Miscellaneous

What a Paternity Clusterf**k

One of our illustrious readers, Darcy, pointed me toward yet another WTF decision by a Canadian court (you think our court system is messed up? They just make shit up in Canada). It involves a father who learned that he was paying child support to twins he later found out weren't his. Who was the father? Mom doesn't know -- she was too drugged up to remember who she was screwing at the time.

A Toronto man is on the hook to pay child support, notwithstanding a DNA test that proved he is not the biological father of his ex-wife's twins, an Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled.

Madam Justice Katherine van Rensburg ordered Pasqualino Cornelio to continue paying child support to the 16-year-old twins - regardless of whether he was bamboozled by a philandering wife.

"While the failure of Anciolina Cornelio to disclose to her husband the fact that she had an extramarital affair - and that the twins might not be his biological children - may have been a moral wrong against Mr. Cornelio, it is a wrong that does not afford him a legal remedy to recover child support he has already paid, and that does not permit him to stop paying child support," Judge van Rensburg said.

Mr. Cornelio began making support payments soon after he separated from his wife in 1998. He had the DNA test after his former spouse recently sought an increase in the payments and a reduction in his time with the twins. Upon learning that he was not the biological father, Mr. Cornelio claimed to be a victim of misrepresentation or fraud.

He asked to be excused from paying child support and demanded reimbursement of tens of thousands of dollars he has paid over the years.

Ms. Cornelio was unable to shed light on the mystery of the twins' parentage. "Ms. Cornelio denies knowledge of who the twins' biological father might be," Judge van Rensburg said. "In fact, she claims to have no memory of an extramarital affair preceding their birth, which she attributes to the medication she was taking at the time."

Darcy summed this one up pretty accurately, writing: "This will almost certainly be overturned on appeal so as to unfuck the lower court's awful interpretation of the statute. Nevertheless, now that the mother has (conveniently) forgot that she had an extramarital affair, let alone who it was with, the kids are now fatherless and subject to national media coverage. Family law: where the only winners are lawyers."

Full post as published by Quiz Law on January 08, 2009 (boomark / email).