In the Matter of Gregory Neal and Lauren DiGiulio

Respondent Lauren DiGiulio appealed a circuit court order granting petitioner Gregory Neal's petition to rescind a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity. Respondent also appealed the trial court’s denial of a hearing on her request for attorney’s fees. In July 2009, the respondent gave birth to a child (the child or the first child). Although the parties lived in New Hampshire, the child was born in Portland, Maine. The day after the birth, the parties executed a Maine voluntary acknowledgment of paternity form, acknowledging that petitioner was the child’s “natural father.” The parties lived together for approximately three years, and, in 2011, they had a second child (the second child). The parties separated after the birth of the second child. In 2012, the parties voluntarily underwent paternity testing to determine the paternity of both children. The test results revealed that the petitioner was the second child’s biological father, but that he was not the biological father of the first. Despite the test results, the petitioner continued to try to have a relationship with the child and had substantial parenting time with the child until March 2014 when the child’s biological father was released from prison. At that point, respondent severed petitioner’s contact with the child in favor of the child’s biological father. Thereafter, petitioner made a number of requests to see the child, all of which were denied. However, at no time did petitioner file a parenting petition with respect to the child. In 2015, petitioner filed a parenting petition with respect to the second child, without identifying the first child as also being one of the parties’ children. In November, in that same proceeding, petitioner filed a “Motion to Rescind Paternity” of the first child, seeking to rescind the acknowledgment of paternity he executed with respect to the child and requesting that the court “[a]cknowledge that [he] is not the biological father of” the child and “order and declare that [he] is not the legal father of” the child. Following a hearing, the trial court granted the motion, rescinding the petitioner’s acknowledgment of paternity of the first child. The New Hampshire Supreme Court concluded that, under the specific circumstances of this case, the record established an objective basis sufficient to sustain the trial court’s ruling that, despite petitioner’s delay in filing the motion, it was fair to allow petitioner’s motion for rescission of paternity. View "In the Matter of Gregory Neal and Lauren DiGiulio" on Justia Law