SAN FRANCISCO — In a defeat for unwed fathers, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that a man who fathers a child with a woman who is married to someone else may be denied all legal parental rights.
A man who "fathers a child with a woman married to another man takes the risk that the child will be raised within that marriage and that he will be excluded from participation in the child's life," Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote. Nothing in the Constitution overrules state law favoring the stability of marriages over a biological father's interests, the justices said.
With roughly a third of California children born to couples who are not married to each other, the case was considered a significant test of the rights of biological fathers. Lower courts in California had ruled in favor of the biological father even though a state law presumes a child born to a married couple is generally the husband's child, regardless of biology.
Courts in 20 other states have granted biological fathers in similar situations the right to assert their paternity, and some states have changed their laws to protect the interests of unmarried fathers.
Monday's ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Riverside County roofer Jerome "Jerry" Krchmar, 41, who lived with a woman referred to in the court's opinion as Dawn D. in 1995 while she was separated from her husband of nearly six years. Dawn, a teacher, became pregnant after living with Krchmar for a month. The two had planned to marry when she divorced, and he had begun building an addition to their home, he said in an interview.
Instead, however, after living with Krchmar for almost four months, Dawn returned to her husband. Krchmar tried to negotiate child support and visitation rights, took a parenting class and filed a lawsuit a few months before the baby was born to assert a parental relationship. But Dawn and her husband refused to allow him to see the baby, Sam.
When Krchmar and the couple met for a blood test, Dawn's husband punched him, Krchmar's attorney said.
Krchmar, his voice breaking, said Monday that he was "devastated" by the ruling and planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I will never give up my son," said Krchmar, who has a small organic farm. "My son is being lied to every day of his life about his genealogy and about who to call Daddy."
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Marjorie Fuller, Krchmar's lawyer, called his fight one of "an amazingly large number" of similar cases.
