Kit v. Mitchell

47 Pa. D. & C.4th 75, 2000 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 155
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Delaware County
DecidedMarch 3, 2000
Docketno. 96-12477
StatusPublished

This text of 47 Pa. D. & C.4th 75 (Kit v. Mitchell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Delaware County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kit v. Mitchell, 47 Pa. D. & C.4th 75, 2000 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 155 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2000).

Opinion

McGOVERN JR., J.,

Plaintiff, Michael A. Kit, appeals from this court’s entry of a judgment n.o.v. in favor of defendants.

This legal malpractice action arose from plaintiff’s contention that defendant, in representing plaintiff’s wife, pursued a support action which eventually caused the plaintiff to be arrested while defendant knew that a blood test had been taken demonstrating that plaintiff was not the father of the child for whom support was being paid. Plaintiff’s ex-wife had since married the biological father of the child in question. Plaintiff’s ex-wife, her present husband, and her father all claimed that plaintiff had been told before and shortly after conception of the child that he was not the father. Plaintiff contends that [77]*77he did not learn of a blood test until an evaluator was appointed in a pending custody matter for the child in question. The history of the relationship between plaintiff and his ex-wife is as tortuous as the history of the instant matter.

Plaintiff and his ex-wife (who now is Mrs. Patricia Devine) met in 1978 and were married in 1982. (7/30/98 N.T. 101; 7/31/98 N.T. 270.) Although the parties had difficulties with conceiving a child, presumably because of plaintiff’s low sperm count, plaintiff’s ex-wife became pregnant in 1985. (7/30/98 N.T. 102; 7/31/98 N.T. 271.) The couple was living together as husband and wife at the time of conception, during the pregnancy, and at the child’s birth in March 1986. Plaintiff was noted as the child’s father on the birth certificate. (7/30/98 N.T. 106-107.) Plaintiff and his ex-wife were experiencing marital difficulties even before the birth of their child and his ex-wife testified that she advised plaintiff even before birth that he was likely not the child’s father. (7/31/98 N.T. 23.) Plaintiff admits that his wife told him the child was not his, but contends this was after the birth. (7/31/ 98 N.T. 24-26,271-72.) Plaintiff’s ex-wife, Ms. Devine, and her paramour, now her husband, obtained blood tests on January 7, 1987 of themselves and the child, and the results indicated a 99.077 percent probability that plaintiff’s ex-wife’s paramour and plaintiff’s ex-wife were the parents of the child. That report is dated February 2, 1987. (Exhibit P-3; 7/30/98 N.T. 110-14.) Plaintiff’s ex-wife filed for divorce in February 1987. (7/30/98 N.T. 115,116-21; 7/31/98 N.T. 31,190-91.) At that point, the parties could not agree to terms for equitable distribution, and plaintiff’s ex-wife filed a support action against him. The dispute between the parties included resolving the distribution of their two pieces of [78]*78real estate and plaintiff’s ex-wife, now Ms. Devine, wanted plaintiff to relinquish his rights to the child. (7/ 30/98 N.T. 117-18; 7/31/98 N.T. 43-44.) An order for support was entered pursuant to an agreement February 11,1987. (7/30/98 N.T. 121-22; 7/31/98 N.T. 276.) Plaintiff saw the child regularly by virtue of an informal custody agreement, although the child stayed with Ms. Devine until the latter terminated these visitations, advising plaintiff that he was not the child’s father. (7/30/ 98 N.T. 123-24,161-62; 7/31/98 N.T. 276.) Plaintiff then stopped making support payments. (7/30/98 N.T. 123-24.) The child was supported by Ms. Devine’s paramour who eventually married Ms. Devine.

