USLegal Reporter

The New Jersey Supreme Court overturned two lower court decisions by declaring that a man cannot recoup child support payments he made for a son he later found out was not his own. The ruling was based on a state law that requires such challenges to be brought before the child turns 23.

The Plaintiff, identified only as Roy, didn’t find out until well after the child turned 23 that he wasn’t the biological father. He argued that the time limit of age 23 shouldn’t apply, since it was through no fault of his own that he didn’t discover the child’s true paternity. Although the two lower courts decided the biological father should owe child support, the state’s highest court disagreed.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/17/support.lawsuit.ap/index.html

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick ordered the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to register 26 same-sex marriages that were prohibited from being registered under former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The out-of-state couples were married in 2004 by four Massachusetts towns and cities that defied Romney’s order not to marry out-of-state same-sex couples.

Last year the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld a Massachusetts statute which prohibits couples from marrying in the state if the marriage would be invalid in their own state. Governor Patrick has stated that he would support the repeal of this statute. Massachusetts is currently the only state which legally recognizes same-sex marriages. Massachusetts lawmakers lobbied earlier this year for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. However, the proposed ban would not affect the legal recognition of existing same-sex marriages.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/04/massachusetts-governor-orders-out-of.php