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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 3, 2013 10:47 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Timothy J. Solobay |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Determination of Paternity |
| In the near future, I plan on re-introducing legislation which will allow courts to order DNA testing, a blood test, or both when paternity is disputed in a case where a child is less than 5 years old. Pennsylvania has long held to the presumption that a child born to a married couple is the legitimate child of the husband. However, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recently addressed the issue in the context of a child support complaint and determined that the court must look at the best interest of the child when applying this presumption of paternity. Under my legislation, the court could rule for a paternity test to be conducted if it is in the best interest of the child and one of the parties has cause to believe that the test could rule the child’s paternity to be different than previously thought, or when both parties acquiesce to the test. Requests for administration of a paternity test would need to be filed no later than five years after the child is born. This legislation would also amend §5104 of Title 23 (Domestic Relations) to include other manners to determine the paternity of a child. This measure would provide for a DNA test to be included in the approved methods of paternity tests. Title 23 presently only allows blood tests. This legislation was SB 1231 of the 2011-12 session. Previous cosponsors include: Tartaglione and Fontana. |
Introduced as SB392