Dear Colleagues:

 

I normally only post on tort law, but I know that many of you have a keen interest in equity, so I’m reporting on a family law case in which a man was equitably estopped from establishing that he was not the biological father of a child. I have always found it fascinating when judges use equitable principles to overcome what seems like a clear statutory provision.

 

The case is Sheetz v Sheetz, a recent decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals. Benjamin and Ronnie Sheetz were married, and while Benjamin was in prison, Ronnie got pregnant by another man. Benjamin was none too pleased at first, but he and Ronnie reconciled and agreed to tell everyone that she became pregnant during a conjugal visit and that they would raise the baby as their own child. Which they did after he got out of prison—and for twelve years, also having two children of their own during this time. Evidently, Benjamin also told Ronnie not to contact the biological father, not to seek support from him, and not to start a paternity suit. Ronnie eventually filed for divorce, and at the final hearing, the parties entered into evidence a stipulation that although the child was born during the marriage, Benjamin was not the child’s biological father. The trial court nonetheless ordered Benjamin to pay support for the child, and the appellate court upheld 2:1.

 

In Indiana, a statutory presumption says that a man is a child’s biological father if the man and the child’s biological mother are married to each other and the child is born during the marriage. This presumption can be rebutted by “direct, clear, and convincing evidence,” though a stipulation between the parties, by itself, is insufficient. The typical evidence would be that the husband was impotent or sterile, absent when the child must have been conceived, or DNA testing. Benjamin would have had little difficulty rebutting the presumption, but the court held that he was estopped from doing so. The court explained that equitable estoppel is “available if one party through his course of conduct knowingly misleads or induces another party to believe and act upon his conduct in good faith without knowledge of the facts.” Benjamin induced Ronnie to believe that he would raise and support the baby as his own child (and did so for twelve years); Ronnie reasonably believed that Benjamin wouldn’t challenge paternity; and Ronnie relied upon his promise in not filing a paternity action against the child’s biological father. The dissenting judge cited the maxim “Equity follows the law,” held that there was no such thing as equitable paternity in Indiana, and concluded that the majority was circumventing, rather than following, the law.

 

Joanna Grossman has written a blog on the case, concluding that mother and child certainly benefit from the decision “but maybe, in time, the husband will too [since] along with parental obligations, he will retain parental rights.”

 

John Kleefeld