theresa Glennon, Somebody's Child: Evaluating the Erosion of the Marital Presumption of Paternity, 102 W. Va. L.Rev. 547, 577-82 (2000).

¶ 17. The dissent discounts the binding force of M.A.S. by distinguishing it solely on procedural grounds. However, M.A.S. clearly addresses the merits by recognizing the inequity of requiring child support where paternity is clearly not established: "A manifest injustice will result if M.A.S. is required to continue making child support payments for a child which unquestionably is not his." 842 So.2d at 531. M.A.S. clearly held that a man is not liable and should not be required to provide support payments for a child that is not his.¹ We believe that the best interest of the child, in the factual scenario presented, is to know the identity of the natural father. See Dep't of Human Servs. v. Smith, 627 So.2d 352, 353 (Miss.1993)

(holding that "[p]ublic policy dictates that a determination of paternity is in a child's best interest").

CONCLUSION

¶ 18. As in M.A.S., we refuse to sanction the manifest injustice of forcing a man to support a child which science has proven not to be his. Therefore, the judgment of the Adams County Chancery Court dismissing the petition to determine paternity filed by Willie L. Williams, Jr., and Marcus A. Williams is reversed given the conclusive scientific proof of nonpaternity, and this case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion and our prior opinion in M.A.S. v. Mississippi Department of Human Services.

¶ 19. REVERSED AND REMANDED.

SMITH, P.J., COBB, DIAZ, EASLEY AND GRAVES, JJ., CONCUR. McRAE, P.J., CONCURS IN RESULT ONLY. PITTMAN, C.J., DISSENTS WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN ...