Paternity fraud 'dad' loses appeal
The Age, Australia, November 9, 2006
A man who sued his former wife after paying child support for two children fathered by his wife's lover today lost his appeal to the High Court.
The judges unanimously ruled that the case for paternity fraud brought by Liam Neale Magill failed.
Three judges held that no action for deceit could lie in representations about paternity made between spouses.
Three other judges held that there could be circumstances in which such an action might succeed but they were exceptional and did not cover Mr Magill's situation.
However, the court also rejected an argument put by Mr Magill's former wife Meredith that the Family Law Act ruled out any action for deceit.
The court was told the Magills married in April 1988 and separated in November 1992, divorcing in 1998.
They had two sons and a daughter between April 1989 and November 1991 with Mr Magill naming himself as father on their birth registration forms.
After separation Mr Magill paid child support for all three children.
But in 1995, Mr Magill learned that Ms Magill at least suspected that her husband was not the father of her second son and in April 2000, DNA testing established that Mr Magill had fathered neither this boy nor the daughter.
She subsequently acknowledged a sexual relationship with another man which started after the birth of her first child.
Mr Magill's child support payments were adjusted to allow for past overpayments and an extinguishment of arrears.
Mr Magill sued, launching a case for deceit in the Victorian County Court, claiming damages for personal injury in the form of anxiety and depression resulting from fraudulent misrepresentations.
He also claimed financial loss, including loss of earning capacity by reason of his psychiatric problems and expenditure on the children under the mistaken belief he was their father, plus exemplary damages.
He was awarded $70,000 from his ex-wife, including $30,000 for general pain and suffering, $35,000 for past economic loss and $5,000 for future economic loss.
The County Court found Ms Magill's presentation of the birth registration forms to Mr Magill constituted the deceitful representation by Ms Magill that he was the father.
But the Victorian Court of Appeal reversed that decision on grounds that Mr Magill had failed to establish the essential elements of the offence of deceit.
He then appealed to the High Court, which delivered its decision today.
Outside the High Court in Melbourne, Mr Magill showed little emotion.
He thanked his lawyers and the public for their support during his legal battle, which began more than seven years ago.
Mr Magill said his partner, Cheryl King, had made a brave stand by representing him in a second case against the Child Support Agency, which he lost last week in the Victorian County Court.
"She (Ms King) had the guts to stand up on her own with no legal representation against the might of the Child Support Agency and the government and whatever legal weight that they had and I thank her for that,'' Mr Magill said.
Mr Magill's lawyer Vivien Mavropoulos said the case had highlighted fundamental social issues in Australia.
"They are the importance of truth in relationships and marriage, a child's identity and heritage, parentage and the responsibilities that go with that and a person's blood line, health issues and medical history,'' Ms Mavropoulos said.
She urged courts, parliament and society to address the issues raised in Mr Magill's case "in a manner which is fair and just to all parties''.
AAP
Scotland's National Newspaper
96% of women are liars, honest
5,000 women polled
Half the women said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby's real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
Infidelity--It may be in our genes. Our Cheating Hearts
Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce: how evolution shaped human love.
South Korean Husband Wins Paternity Fraud Lawsuit
Associated Press, USA
June 1, 2004
South Korean husband successfully sues wife for Paternity Fraud and gets marriage annulled. Wins $42,380 in compensation
DNA test confirms fraud, annulment granted: judge
The Visayan Daily Star, Bacolod City, Philippines, BY CARLA GOMEZ, February 28, 2009
Bacolod Regional Trial Court Judge Ray Alan Drilon has annulled the marriage of a Negrense couple after a DNA test showed that the child borne by the wife was not the biological offspring of the husband who works abroad.
The family court judge ruled that the marriage of the couple, whose names are being withheld by the DAILY STAR on the request of the court, was null and void.
Due to fraud committed by the wife in getting her overseas worker husband to marry her, properties acquired during their marriage are awarded in favor of the husband, the judge said in his decision, a copy of which was furnished the DAILY STAR yesterday.
The judge also declared that since the overseas worker is not the biological, much less the legitimate father of the child of the woman, the Civil Registrar is ordered to change the surname of the child to the mother's maiden name and remove the name of the plaintiff as father of the child.
