Final divorce judgement establishing a child support obligation for divorcing husband constitutes final determination of paternity

Law Reporter, Oct 2002

D.F. v. Department of Revenue, _ So. 2d _, No. SC96288, 2002 WL 1206757 (Fla. June 6, 2002).

The Supreme Court of Florida held that a final dissolution of marriage judgment that requires the divorcing father to pay child support constitutes a final determination of paternity that can only be challenged under Fla. Stat. Ann. RI Civ. P. 1.540, which addresses matters such as mistakes, inadvertence, excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, and fraud.

Here, when a husband filed for divorce, he declared that a child born three months after the couple had married was a marital child. The couple also signed a settlement agreement in which the husband agreed to pay child support. Nine years after they divorced, the man responded to a petition filed by the state on his ex-wife's behalf to increase his child support obligation by asserting that he was not the child's biological father. The man then moved to reverse the previous determination of paternity, arguing that he had not had sexual relations with the child's mother until about three months before the couple had married and could not be the child's father. The trial court dismissed the man's petition, finding that he had contracted to pay child support more than nine years earlier and was estopped by the divorce decree from contesting paternity in that he had not pleaded any extrinsic fraud or other basis that would allow him to seek relief from the judgment. An appellate court affirmed.

The state high court approved the appellate court's decision, which was certified in conflict with DeRico ro. Wilson, 714 So. 2d 623 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1998). There, a divorced man moved to terminate his support obligation for two children based on DNA tests performed more than a year and a half after his divorce from the children's mother. The appellate court reversed an order denying the man relief, citing Daniel ro. Daniel, 695 So. 2d 1253 (Fla. 1997), which held that a former husband had no duty to support children he did not biologically father, adopt, or contract to care for.

Disapproving the holding in DeRico, the court said it needed to balance the need for finality in judgments with its holding in Daniel that permitted a former husband to successfully challenge paternity during a dissolution proceeding. Therefore, the court concluded that where a final dissolution judgment establishes a child support obligation for a former husband, it is a final determination of paternity that can only be challenged under Rule 1.540. The provision permits parties to obtain relief from judgments for reasons including mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, and fraud within one year after the final judgment. Applying that rule here, the court said that the man had pleaded no extrinsic fraud or other basis that would allow him to seek relief from the dissolution judgment nine years after it was entered. Consequently, the lower courts did not err in denying him relief.