MTR. OF SHONDEL J. v. Mark D. , 7 N.Y.3d 320 ( 2006 )

OPINION OF THE COURT

Rosenblatt, J.

In this child support proceeding, we hold that a man who has mistakenly represented himself as a child’s father may be estopped from denying paternity, and made to pay child support, when the child justifiably relied on the man’s representation of paternity, to the child’s detriment. We reach this conclusion based on the best interests of the child as set forth by the Legislature.

I.

In January 1996, Shondel J. gave birth to a daughter in Guyana, where she then resided, and in a birth registration document named Mark D. as the father. Shondel and Mark had dated the previous spring in Guyana and had sexual intercourse.

Although Mark was in New York when the child was born, he provided financial support for the child and returned to Guyana later in the year to see her. In a sworn statement, notarized by the Guyana Consul-General in New York in January 1996, Mark declared that he was “convinced” that he was the child’s father and accepted “all paternal responsibilities including child support.” In 1998 he signed a Guyana registry, stating that he was her father and authorizing the change of her last name to his. Mark named the child the primary beneficiary on his life insurance policy, identifying her as his daughter. He also sent Shondel money monthly for the child’s support from her birth until June 1999 and then less regularly through the summer of 2000.

In August 2000, Shondel commenced a Family Court Act article 5 proceeding alleging that Mark is the father and seeking orders of filiation and support. Initially, Mark did not contest paternity. On the contrary, in September 2000, when the child was 4V2 years old, Mark commenced a Family Court Act article 6 proceeding, seeking visitation. In his petition, he stated that he was the child’s father, and that he loved her and wished to “spend quality time with her on a regularly scheduled basis.”

In October 2000, however, when appearing before a Family Court hearing examiner to answer Shondel’s petition, Mark requested DNA testing. The hearing examiner ordered genetic marker tests, which revealed that Mark is not the child’s biological father. The hearing examiner then dismissed Shondel’s paternity petition, and Mark abandoned his petition for visitation, having severed his relationship with the child. Shondel objected to the hearing examiner’s order, expressing doubts about the laboratory tests and stating that she would be able to show that Mark had always recognized the child as his. Realizing that the hearing examiner had exceeded her authority in dismissing Shondel’s petition, Family Court sustained her objection and appointed a law guardian for the child.

In October 2001, the Law Guardian reported that Mark had acted as the father of the child, who in turn considered him her father. Family Court set the matter down for a trial on equitable estoppel and ordered another set of tests. A blood genetic marker test confirmed that Mark is not the child’s biological father.

At the estoppel trial, Family Court heard widely diverging testimony from Shondel and Mark. According to Shondel’s testimony, Mark spent time with her and the child when they traveled to the United States in 1996 and 1997, seeing them “every day” for about six weeks in the summer of 1997 in New York; continued to visit the child and take her out after his relationship with Shondel soured in 1998; bought the child toys, clothes and other gifts; took the child to meet his parents; told his family that she was his daughter; regularly spoke with the child by telephone; referred to himself as “daddy” when talking with the child; and visited the child “almost every other day” in August 1999 and “almost every other day” between the time Shondel and the child moved to New York in January 2000 and the commencement of this litigation.

Mark denied all of this, asserting that he had seen the child only four times since her birth; that he had not acknowledged the child as his; that he had not introduced the child to his family or friends as his child; that he had not sent the child birthday or Christmas gifts; and that he had never visited her. Mark testified that he twice asked Shondel to submit to a blood test to determine whether he was the father of her child. Shondel insisted that he did not.

Family Court believed Shondel “entirely” and found Mark’s testimony incredible. It ruled that Mark “held himself out as [the] child’s father, and behaved in every way as if he was the father, albeit a father who didn’t reside for a good part of the child’s life, in the same country.” These affirmed findings of Family Court have support in the record and are binding on this Court.