The complainant said he was working as an electronics engineer in the United Arab Emirates and on his return to the Philippines in 2001, his girlfriend of 10 years with whom he had sex, showed him a pregnancy test result showing that she was pregnant.
On receiving the news he was overjoyed and offered to marry her. Shortly after he went to Saudi Arabia to work, and his wife gave birth to a baby girl in the same year.
The birth of the child only five months after their marriage puzzled him but his wife told him that the baby was born prematurely, so he believed her, the husband said. Read More ..
Adulterous woman ordered to pay husband £177,000 in 'moral damages'
The Daily Mail, UK
18th February 2009
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife may have been unfaithful in 2001.
Infidelity 'is natural'
BBC, U.K., September 25, 1998
Females 'stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring'
Infidelity may be natural according to studies that show nine out of 10 mammals and birds that mate for life are unfaithful.
Experts found animals that fool around are only following the urges of biology.
New studies using genetic testing techniques show that even the most apparently devoted of partners often go in search of the sexual company of strangers.
Females stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring, while males are driven to father as many and as often as possible.
"True monogamy actually is rare," said Stephen T Emlen, an expert on evolutionary behaviour at Cornell University.
Who's the Daddy?
Up to three million Britons may be wrong about who their real father is , experts claim. But using DNA paternity tests to discover the truth can cause its own problems.
BBC, U.K., May 16, 2003
Dad's got blue eyes, Baby brown...
When Tessa found out she was pregnant after fertility treatment, she felt a mix of delight and doubt.
This wasn't simply pre-baby nerves - she suspected that her husband might not be the father. For Tessa had started sleeping with a colleague when the stress of the ongoing treatment became too much.
Keen to build a family with her husband, she let him believe the baby was his. But her lover threatened to reveal all if she ended the affair, and Tessa soon fell pregnant again. This time, her lover started to make nuisance calls to her home.
Tessa had no choice but to tell her husband. "I said to him, 'I've had an affair and you may not be the father of my children.' So with that, he went up the stairs, got dressed and left. And that was it," Tessa says in Women Who Live a Lie, a programme for the BBC's Five Live Report.
Would you wear the jacket?
THERE IS A story I used to find hilarious in my high school years about a not too bright man. He was light skinned, his wife was of similar hue, but their first child was born with very dark complexion (darker dan Bello, blacker dan Blakka).
When the man wondered aloud about the baby's complexion his wife assured him that the child was born dark because the child was conceived in darkness (they had sex with the lights off). The man accepted the explanation. Because he loved his wife dearly, he also ignored the fact that the child had other obvious signs of resemblance to the young dark skinned man who did their gardening. To fix the problem, the husband put flood lights, strobe lights, spotlights and forty other lights in the bed room so there would be no more darkness to create dark babies.
United States
"Duped Dads, Men Fight Centuries-Old Paternity Laws"
"Supporters of paternity identification bills point to a 1999 study by the American Association of Blood Banks that found that in 30 percent of 280,000 blood tests performed to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father." Read More ..
Download / view pdf file
American Association of Blood Banks
Parentage Testing Program Unit
Annual Report Summary Testing in 2001
Volume of testing 310,490 for the 2001 study
The Supreme Court of Canada -
Cour suprême du Canada
Big win for child identity rights.
Father wins right to be named on birth registration forms. Read More ..
Tricked 'fathers' may get bill's help
Michael Lautar was devastated when he learned his first wife was cheating on him, and then crushed to discover the then 5-year-old girl who called him "Daddy" wasn't really his daughter.
Next came the sucker punch.
Lautar is under court order to pay nearly $800 a month in child support and other expenses, despite the fact his ex-wife has admitted in Allegheny County court papers that Lautar is not the girl's father. The child was born during their marriage. After the couple divorced, the mother married the girl's biological father. The mother, the father and the daughter live together in Moon, according to papers filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
"I'm stuck in this rip-off, this fraud," said Lautar, 40, of North Strabane. "It's paternity fraud, is what it is. ... And the state is enforcing this fraud."