NEW YORK - A Nassau County man who said he donated sperm to a female co-worker as a friendly gesture - and then sent presents and cards to the child over the years - is legally considered the father and may have to pay child support for the college-bound teenager, according to a judge's ruling.
"What's the saying? No good deed goes unpunished," said Deborah Kelly, a Garden City lawyer for the man, who acknowledged that he is named as the father on the child's birth certificate.
Like all the involved parties, the man remains anonymous because of privacy concerns.
Nassau County Family Court Judge Ellen Greenberg ruled on Nov. 16 that despite the mother's willingness to have the child's DNA tested, the man was barred from seeking a paternity test to determine if he is truly the father because the results could have a "traumatic effect" upon the child, who is now 18 years old and lives in Oregon with the mother. The next step is a meeting with a support magistrate to determine the amount of child support payments - if any - the man would have to pay until the teen turns 21, Kelly said.
The magistrate will determine child support based on the mother's earning capacity; the reported income of her female partner; and the income of the father.
Even without genetic evidence, the man's interactions with the child over the years had a patriarchal nature, said Jeffrey Herbst, an attorney who represents the mother in the lawsuit through a federal agreement called the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act.
"It's still a parental relationship," Herbst said.
According to the man's testimony, in the late 1980s he was a physician at the same Nassau County hospital where the child's mother was a resident. After learning the woman and her female partner wanted to have a baby, the man donated his sperm and the woman gave birth on July 26, 1989. Married at the time, the man agreed that he would not have any rights or benefits in raising the child, but the verbal agreement was never put in writing, according to court documents.
Still, he took the unusual step of allowing his name to appear on the child's birth certificate because he thought it was in the child's "best interests that he would have an identity when he grew older," he said in court documents.
Before the mother, her partner, and the child moved to Oregon in 1993, the man had contact with the child, according to court documents. He also sent the child money, gifts, and cards and letters signed "Dad" or "Daddy," and spoke to him by phone about seven times in the past 15 years.
That correspondence, coupled with an affidavit from the child stating that he "has never known anyone other than [the man] to be his father," is enough for a parental relationship, according to Herbst.
"The fact of the matter is that he held himself out as the child's father for 18 years until he asked for DNA testing," Herbst said.
In the murky legalities of artificial insemination by a known donor, the best protections are to have everything in writing and "do your homework," said reproductive lawyer Melissa Brisman of Park Ridge, N.J.
"You can't be half a father, and half a not, under the law," she said.
But the man's trust was abused, his lawyer said.
"The doctor was told this is how it's going to be," Kelly said. "And 18 years later, you end up dealing with something that you didn't know you were going to deal with. Sometimes people aren't really thinking about the legal ramifications."
from Newsday
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