Family Court entered an order of filiation and awarded child support retroactive to the date Shondel commenced the Family Court proceeding. The Appellate Division affirmed, concluding that “Family Court properly determined that it was in the best interests of the subject child to equitably estop [Mark] from denying paternity” (6 AD3d 437 [2004]).¹ We agree, based on our precedents, the affirmed findings of fact and the legislative recognition of paternity by estoppel.

II.

The purpose of equitable estoppel is to preclude a person from asserting a right after having led another to form the reasonable belief that the right would not be asserted, and loss or prejudice to the other would result if the right were asserted. The law imposes the doctrine as a matter of fairness. Its purpose is to prevent someone from enforcing rights that would work injustice on the person against whom enforcement is sought and who, while justifiably relying on the opposing party’s actions, has been misled into a detrimental change of position (see generally Nassau Trust Co. v Montrose Concrete Prods. Corp., 56 NY2d 175, 184 [1982]).

New York courts have long applied the doctrine of estoppel in paternity and support proceedings. Our reason has been and continues to be the best interests of the child (Jean Maby H. v Joseph H., 246 AD2d 282, 285 [2d Dept 1998]; see generally Matter of L. Pamela P. v Frank S., 59 NY2d 1, 5 [1983]).

Although it originated in case law, paternity by estoppel is now secured by statute in New York (see Family Ct Act § 418 [a]; § 532 [a]). For that reason, and contrary to Mark’s assertions, it is not for us to decide whether the doctrine has a rightful place in New York law. Clearly it does, in the absence of legislative repeal or a determination of unconstitutionality. Mark argues for the first time in this appeal that sections 418 (a) and 532 (a) are unconstitutional and deprive him of due process. As this claim was not raised in the courts below, we do not entertain it.

Equitable estoppel is gender neutral. In Matter of Sharon GG. v Duane HH. (63 NY2d 859 [1984], affg 95 AD2d 466 [3d Dept 1983]), we affirmed an order of the Appellate Division dismissing a paternity petition in which a mother sought to compel her husband to submit to a blood test as a means of challenging his paternity. We agreed with the Appellate Division that the mother should be estopped. As that Court pointed out, the mother expressed no question about her child’s paternity until some 2¹h years after the child’s birth. She had held the child out as her husband’s, accepted his support for the child while she and her husband lived together and after they separated, and permitted her husband and child to form strong ties together.

Estoppel may also preclude a man who claims to be a child’s biological father from asserting his paternity when he acquiesced in the establishment of a strong parent-child bond between the child and another man. The rationale is that the child would be harmed by a determination that someone else is the biological father. For example, in Purificati v Paricos (154 AD2d 360 [2d Dept 1989]), a boy’s biological father who did not seek to establish his paternity until more than three years after the child’s birth, and who acquiesced as a relationship flourished between the boy and his mother’s former husband, was estopped from claiming paternity. The courts “impose equitable estoppel to protect the status interests of a child in an already recognized and operative parent-child relationship” (Matter of Baby Boy C., 84 NY2d 91, 102 n [1994]).

Finally, the Appellate Division has repeatedly concluded that a man who has held himself out to be the father of a child, so that a parent-child relationship developed between the two, may be estopped from denying paternity.² Where a child justifiably relies on the representations of a man that he is her father with the result that she will be harmed by the man’s denial of paternity, the man may be estopped from asserting that denial.³

III.

Mark represented that he was the father of the child, and she justifiably relied on this representation, changing her position by forming a bond with him, to her ultimate detriment. He is therefore estopped from denying paternity.

Mark expressly represented that he was the father of Shondel’s child in the notarized sworn statement and in the Guyana registry in which he gave the child his name, as well as in the visitation petition filed with Family Court. Further, Mark held himself out as the child’s father, and behaved in every way as if he was the father. Mark and the child had a close relationship, in which he referred to himself as her “daddy,” and which involved regular telephone conversations, frequent visits when she and Mark were in the same city, and contact with his parents. Moreover, Mark named the child as the primary beneficiary on his life insurance policy and sent money monthly for the child’s support until June 1999 and then less regularly through the summer of 2000.

