Not in real life, but I’m kind of wondering…the troublesome wench with whom I had a one night stand years and years ago knows my name and can track me down if she wants. She seemed enough of a zonk to do something like the scenario in the title. I don’t think there was a baby involved, but, what if there is?
Could I be presented with a several hundred thousand dollar bill? Would there be any recourse for me? I would hate to think that I would have to pay for a baby that I didn’t know that I had for such a major period of time.
It happened to a fellow I dated. A woman he had a one night stand with 14 years prior applied for welfare and had to name a father in order to start getting checks. I don’t know all the legalities that led up to it but he suddenly had a 13 year-old daughter that he was paying child support for. It turned out well for him, though. She was the spitting image of him and they developed a close relationship.
The scary thing is that even if you are found through a paternity test to not be the father, if the state has deemed that you are legally the father, you are still on the hook. I know someone that found out his wife had an affair and the kid wasn’t his. She divorced a year after the child was born, which he didn’t see coming, and told him about the affair and the child’s true father to twist the knife a bit more. Since he did not dispute the paternity within the required timeframe, he is now paying child support for a child that never was his.
And the state can even collect child support from you a lot later – like even after you’re dead!
I’ve worked for the State Collections system, and they had a process where death notices from all counties in the state were compared to a list of people who owed the state past-due child support. If a match was found, the State filed a claim against the deceased’s estate for that money. It wasn’t uncommon for the ‘child’ to be retired and collecting Social Security at the time. Didn’t matter to the State – money does not go stale.
Since the OP has been answered, may I hijack and inquire if the “unprotected” part of that comment was an innocent or a necessary modifier? Or does Mrs. H not read The Dope?
If I understand the article correctly, Mr Rodriguez is being ordered to retroactively pay back to when the court ordered the payments in 2000, not back to when the child was born in 1990.
Retroactive child support is usually done at the judges discretion. If the mother has been scratching by on minimum wage and trying to contact you for a decade while you kept quitting jobs and changing your phone number, expect to get hit with fifteen years of child support.
If the mother did nothing to tell you about it and you man up and be a father once you find out the child exists, you’re more likely to only pay until the child is 18.
Probably because if you’re receiving a bill for unpaid child-support the time period for you to appeal paternity has probably already expired. You can have a DNA test conclusively proving the child is not yours and it wouldn’t matter.