Plaintiff, in August 1987, filed a petition to vacate the support order and requested blood tests to determine paternity of the child. Plaintiff, in his petition, alleged that “sometime after the entering of this order [on April 10, 1987], petitioner realized he was not the natural father ...” of the child. (7/30/98 N.T. 126-27; 7/31/98 N.T. 47, 277-78; exhibit P-11, paragraph 5.) (date inserted) Plaintiff also alleged in that petition that he was sterile at the time of conception and admitted that his ex-wife had told him he was not the natural father of the child. (Exhibit P-11.) Ms. Devine had given a copy of the blood test she had taken with her child and her paramour to her then attorney, not the present defendant, who advised that because of the presumption of paternity, that blood test report was irrelevant. (7/30/98 N.T. 129,137.)1 There was considerable testimony that plaintiff had been per[79]*79sonally shown copies of the 1987 blood tests. (See for example, 7/30/98 N.T. 138-39; 7/31/98 N.T. 34-36,224-25.) Plaintiff, however, denies receiving any information concerning the existence of the 1987 blood tests until 1993, when he was advised by a court-appointed custody evaluator. (7/31/98 N.T. 279.)

The domestic relations dispute between these parties continued around the same issues, including the issue of paternity. When a master, appointed pursuant to plaintiff’s petition to vacate, recommended blood tests be conducted, Ms. Devine, who had, at that point, been representing herself, retained defendant. (7/30/98 N.T. 135-43; 7/31/98 N.T. 51.) The defendant undertook representation of Patricia Devine as concerns her divorce, custody and support matters on December 13,1988, and continued that representation through April of 1996.2

Ms. Devine had retained an attorney, other than the defendant, to handle a criminal matter arising from this divorce action and she provided him with a copy of the 1987 blood test report. (7/30/98 N.T. 145-46.) Ms. Devine obtained her file from that attorney and delivered it to the defendant, and claims that at some subsequent point, she saw that report in the defendant’s hands. (7/30/98 N.T. 145-48,151; 7/31/98 N.T. 59-60.) Ms. Devine also testified that she had never seen the defendant with that blood test report and that he had never reviewed it with her. (7/31/98 N.T. 104-109.) She apparently assumed that it was in the file. The defendant contended that he not only had never seen the blood test report, but was unaware of it until the 1992 custody action. The paternity [80]*80issue continued to be a bargaining chip used in the negotiations between these parties. (7/30/98 N.T. 74-75,103-106,107-108,139,151-52,159-60,184-86,188-89,190-91,200,218-19,222,224,235-37,239-40,245-46,248-49; 7/31/98 N.T. 39, 95-96, 123-24, 157, 200-202, 273-75, 280, 282, 284; exhibits P-45, D-15, D-17.)

Defendant contends that he had never seen the blood test report until after the custody evaluator’s hearing in 1993. Defendant took the position that plaintiff’s petition for blood tests should be opposed because it was his understanding of the law at the time, consistent with other attorneys Ms. Devine had consulted, that since plaintiff and Ms. Devine were the household into which the child was bom, held themselves out to be the parents, and the plaintiff’s name was noted on the birth certificate as father, the presumption of paternity compelled a conclusion that plaintiff was the father and, therefore, responsible for the child’s support. Therefore, any new blood tests would be irrelevant. (7/31/98 N.T. 200-203; exhibit D-13.) Thus, defendant continued the support litigation and also sought to obtain medical coverage for the child. (7/31/98 N.T. 203.)

A de novo hearing pursuant to plaintiff’s petition to vacate the support order was held before another judge on January 26,1989. The 1987 blood test report was not introduced because of the presumption of paternity. That de novo hearing resulted in an opinion and order dated June 19,1989 denying plaintiff’s petition to vacate. (Exhibit P-10.) Plaintiff appealed. That court’s order was affirmed by way of an unpublished memorandum opinion from the Pennsylvania Superior Court dated March 30, 1990. See Kit v. Kit, 400 Pa. Super.

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Bluebook (online)
47 Pa. D. & C.4th 75, 2000 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kit-v-mitchell-pactcompldelawa-2000.