Welcome to the Default Paternity Judgment
Innocence Project

The Default Paternity Judgment Innocence Project has been formed for the purpose of ending the cruel practice wherein unsuspecting men are trapped by default judgments into paying 18 years of child support for children who are not theirs, and who in many cases they’ve never even met.

This money rarely goes to children, but instead to the state. The problem is a result of bureaucratic bungling and misguided state and federal child support enforcement policies which benefit no one, and which could be corrected at a relatively small cost.

The DPJIP has been endorsed by numerous family law and mental health professionals, African-American and Latino community leaders, journalists and others. DPJIP members have written about or been quoted on this issue in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Reason Magazine, the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Detroit News, the Washington Times and many others.

The problem stems in large part from 1996 welfare reforms which mandate that a mother seeking benefits for her child must provide the name of the child’s father so the state can recoup its costs by securing a child support order.

However, the process by which the men are notified of the court proceedings against them is very flawed. Many men do not find out that they have been named the "father" of a child until their wages are garnisheed to pay child support. By then it is usually too late.

A federal report shows that in many child support enforcement offices, half or more of the paternity judgments are entered by default. Of the 250,000 paternity judgments ordered in California each year, more than two-thirds are entered by default. Even when men obtain DNA tests clearing them of paternity, most courts rarely set aside these judgments.

Even the men who do receive the summonses and appear in court still face a stacked deck. Washington, DC attorney Ronald K. Henry, one of the founders of the Default Paternity Judgment Innocence Project, explained the process in his recent Family Law Quarterly article “The Innocent Third Party: Victims of Paternity Fraud.” According to Henry:

“The paternity fraud victim is hustled through the formality, often in less than five minutes, and may not even realize what has happened until the first garnishment of his paycheck. The State’s direct financial incentive is to establish paternity regardless of actual paternity facts. In welfare cases, there is almost always only one attorney in the courtroom and that attorney is not representing the paternity target.”

There are solutions to this problem. State child support collection efforts are heavily subsidized by federal dollars. The federal government could greatly reduce the problem of false paternity establishments by reimbursing states only for establishments which are confirmed by DNA tests. States could purchase bulk DNA tests at a cost per unit considerably less than even one month of child support.

States should also act to reduce default judgments by improving service of process and by making the procedure more understandable for litigants, few of whom have legal representation. In default judgment cases, DNA testing should be required as soon as the child support enforcement agency locates the putative father.

Because of the indifference of both the states’ child support enforcement systems and their federal funders, no firm figures exist on how many men have been mistakenly defaulted into fatherhood. Henry estimates that the number could exceed one million.

Child support debtors receive little public sympathy, at times with reason. Yet the victims of false paternity judgments aren’t men trying to evade their legitimate responsibilities, nor are they Nicholas Barthas determined to ensure that their exes will never get a penny. These men have never been called "dad" by the children in whose names the state collects their money, and in most cases, they have never even met them. They are victims of one of the most indefensible civil rights violations in America today--an injustice which cries out for redress.