The record also establishes that the child justifiably relied on Mark’s representations, accepting and treating him as her father. The Law Guardian’s October 2001 oral report to Family Court on her interview with the child (conducted when she was 572 years old) concluded that she

“considers Mark [D.] to be her father. She enjoys spending time with him, she knew his name, she described what he looks like, different things about his appearance, she talked about some of the things they did together, she enjoyed the visits a lot, he brought her presents in the past, he took her out without the mother sometimes, there’s a picture album with pictures of [Mark] in it and she wanted me to express that she misses him and she wants to know when he’s going to come back to see her.”

In the best interests of the child, Family Court properly applied estoppel, to impose support obligations on Mark, after he left the child with the detrimental effects of a relationship in which she was misled into believing that he was her father. A mother who had perfect foresight and knew that her child’s relationship with a father figure would be severed when the child was 472 might well choose never to inform him of her child’s birth.

TV.

Mark attacks the statutory basis for the application of paternity by estoppel. In 1990, the Legislature amended Family Court Act § 418 (a), which governs the procedures related to scientific testing of biological paternity in support proceedings, so as to read, in pertinent part:

“The court, on its own motion or motion of any party, when paternity is contested, shall order the mother, the child and the alleged father to submit to one or more genetic marker or DNA marker tests ... to aid in the determination of whether the alleged father is or is not the father of the child. No such test shall be ordered, however, upon a written finding by the court that it is not in the best interests of the child on the basis of res judicata, equitable estoppel or the presumption of legitimacy of a child born to a married woman.” (Family Ct Act § 418 [a] [emphasis supplied]; see L 1990, ch 818, §12.)

Arguing that the statute is self-contradictory, Mark asserts that the law mandates scientific testing of biological paternity in support proceedings and then in the next sentence makes such tests discretionary. We view the statute differently.

By providing a limited “best interests of the child” exception to mandatory biological tests of disputed paternity, the statute requires Family Court to justify its refusal to order biological tests when paternity is in issue. Before the amendment, Family Court was authorized, but not required, to order biological tests, and the court did not have to justify its refusal to do so. Now, in a support proceeding in which paternity is disputed, Family Court must explain why it denies a motion for biological paternity testing. The court may deny testing based on “res judicata, equitable estoppel or the presumption of legitimacy of a child born to a married woman,” if denial is in the best interests of the child.

It is true that a child in a support proceeding has an interest in finding out the identity of her biological father. But in many instances a child also has an interest — no less powerful — in maintaining her relationship with the man who led her to believe that he is her father. The 1990 amendment to Family Court Act § 418 (a) appropriately balances these interests in accordance with the primary purpose of the Family Court Act — to protect and promote the best interests of children.

The procedure contemplated by section 418 (a) is that Family Court should consider paternity by estoppel before it decides whether to test for biological paternity. Here, the process was inverted early in the proceeding. Instead of referring the matter to a Family Court judge, the hearing examiner ordered genetic marker tests of paternity when the parties appeared in October 2000. As a result, the child’s biological paternity had been addressed before Family Court conducted its trial on the issue of estoppel. Nevertheless, even though the tests had been conducted, Family Court was authorized to decide the estoppel issue.

V

In allowing a court to declare paternity irrespective of biological fatherhood, the Legislature made a deliberate policy choice that speaks directly to the case before us. The potential damage to a child’s psyche caused by suddenly ending established parental support need only be stated to be appreciated. Cutting off that support, whether emotional or financial, may leave the child in a worse position than if that support had never been given. Situations vary, and the question whether extinguishing the relationship and its attendant obligations will disserve the child is one for Family Court based on the facts in each case. Here, Family Court found it to be in the best interests of the child that Mark be declared her father and the Appellate Division properly affirmed.

