Who’s your Daddy?

It was reported that former presidential candidate and North Carolina senator John Edwards was going acknowledge that he was the father of the 18 month old child of his former mistress Rielle Hunter. This raises the question as to how one can challenge or assert paternity of a child.

Until several years ago, Pennsylvania law provided that, in response to a petition for child support, the person alleged to be the father could claim he was not the father. This raised the issue of the child’s paternity and paternity testing would be ordered by court. On the other hand, if a person claiming to be the father sought custody rights to a child, the mother could respond by claiming that the person was not the father and, again, paternity testing could be ordered.

In 2001, the law of Pennsylvania was changed to allow for the filing of a Complaint to Establish Paternity and for Genetic Testing. The change allowed for a person to seek paternity testing without there being an underlying child custody or child support action. Of course, from a practical standpoint, if the person is determined to be the father, in all likelihood, a child support and/or child custody action will be filed.

Since there is a criminal investigation as to whether Edwards used campaign funds to pay off Hunter so that she would not go public about her subsequently disclosed relationship with Edwards, I would not expect this issue to die out so soon.