▶ Your Answer :
In this case, after five years of marriage, Kim, the mother of Charles, left John, the non-biological father of Charles, taking the child with her, filed a complaint for divorce due to incompatibility, and demanded sole custody of Charles, looking for ways to challenge John’s paternity. On the other hand, John has no intention of forgoing his custody of or visitation with Charles. Meanwhile, Lee, the biological father of Charles, has sought to have his paternity recognized and get custody of or visitation with Charles. However the mother rejected their demands.
The question is whether John can maintain his custody of or visitation with Charles and Lee can have parental rights and custody of or visitation with Charles despite the rejection of the mother.
First of all, “the best interests” of Charles should be taken into consideration in any custody decision. The fact that John had also taken physical care of Charles after work before she left him and had intention to pay child support even during divorce proceedings does not deny that he deserves to have joint custody of or visitation with Charles. In addition, there is no evidence for John to seriously hinder the mother who mainly provides Charles’ care from keeping a healthy relationship with Charles and Charles even called John “Daddy,” which means John can keep playing a “significant role” of father even after divorce.
On the ground of the best interests of Charles, sole custody to John may be improper due to the fact that mother mainly offers Charles’ care, which means Charles is already mentally and physically attached to the mother in all significant respects. Sole custody to the mother may also not be the best options since John already spent five years and has had strong attachment with Charles from birth by taking part in Charles’ physical care. What is worse is that impeding John’s chance to meet and support Charles with constant and intimate upbringing will be critically detrimental to “the long-term best interests” of Charles, resulting in the lack of paternal love. Therefore, for these reasons, mother will fail in gaining sole custody of Charles, and the court will grant both John and mother joint custody despite the fact that mother challenges John’s paternity of Charles.
Regarding Lee’s argument, who has married a woman, since mother and Lee had had sexual intercourse and she got pregnant, however, Lee left her for his schoolwork, mother and John has parental rights and custody(legal and physical custody). If Lee demands custody of or visitation with Charles, he will have to prove his paternity first and then his parental rights should be granted by a court. He may be able to ask for recognition of his paternity and prove it, however, his parental rights should not be granted based on “the long-term best interests” of Charles since Charles is too young to understand the differences between biological father and non-biological father, which can cause serious confusion with Charles’ “mental development”, bringing up some questions, such as who is the real father in such an early age.
What is more is that since John maintains his paternity of Charles and has parental rights without doing any harm to Charles, Lee cannot take away John’s current privileges unless John hinders the best interests of Charles, leading to “a significant change of circumstances”. Thus, custody award to Lee including visitation with Charles will be impermissible even though he is the biological father until Charles grows up enough to realize the reality or look for his biological father.
All in all, based on “the long-term best interests” of Charles, the court will hold that joint custody will be granted both John and mother and Lee will be denied any custody of or visitation with Charles. |