A man who claimed to have fathered a child while involved in an “open relationship” can seek court action to determine whether he is the child’s father, Wyoming’s Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Justices overturned a lower court’s ruling that the man, identified only as BJ, lacked standing to bring paternity action in an effort to prove the child is his.
According to the ruling, the man and his wife were involved in an “open relationship” with a man identified as “CM” and his wife.
CM’s wife, identified as “Mother,” became pregnant and gave birth to a child in 2019. In May of 2019, BJ filed a petition to establish that he was the child’s father.
However, the mother asked that the petition be dismissed, saying her husband, CM, was the presumed father of her child.
The state district court in Cheyenne ruled that because the child already had a presumed father, CM, then BJ was a “stranger to the relationship” and was not entitled to seek a paternity order.
But justices said state law clearly allows “a man whose paternity of the child is to be adjudicated” the right to seek a court ruling on the issue.
“The language in (state law) is clear and unambiguous,” said the ruling, written by Justice Kari Gray. “BJ qualifies as ‘a man whose paternity of the child is to be adjudicated.’ He has standing under the plain meaning of the statute.”
The state district court was ordered to conduct new proceedings in the case.
