The Indiana Paternity Affidavit, sometimes referred to as signing the birth certificate, is a legal document that establishes a man as the child’s father. Basically, it is an admission and it is supposed to hold the same level of weight as an admission to the Court. There are rules in place that are aimed to protect alleged fathers. You are supposed to be advised of your rights and possible responsibilities before you execute the affidavit. There is a lot of question of how often this happens in the hospital setting.
So what happens if you sign the affidavit and then you question whether or not you are the father of the child? First, if it has been less than 60 days since you signed the affidavit you can ask the Indiana Court to set aside the paternity affidavit and request a genetic test. Under this scenario, getting the genetic test request granted is pretty simple. It is basically spelled out in the Paternity Affidavit statute.
Let’s talk about the more common case. More often than not the issue is raised after the 60 day period has passed. What usually happens is that the mother of the child may or may not have told the father that he actually is not the dad, but the dad doesn’t do anything about it because he may not know what to do. Then your local child support office will file a request for child support based on the fact that you signed the Paternity Affidavit.
You then appear for the Court date and find that the Court is not taking very kindly to your request for a genetic test. Why? After that 60 day period has passed you need to prove to the Court that one of three possible legal scenarios exists. At this point you need to prove that a case of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact exists. Out of these three duress is generally not raised as most people sign the document thinking that they are dad. The few successful arguments that I have seen tend to center around the material mistake of fact argument.
The material mistake of fact has to be proven by you. It cannot simply be he said/she said, but you have to be ready to go with real evidence. Proving the material mistake of fact is something that you should consult an attorney about. As you have to show that the facts as they existed when you signed the document are completely different than the facts that you know them to be now. This is also an area where you should not sit around and do nothing if you have been told by the mother of the child that you are not the father.
The Law Office of Jeffery M. Haupt is located in South Bend, Indiana and helps people handle family law issues such as divorce, parenting time, child support, paternity, child custody and criminal matters such as DUI/OWI, drug offenses, traffic offenses, etc. The information in this blog should only be used for educational purposes and not be construed as legal advice. Nothing in this blog creates an attorney-client relationship between me and any readers of this blog. No attorney-client relationship is created until you have a document from me saying so. DO NOT POST ABOUT CASE PARTICULARS IN THE COMMENT SECTION.
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