Many states, including New York, have established laws that presume a woman's husband is the father of a child or children born to her during a marriage. Of course, that presumption does not always comport with the actual facts. A man in another state has been fighting to establish paternity despite another man being recognized as a child's father.
The man apparently was intimately involved with a married woman over the course of five years. During that time period, the woman conceived and gave birth to a son who the man believes is his biological child. Because the woman was married at the time of the child's birth, her husband is recognized as the legal father.
Despite the affair, the woman allegedly does not plan to divorce her husband and has contested the man's attempts to establish paternity and share in the child's life. Apparently, no paternity test has been completed, and the woman's legal team has argued that the man has no legal right to a test in Florida because he cannot establish that he has had any relationship with his alleged child. According to the man, he has been denied access to his son, preventing a bond to be formed.
In similar complex paternity cases such as this one, many fathers find comfort in securing the right attorney for advice, who will likely suggest that a petition for paternity testing be submitted in family court at the earliest opportunity. New York attorneys can advise a father of applicable legal rights and/or the process to establish his fathers' rights. On the opposite spectrum, attorneys can advise mothers who need to establish paternity of a child in order to pursue other needs such as child support.
Source: wptv.com, "Testimony wraps up in biological father's paternity rights petition", Michelle Quesada, Feb. 2, 2018
