Thursday's Arkansas Supreme Court Ruling re: Paternity and Child Support (Updated)

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that even though a paternity test ruled out Anthony L. Parker as the father of a child in a child-support dispute, he still has to pay support owed the mother before he took the test. In a concurring opinion, Justice Robert Brown urged the legislature to look at the law.

By happenstance, I did look at the law recently due to a Texas case involving similar issues and circumstances. This is an instance where Arkansas can and should look to other states' laws to see how this problem has been dealt with elsewhere. While Arkansas does allow for a father to take one DNA test to prove or disprove paternity, even after an acknowledgment that he is the father, there are no provisions to retroactively terminate past due child support. This should be addressed by the legislature in an effort to reconcile fairness with the "best interest of the child" standard. Hopefully, we can have a bill drafted to resolve this nuance prior to the filing deadline on March 5th.

Update: Earnest Brown must be hiding out over at the Supreme Court at night. By the time I got up on Saturday and read this opinion in the Demozette, Rep. Brown had already drafted and filed the Bill. HB1134 remedies the problem discussed in the ruling. I need to hang out with Earnest more.