Murphy v. Myers
Minnesota Court of Appeals
560 N.W.2d 752 (1997)
- Written by Haley Gintis, JD
Facts
In 1991, John Myers (defendant) and Merley Polo Murphy (plaintiff) engaged in sexual relations. Murphy became pregnant, and Myers ended the relationship. Murphy gave birth to a daughter and petitioned for a paternity adjudication in order to receive child support. The county in which Murphy lived, Olmsted County, Minnesota, joined the suit to recover against Myers for the funds the county had provided to Murphy through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. The court ordered Myers to undergo a blood test for the paternity determination. The test revealed a more than 99 percent probability that Myers was the child’s father. Myers attempted to raise the affirmative defenses of fraud and misrepresentation to avoid the paternity adjudication and subsequent child-support obligation. Myers claimed that he had agreed to the sexual relations because Murphy had told him that she had had a sterilization surgery and had shown him abdominal scars as proof of the procedure. Myers moved to introduce photographs of Murphy’s abdominal scars into evidence. The motion was denied. The district court adjudicated Myers as the child’s father and an administrative law judge ordered Myers to pay $135 per month for child support obligations and to reimburse the county for the funds it had provided. Myers appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Willis, J.)
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