We’ve been covering celebrity divorce and personal injury cases for almost a year now. We started this blog partly to work through our rejected Law & Order auditions, but mostly to reach new clients.
Our hope is that cracking jokes about whomever Justin Bieber is courting and/or running over with his truck will make hiring an attorney a little less intimidating for Seattle-area residents.
No matter how ludicrous the cases we cover are, we always end articles with something along the lines of, “If something like this were to happen to you, we could help. Call today.”
Today, we’re breaking the mold with three child support cases that no sensible family lawyer would ever agree to take.
The best way to avoid child support in Ohio is by dying
In 1986, Donald Miller Jr. went looking for work and his journey “kind of went further than [he] expected.” Which is just a cowardly way to say he left his home without a word.
Mr. Miller’s wife enlisted the help of private investigators and the FBI for eights years before successfully petitioning the court to declare him legally dead so she could receive his social security benefits and offset the child support he owed her.
But Deadbeat Donald was not dead, he was in Florida.
When he returned home 19 years after “dying,” Mr. Miller filed a case to restore him to the land of the legally living. “I don't know where [this] leaves you," Judge Davis told Miller, "but you're still deceased as far as the law is concerned.”
Upon learning this, the Social Security Administration contacted his family and demanded they pay back $47,256 in death benefits. The SSA was kind enough to admit that it could demand the money from Mr. Miller instead, but seeing as he’s still “deceased,” he can’t legally get a job.
Unless a spot opens up on The Walking Dead, he doesn’t have a lot of options. Even so, Donald is still better off than the woman trying to sue her undead husband for missed child support payments just so she can hand them over to the government.
Throw out your biology textbooks, twins can come from different fathers
This bizarre upheaval of what most people believe to be basic biology has been cited in only three U.S. court cases. The most recent of which took place in a New Jersey family court when a mother filed for child support from her unnamed “romantic partner.”
Keeping in line with the maturity levels we’ve become accustomed to from The Jersey Shore, the alleged father decided he’d rather spend a few weeks in court protesting his paternity than support his progeny.
A DNA paternity test should’ve been all it took to settle his dispute, but the results proved that he was the father of just one twin. Understandably, he disputed this.
It was probably when the author of Allozyme Variation in the African Freshwater Snail Genus Bulinus showed up to testify against his claim that Mr. “Romantic Partner” realized things weren’t going to go his way.
Apparently, twins with different fathers was possible because the mother was impregnated by one man at the end of her monthly cycle, and when the next cycle started one week later she was impregnated by another, “unidentified man.” Seems like a weird way to spell “intimate lover,” but whatever.
Science and law prevailed again to ensure at least one of the twins was financially supported with a whopping $28 per week from Mr. “Romantic Partner.”
The only time DNA tests are total garbage
DNA paternity testing relies on a bunch of hocus pocus that people much smarter than us claim is 99.99% accurate.
But when you take a trip to the Missouri rodeo and sleep with twin brothers, 99.99% accurate is about as conclusive as you are virtuous.
In 2007, a Ms. Holly Adams admitted to having intercourse with a man named Richard Miller before leaving the rodeo to go for Round 2 with his twin brother, Raymon Miller. In what we can only assume was a coin flip, Ms. Adams decided Raymon was the one who owed her child support. He did not agree.
As identical twins, neither scientists nor lawyers had a way to prove who should pony up for child support. That left the decision entirely up to Judge Fred Copeland, who convincingly proclaimed, “[Holly] went banging on Raymon’s door trying to have sex. He says he did reluctantly -- but I can’t imagine it was reluctantly -- and that’s when the baby was conceived...I guess.”
Understandably unhappy about that last part, Raymon says he’s taking his case to the Supreme Court.
“They say you have to prove with 98% certainty that you’re the father. But since with my brother it’s a 99% chance and with me it’s a 99% chance -- that seems like more of a 50/50.” Which is probably the most sensical statement to ever come out of a Missouri rodeo.
As long as you aren’t legally dead, or biologically exempt from DNA testing, we can help your family reach an amicable and peaceful legal settlement. Call today for more information.