Asserting that the equities are with Mark, our dissenting colleagues argue that we do not acknowledge the fraud or misrepresentation exception to the doctrine of equitable estoppel. This argument is misplaced for three reasons. To begin with, the child is the party in whose favor estoppel is being applied and there can be no claim here that she was guilty of fraud or misrepresentation. Secondly, to the extent that it matters, we note that there is no evidence of fraud or willful misrepresentation even on Shondel’s part. It is not likely that she would have initiated paternity proceedings, with the predictable prospect of biological testing, if she expected tests to rule him out as the father. There is every reason to believe that she thought Mark was the biological father and that the tests would confirm her belief. Finally, the issue does not involve the equities between the two adults; the case turns exclusively on the best interests of the child.

We appreciate the dissenters’ concern over applying estoppel to a case in which, as between Mark and Shondel, it was she who misrepresented Mark to be the father (even though she may have earnestly believed he was). The dissenters’ position, however, appears not to recognize that fatherhood by estoppel does not contemplate a contest between two adults to see who is the more innocent. The child is entirely innocent and by statute the party whose interests are paramount.

To the child, Mark represented himself as her father. The Legislature did not create an exception for men who take on the role of fatherhood based on the mother’s misrepresentation. That would eviscerate the statute and, with it, the child’s best interests. Under the enactment, the mother’s motivation and honesty are irrelevant; the only issue for the court is how the interests of the child are best served.

Here, Family Court found, and the Appellate Division affirmed, that Mark represented himself to be the father and that the child’s best interests would be served by a declaration of fatherhood. Under our decisional law, and contrary to the dissenters’ suggestion, equitable estoppel does not require that Mark, to be estopped, necessarily knew that his representation was false. A party who, like Mark, does not realize that his representation was factually inaccurate may yet be estopped from denying that representation when someone else — here the child — justifiably relied on it to her detriment (see Romano v Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 271 NY 288, 293-294 [1936]; Triple Cities Constr. Co. v Maryland Cas. Co., 4 NY2d 443, 448 [1958]).

The dissenters cite Simcuski v Saeli (44 NY2d 442 [1978]), which holds that a defendant may be estopped to plead the statute of limitations after having wrongfully induced the plaintiff to refrain from filing a timely suit. Simcuski prevents defendants from profiting from their misconduct. It does not bear on estoppel as between a man and the child with whom he has formed a father-daughter relationship.

Our dissenting colleagues point out that Mark has renounced fatherhood and now has no relationship with the child. This state of affairs, however, does not preclude the application of estoppel. If it did, a man could defeat the statute simply by severing all ties with the child.

Given the statute recognizing paternity by estoppel, a man who harbors doubts about his biological paternity of a child has a choice to make. He may either put the doubts aside and initiate a parental relationship with the child, or insist on a scientific test of paternity before initiating a parental relationship. A possible result of the first option is paternity by estoppel; the other course creates the risk of damage to the relationship with the woman. It is not an easy choice, but at times, the law intersects with the province of personal relationships and some strain is inevitable. This should not be allowed to distract the Family Court from its principal purpose in paternity and support proceedings — to serve the best interests of the child.

Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs.

1 . This Appellate Division order is brought up for review here by Mark’s appeal of a later Appellate Division order dismissing his objections to the child support order (18 AD3d 551 [2005]).

2 . Mancinelli v Mancinelli, 203 AD2d 634 (3d Dept 1994); Matter of Commissioner of Social Servs. of Tompkins County v Gregory B., 211 AD2d 956 (3d Dept 1995); Brian B. v Dionne B., 267 AD2d 188 (2d Dept 1999); Matter of Jennifer W. v Steven X., 268 AD2d 800 (3d Dept 2000); Ocasio v Ocasio, 276 AD2d 680 (2d Dept 2000); Matter of Sarah S. v James T., 299 AD2d 785 (3d Dept 2002); Matter of Diana E. v Angel M., 20 AD3d 370 (1st Dept 2005).

3 . As one court put it, “[t]he law is not so insensitive as to countenance the breach of an obligation in so vital and deep a relation, undertaken, partially fulfilled, and suddenly sundered.” (Clevenger v Clevenger, 189 Cal App 2d 658, 674, 11 Cal Rptr 707, 716 [Ct App 1961]; accord Pietros v Pietros, 638 A2d 545, 548 [RI 1994].)