Jacksonville Divorce Lawyer Blog
Fransisco Rodriguez is married with three children of his own. According to the state of Florida, he is also legally the father of the fifteen year old daughter of an ex-girlfriend, even though DNA tests and the girl’s own mother have confirmed that Rodriguez is not her biological father. He reportedly owes more than $10,000 in back child support, and he has already spent a night in jail because of it. The girl’s mother has written to the state asking them to not require Rodriguez to pay the child support.
Rodriguez is legally on the hook for the child support payments because the mother named him on the birth certificate and he claims he didn’t receive notification until about 4 years ago – after the deadline to contest paternity had passed. By that time a Florida court had already legally named him as the father three years earlier when he failed to appear in court. Rodriguez says he never received the notices because he changed addresses quite a few times. In light of the new information, the court has ordered its own DNA test, which Rodriguez has taken. The girl and her mother did not appear as ordered for the DNA test.
In the case of paternity, lawmakers and the courts struggle to strike a balance between the rights of all parties involved. Some groups even go so far as to suggest that DNA tests at birth should be mandatory in order to avoid later legal battles. If you are involved in a child custody or paternity issue, please contact our firm for expert legal counsel.
Samad Nesser has tried every legal avenue to prevent his eleven year old son from being taken to France to stay with his mother and her new husband. According to Nesser, his ex-wife has allowed his son to be abused by the new husband, and suffers from sleeplessness and chest pains whenever he returns home from staying with them. Nesser is an American citizen, but his wife is not. The husband, a French citizen, used to live in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was the subject of a restraining order after allegedly breaking into his girlfriend’s home and hitting and pushing her and her elderly mother to the floor. Nesser claims that this same man locked his son in an attic and threatened to kill him.
Victoria Anderson, now aged 9, has lived with her paternal great grandmother, Marilyn Anderson, in Dayton, Ohio since she was an infant. She has gotten “parenting time” during those years with both her mother and father. Ms. Anderson objected to Ms. Hill smoking around the child during her visits, and the Warren County court ordered all parties to protect the child from second hand smoke. The Ohio 12th district court of appeals has upheld the ruling, using judicial notice to conclude that second-hand smoke is dangerous to children. Taking judicial notice was unusual in this case, because neither of the parties presented proof in court, rather the court recognized an “avalanche of authoritative scientific studies” that show second-hand smoke poses a health danger to children. This decision could now apply to many Ohio children involved in child-custody or visitation cases.
Alex Sink is the chief financial officer of Florida, and considered the leading democratic candidate for governor of the state. She recently addressed 300 attendees at a gay rights group fundraising dinner, telling them that she believed homosexuals should be legally allowed to adopt children, as long as it is in the child’s best interest. She said that judges should determine what is in a child’s best interest on a case by case basis. Florida is currently the only state to explicitly ban homosexuals from adopting.
