ANOTHER MAN ASSUMED PARENTAL ROLE
When a biological father’s paternity petition was denied on equitable estoppel grounds by the Kings County Supreme Court, he appealed.
Shortly after Jemelle’s kid was born in 2011, Latina, the mother, hooked up with another guy, Christopher, who had two additional children with the woman. And since the youngster in question was born, Christopher “assumed a parental role,” and provided her with emotional and financial support. The child even considered Christopher to be her “daddy,” even though she knew he wasn’t her biological father.
Because Jemelle, on the other hand, was an “inconsistent and unreliable presence in the child's life and had not visited the child since she was approximately six years old,” the Appellate Division, Second Department, was of the view that it was “in the child's best interests to equitably estop [Jemelle] from asserting his paternity claim.”
That essentially estopped that.
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DECISION