Prince George's Cnty. Office of Child Support Enforcement v. Lovick
Prince George's Cnty. Office of Child Support Enforcement v. Lovick
Opinion
Nazarian, J.
*477 *882 The Prince George's County Office of Child Support Enforcement (the "Office") appeals an order of the Circuit Court *478 for Prince George's County setting aside affidavits of parentage that Michael Lovick had executed in the District of Columbia, where his long-time girlfriend had given birth to twins, and striking an earlier order requiring him to pay child support. The Office claims that the circuit court failed to extend full faith and credit to the D.C. affidavits and that the passage of more than two years precluded Mr. Lovick from seeking to set them aside. Mr. Lovick responds that his child support obligations are controlled by Maryland law, which allows a court to set aside a declaration of paternity after a court-ordered genetic test excludes him as the twins' father, as a test did here. We agree with Mr. Lovick and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
On October 4, 2011, Mr. Lovick's girlfriend, Angela Rice, gave birth to twin girls ("the twins") at Georgetown University Hospital in the District of Columbia. Mr. Lovick and Ms. Rice lived in Prince George's County at the time the twins were born, and both live there still. Two days after the twins' birth, Mr. Lovick signed, at the hospital, an Acknowledgment of Paternity (the "Acknowledgment" or the "affidavit") stating that he was the twins' father. As part of the Acknowledgment, Ms. Rice affirmed that Mr. Lovick was the only possible biological father of her children.
The couple separated, and in February 2013, Ms. Rice filed a complaint in the circuit court seeking custody of the twins. She and Mr. Lovick later agreed to share legal custody and that Ms. Rice would have primary physical custody. After they entered this agreement, Mr. Lovick contacted the Office to initiate a child support case. A child support action was initiated, 1 and in February 2014, Mr. Lovick agreed to pay $1,500 per month in child support.
In May 2016, Mr. Lovick filed a motion to establish paternity in both cases and requested a court-ordered genetic test. This motion followed Mr. Lovick's discovery that Ms. Rice had *479 been involved sexually with another man around the time the twins were conceived and the results of private genetic testing that revealed Mr. Lovick was not the twins' father. The circuit court denied the motion.
On September 16, 2016, Mr. Lovick filed a new motion in the child support case to set aside the Acknowledgment on the basis of fraud. After a hearing in December, the circuit court ordered genetic testing and scheduled a follow-up hearing. The test results excluded any possibility that Mr. Lovick was the twins' father. And at the hearing, the circuit court agreed with Mr. Lovick that Ms. Rice had committed fraud:
Ms. Rice said he is the only possible father. And it's quite apparent that that was a lie. That was an out and out lie.... It's obvious that it's not Mr. Lovick. It's obvious that she lied on the affidavit... I can't, in good conscience, let Ms. Rice falsify that affidavit and charge this man with child support.
On March 28, 2017, the circuit court entered an order setting aside the Acknowledgment *883 of Paternity and striking the February 2014 child support order. The Office filed a timely appeal.
II. DISCUSSION
The Office challenges, on three grounds, the circuit court's decisions to set aside the Acknowledgment of Parentage and strike the child support order. 2 First , the Office contends that the court should have applied the law of the District of *480 Columbia, which prohibits challenges to Affidavits of Parentage more than two years after execution, and dismissed Mr. Lovick's motion to set aside his Affidavit. By applying Maryland law, the Office argues, the circuit court failed to extend full faith and credit to the Affidavit. Second , the Office asserts that Mr. Lovick could not prove fraud, duress, or a material mistake of fact in connection with the Affidavit. And third , the Office argues that Mr. Lovick is estopped from disclaiming the twins' paternity because, in the custody case, he had sought to increase his visitation with them after he learned that he was not their father.
"When the trial court's decision involves an interpretation and application of Maryland statutory and case law, our Court must determine whether the lower court's conclusions are legally correct."
Clickner v. Magothy River
,
Mr. Lovick Was Entitled To Seek To Have The Affidavit Set Aside.
There is no doubt that Mr. Lovick signed the Affidavit, or that it states plainly that the "signed and notarized [affidavit] constitutes a legal determination of paternity" and "creates legal rights and obligations relating to the child, and may impact custody, child support and visitation." The Office argues that because the twins were born in the District of Columbia and Mr. Lovick executed the Affidavit in the District, his ability to rescind the Affidavit or have it set aside is controlled by District of Columbia law.
