In Massachusetts there is a presumption that a child born of a woman who is married, or was married in the last three hundred days before the child's birth, is the child of that woman's husband. This is a legal presumption and can be rebutted by evidence. If you are filing a Paternity Complaint and the mother was married at the time of the child's birth, or in the last three hundred days before the child's birth, then the Court requires that you use a different form and that you include the Husband as a Defendant in the action. Usually a DNA test will be performed to confirm that the Husband is not the Father (which is typically sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption) and then the action can proceed similar to any other Paternity action. This is apparently not the case in every state, as evidenced by a recent case in Michigan where a biological Father was denied parental rights because his child was born to a married couple, and Michigan law designated the Hus...

Last week, a colleague in North Carolina wrote about the different legal treatment in North Carolina between children born to married parents and "illegitimate" children (children not born to married parents -- many of our laws have not been updated since the dawn of the politically correct era, and label such children as "illegitimate" or "bastards," reflecting antiquated prejudices and stigmas against such children). The purpose of this post is to describe the ways treatment of such children in Massachusetts differs in some instances and is similar in others: Illegitimate children may not inherit property from their father (except through a Last Will & Testament, voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, or an adjudication of paternity); Illegitimate children are not eligible for survivor's Social Security Benefits as a result of the death of the child's father (42 U.S.C. § 416(h)(2)(A); M.G.L. c. 190 § 5); Illegitimate children may sue fo...