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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12552 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026

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I'm not trying to establish a straw man, I just don't understand why you continued to argue after I said you could disestablish paternity as part of a divorce proceeding.

If the man is married to the mother, it's a much bigger problem for him. In a lot of jurisdictions, he's completely screwed. In others, he has a limited amount of time to dispute paternity.

I arbitrarily looked at the laws in the number of states and I couldn't find any that prohibited this.

If I'm reading correctly, California allows cohabiting spouses two years after the date of birth to dispute paternity. I think Indiana, too? I'm not sure of anywhere with a statutory block, but paternity-by-estoppel states can supposedly get really messy even with clear genetic evidence.

... uh, hilariously, Pennsylvania does actually have case law blocking genetic testing for paternity in some cases and seems to have a paternity-by-estoppel statute.

As a preliminary matter, you're not going to find any estoppel statutes (there may be a few but that would be rare). Estoppel is an equitable doctrine that prevents someone who has engaged in a course of conduct that creates a reliance interest from reneging to the detriment of another. I don't have time to go into too much detail but see this case. It, along with the first one you cited, gives a good overview of the contemporary views of the presumption of paternity and paternity by estoppel. As to the former, the court concludes that:

This Court’s decisions, however, have held steadfast that there is a single circumstance under which the presumption of paternity continues to apply, and, indeed, is irrebuttable –where there is an intact marriage to preserve.

To quote the relevant part of the opinion you cited:

In order to determine the paternity of a child born in wedlock, courts first must determine whether the marriage is intact at the time of the paternity challenge. If so, then the presumption of paternity applies, and dictates that, regardless of biology, the mother’s spouse will be the child’s parent. However, the presumption may be rebutted if the putative father produces clear and convincing evidence that: (1) there is a reasonable possibility that DNA testing would reveal him to be the child’s biological father; and (2) determining parentage based upon DNA testing serves the best interests of the child, with due consideration for the interests of the potential father as well as the interests of the wife and husband. If the court finds no threshold possibility of paternity, or determines that adjudicating paternity by DNA testing would disserve the relevant interests, then the presumption governs. But if the court finds a threshold possibility of paternity, and determines that the balance of interests lies in assigning paternity based upon the biological truth, the presumption must yield, and the court should order appropriate genetic testing to determine paternity of the child.

I'm not trying to establish a straw man, I just don't understand why you continued to argue after I said you could disestablish paternity as part of a divorce proceeding.

Maybe because I wasn't actually arguing but instead asking for clarification?

Here's what I said:

I'm not sure what your point is here. Do you disagree with anything I have said?

And then later:

Again, I am not sure what your point is here. Let's do this: Is there anything I said which you dispute? If so, please QUOTE it.

It seems you don't actually dispute anything I said. But were rather pretending that I was seriously proposing for a husband to bring a non-paternity proceeding without an accompanying divorce proceeding. i.e. straw-manning me.

Anyway, I will ask the question a third time:

Is there anything I said which you dispute? If so, please QUOTE it.

And by the way, do you have any precedent to support your claim that for a conviction under the Federal wire fraud statute "the government would need to identify a particular person that saw the representation, relied on the representation, and that the organization made money off of that reliance."

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