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State court ruling supports rights of biological father

A Huntingdon County judge’s decision ruling the time-honored concept that a husband is presumed to be the father of a child born to his wife did not apply when the wife in the case before the court had an affair — and became pregnant while the couple was separated for a short period of time.

The Pennsylvania Super­ior Court in a decision last week supported the decision issued earlier this year by Huntingdon President Judge George N. Zanic in which he found sufficient evidence that the mother’s boyfriend during the four-month separation from her husband was the child’s father.

Although the mother had listed her husband on the birth certificate as the father, he judge pointed to the fact the woman had told her boyfriend he was the father, and after birth of the child, permitted him visits.

The trial judge found the family at the time of conception was not intact and noted that the woman’s husband had filed for divorce.

However, the couple reconciled and the woman’s husband challenged the boyfriend’s attempts to gain custody of the child.

The Superior Court, which heard an appeal of Zanic’s finding — filed by the husband and wife — stated, “The trial court concluded the doctrine of presumption of paternity did not apply and (the boyfriend) had standing.”

The Huntingdon judge granted primary custody to the mother and granted the boyfriend weekly visits.

The Superior Court opinion was written by Judge Maria McLaughlin, who referred to the husband, wife and boyfriend only by their initials.

She wrote, “The trial court (Zanic) concluded that the clear and convincing evidence in this case dictates that the presumption of paternity cannot be ad­vanced in an effort to preserve a fractured marriage.”

“(Judge Zanic) further found that the commonwealth’s interest in protecting the family unit should not take precedence over the biological father’s paternal rights to his child in this factual circumstance,” McLaughlin stated in summing the county judge’s opinion.

The Superior Court panel that also included judges Mary Jane Bowes and Gene Strassburger, in discussing how the situation may affect the child, cited a prior case which concluded, “If the child eventually finds out that the truth is different from what she has been led to believe for a period of years, she may suffer greater trauma than if she knows it from the outset.”

According to the facts of the case as presented by the Superior Court, the woman and her husband have been married for more than a decade.

The family, which in­cludes other children, is back together.

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