J.R-P. v. Department of Children & Families

228 So. 3d 628, 2017 WL 4393239
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedOctober 4, 2017
DocketCase 2D16-5598
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 228 So. 3d 628 (J.R-P. v. Department of Children & Families) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
J.R-P. v. Department of Children & Families, 228 So. 3d 628, 2017 WL 4393239 (Fla. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

LaROSE, Chief Judge.

J.R-P. appeals a final order disestablishing his paternity. We affirm. We write, however, to address J.R-P.’s argument that the trial court improperly granted another male standing to challenge paternity under chapter 742, Florida Statutes (2014), in a dependency case. 1

Mystery shrouds this case. It concerns a child, two men who claim to be the father, and the child’s birth mother, who may have been murdered.

The child was sheltered shortly after her birth in August 2013. The child was placed with her maternal aunt, with whom she has remained throughout these proceedings. The child is in a safe and loving environment.

The child’s mother and J.R-P. never married. But J.R-P. is named as the father on the child’s birth certificate. Additionally, the shelter order recites that “[Gather asserts paternity today. Court finds him to be the father based on father’s testimony given in open court.” Only years later would the trial court learn that shortly after the child’s birth the mother told some relatives that J.R-P. likely was not the father; she also expressed concern that telling J.R-P. would make her homeless.

In September 2013, shortly after the entry of the shelter order, the Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) petitioned for an' adjudication of dependency under chapter 39, Florida Statutes (2013). The trial court adjudicated the child dependent: The child never lived with J.R-P. or her mother.

Sometime in 2014, the child’s mother disappeared. In September 2014, law enforcement opened a missing person case. Later, the case was transferred to the homicide division for further investigation based on a suspicion of murder. Law enforcement considered J.R-P. to be a “person of interest” in its investigation. 2

Pursuant to an October 2014 order, :the trial court permitted J.R-P. to have at least one two-hour unsupervised visit per week with the child. Although our record contains few details, it appears that an incident occurred during one of these visits that had a profound detrimental effect on the child. Thereafter, J.R-P. continued to have some visits with the child, but- in a secure setting. Incidents occurred during some of these visits that contributed to further concerns about the safety of the child while in J.R-P.’s care. '

Prior to the mother’s disappearance, she told some of her relatives about the child’s biological father. She showed a relative the home where the child’s biological father, O.R., lived. She told the relative: “If anything happens to me, the man who lives in that house is [the child’s] father.” After the mother disappeared, her relatives located O.R. and shared the mother’s story with him. O.R. voluntarily submitted to a DNA test. The results were virtually conclusive: there was a 99.99% probability of a relationship between O.R. and the child.

In January 2015, O.R. filed several items in the dependency case that revealed his competing, paternity claim. He filed a pro se motion to intervene and attached a document acknowledging his paternity, a copy of a “Florida Putative Father Registry Claim of Paternity,” and a copy of the DNA test results. Between the summer of 2015 and January 2016, the trial court grappled with the proper procedure to use in- resolving the competing paternity claims.

The trial court appointed counsel for O.R. In January 2016, counsel filed a motion to establish O.R.’s paternity and to disestablish J.R-P.’s paternity. J.R-P., through appointed counsel,' moved to dismiss or strike O.R.’s motion. DCF asked the trial court to deny J.R-P.’s motion. DCF argued that O.R. should be afforded an opportunity to be heard and to assert paternity either on his own motion or through participant status in the dependency case. DCF also asserted that J.R-P. “fraudulently signed the birth certificate for the child in that he had knowledge that he was not the biological father of the child.”

A “[participant” in a chapter 39 shelter, dependency, or termination of parental rights proceeding

means any person who is not a party but who should receive notice of hearings involving the child, including the -actual -custodian of the child, the foster parents or the legal custodian of the child, identified prospective parents, and any other person whose participation -may be in the best interest of the child .... Participants may be granted leave by the court to be heard without the necessity of filing a motion'to intervene.

§ 39.01(50), Fla. Stat. (2013). The trial court granted O.R. participant status, determined that O.R. had standing to challenge paternity, and found that it was in the best interest of the child for O.R. to have such standing. 3 The trial court denied J.R-P.’s motion to dismiss or strike O.R.’s motion.

. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on O.R.’s motion in September 2016. DCF and the Guardian ad Litem Program supported O.R., contending that it was in the child’s best interest to establish O.R.’s paternity and to disestablish J.R-P.’s paternity. The mother’s attorney appeared at the hearing, but took no position. 4

The trial court thereafter entered the order disestablishing J.R-P.’s paternity. Among other things, the trial court disr cussed section 742.18, Florida Statutes (2014), which provides the “circumstances under which a male may disestablish paternity ... when the male is hot the biological father of the child.” § 742.18(1). The trial court determined that section 742.18 was not exactly on point. Yet, it concluded that the case presented an issue within the scope of section 742.10(4), which allows a challenge to paternity established in reliance upon “a signed voluntary acknowledgment of paternity’ but “only on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.” The trial court “accepted] [J.R-P.’s] position that ... he was operating under a material mistake of fact: his belief in his biological paternity.” The trial court declined to find that J.R-P. had committed fraud by acknowledging paternity shortly after the child’s birth. But the trial court determined the mother’s support of J.R-P.’s assertion of paternity established her fraud.

The trial court found that the child had “never lived as a family with [J.R-P.], His parental status [was] based. on nothing more than his mistaken representations and the misrepresentations of the [child’s] mother.” The trial court found that O.R. was :

familiar-with [J.R-P.’s] tendency to commit violence and O.R. [did] not want the little girl to be placed at risk of harm. Upon learning about [the child] and her plight, [O.R.] could have chosen to ignore this child and this proceeding-and allowed the chips to fall where they may. Instead, [O.R.] took action after the mother’s relatives came looking for him and informed him that- [the, child] may be his daughter ....

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Bluebook (online)
228 So. 3d 628, 2017 WL 4393239, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jr-p-v-department-of-children-families-fladistctapp-2017.