Under D.C. law, Mr. Lovick had sixty days to rescind his signature. D.C. CODE ANN. § 16-909.01(a-1). After sixty days
*481
have passed, an affidavit "legally establish[es] the parent-child relationship between the father and the child for all rights, privileges, duties, and obligations under the laws of the District of Columbia," D.C. CODE ANN. § 16-909.01(b), and may be challenged only if the signatory can prove fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.
D.C. v. D.H.
,
The Office points to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV of the United States Constitution, which provides that
Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and Judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
U.S. CONST. ART. IV ;
see also
[T]he clear purpose of the full faith and credit clause [is] to establish throughout the federal system the salutary principle of the common law that a litigation once pursued to judgment shall be as conclusive of the rights of the parties *482 in every other court as in that where the judgment was rendered.
There is also a federal statutory overlay. In order to receive federal funding, each state must "develop and use an affidavit for the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity[.]"
Maryland implemented these requirements in FL § 5-1048 :
A finding of paternity established in any other state shall have the same force and effect in a proceeding under this subtitle as in any other civil proceeding in this State if:
(1) with respect to an adjudication of paternity, the finding was established by a court or by an administrative process that includes a right to appeal to a court; or *483 *885 (2) with respect to a finding of paternity that is based on an affidavit of parentage, the affidavit was signed after each signatory to the affidavit was advised of their legal rights.
MD. CODE ANN., FAMILY LAW ART. ("FL") § 5-1048 (emphasis added).
But no District of Columbia judgment established Mr. Lovick's parentage or obligation to pay child support. D.C. supplied the Affidavit, which has a certain legal significance under the Maryland child support enforcement statutes that the Office seeks to enforce here. Consistent with federal law, "[a]n executed affidavit of parentage constitutes a legal finding of paternity, subject to the right of any signatory to rescind the affidavit." FL § 5-1028(d). After sixty days, "an executed affidavit of parentage may be challenged in court only on the basis of fraud, duress, and a mistake of material fact."
And for that reason, the Full Faith and Credit Clause is not implicated here. Maryland law does, as federal law requires, give legal effect to the Affidavit-it establishes paternity, as a Maryland affidavit would, and sixty days after execution, it shifts the burden of proving fraud or duress or mistake of fact onto Mr. Lovick. But neither a Maryland nor D.C. affidavit would, by itself, create a child support judgment, and the mere fact that the affidavit came from elsewhere doesn't vitiate Mr. Lovick's statutory opportunity to modify the paternity finding now.
He followed the law and met his burden. After learning that the twins may not be his biological children, he asked the court, under FL § 5-1029, to order a genetic test. The court ordered the test,
see
Faison v. MCOCSE ex rel. Murray
,
This latter point distinguishes this case from
Burden v. Burden
,
Burden
recognizes that an affidavit of parentage from a foreign jurisdiction has the same weight and effect as a Maryland
*886
affidavit in paternity proceedings under Subtitle 10 of the Family Law article, such as a child support case, but is subject to Maryland law for terms of modification and rescission.
Burden
,
Finally
, we disagree that Mr. Lovick's efforts to maintain joint custody and enforce visitation, and even his motion for contempt against Ms. Rice, estopped him from seeking to terminate his child support obligation. Until the circuit court found that he was entitled to set aside the Affidavit, he was legally the twins' father, and he had had a relationship with them since birth. That relationship obviously is changing, and may even be coming to an end. The circuit court will need to decide in the first instance whether, in light of our decision today, it should modify or terminate Mr. Lovick's custody or visitation going forward, and we express no views on the merits of those different and important questions. But with the custody/visitation and child support proceedings in parallel, in separate actions on separate schedules, we see no basis on which we could find on this record that any inconsistencies between his positions at different points in time misled the court or placed the Office or Ms. Rice at an unfair disadvantage.
Montgomery Cty. Pub. Sch. v. Donlon
,
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY AFFIRMED. APPELLANT TO PAY COSTS.
Case No. CAS13-34966.
In its brief, the Office phrased its Questions Presented as follows:
1. Did the circuit court err when it failed to extend full faith and credit to the District of Columbia's legal findings of paternity resulting from Mr. Lovick's execution of District of Columbia affidavits of parentage and set the affidavits aside in violation of District of Columbia law?
2. Did the circuit court err as a matter of law when it set aside Mr. Lovick's affidavits of parentage for the twins despite his failure to establish fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact?
3. Was Mr. Lovick judicially estopped from challenging his paternity of the twins given his efforts to obtain increased visitation with them in the Custody Case?
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.