Gomez v. Perez

1973-01-17

Headline: States cannot deny court-enforceable child support to children born outside marriage; the Court reversed Texas’s rule and lets such children seek support from their biological fathers despite paternity proof challenges.

Holding: The Court held that Texas may not deny children born outside marriage a court-enforceable right to support from their biological fathers and reversed the state-court judgment allowing such children to pursue support.

Real World Impact:

Allows children born outside marriage to seek court-ordered support from biological fathers.
Prevents states from denying support solely because parents were not married.
Sends cases back to lower courts for support determinations and paternity proof.

Topics: child support, children born outside marriage, equal protection, family law

Summary

Background

In 1969 a mother in Texas sued the man she said was her child’s biological father, asking the court to require him to provide support. The state trial judge found the man to be the biological father and that the child needed support, but denied relief because the child was born outside marriage. A Texas appeals court affirmed and the Texas Supreme Court refused review, and the case reached the Nation’s highest court.

Reasoning

The Court considered whether a State may give legitimate children a judicial right to support from their natural fathers while denying that same right to children born outside marriage. Relying on earlier equal-protection decisions, the Court held that once a State creates a court-enforceable support right for children generally, it cannot exclude children born outside marriage simply because their parents were not married. The opinion acknowledged difficulties proving paternity but said those problems cannot be turned into a blanket excuse to deny equal benefits.

Real world impact

The ruling means children born outside marriage in Texas can seek the same court-ordered support from their biological fathers that children born to married parents can seek. States that had laws or common-law rules denying enforceable support on that basis must allow courts to consider support claims and address paternity proof rather than use illegitimacy as an absolute bar. The case was reversed and sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with this decision.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissenting Justice would have dismissed the appeal for lack of proper jurisdiction, saying the specific statutes were not actually litigated in Texas courts and that the parties and courts were not prepared to resolve those statutory questions.