Disputing and Establishing Parentage, Paternity.
Paternity actions are actions where you establish parentage, for example a man filing a complaint and asking the court to establish that he is the father because the mother is denying access to the children. Another example is a mother wanting to establish that someone is the father of her child. A paternity action is an action not only to determine who the child’s parents are, but they also have the components of child support, child custody, child visitations, and attorney’s fees tied to them. The only difference between someone in a Dissolution or Legal Separation with a child versus someone who is not in a Dissolution or Legal Separation but is in a paternity action and has a kid, is the fact that in one scenario they got married and in another they did not. The fact that they got or they did not get married does not impact their rights as a parent to determine custody and child support.