Thompson v. Thompson

Smith, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case a minor child asks that we strike down as unconstitutional that portion of Maryland Code (1957, 1973 ⁴⁸⁹ Repl. Vol.) Art. 16, § 66 (e) which requires any action to establish an individual as the father of an illegitimate child to “be commenced during the pregnancy of the mother thereof or within two (2) years after the birth of such child ...; except that if the putative father of such child ... has acknowledged in writing the paternity of the child ... or has made payment or otherwise provided for the support and maintenance of the child..., it is sufficient if the proceedings are commenced within two (2) years of the date of such acknowledgment or the last such payment or provision____” We shall decline to do so, as did the Court of Special Appeals in Thompson v. Thompson, 40 Md. App. 256 , 390 A. 2d 1139 (1978). The child in question was born May 10,1969.

On December 1,1971, her mother filed a paternity action against the alleged father in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. The matter lay dormant until August 10, 1977. On that day the State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County requested that summons be issued for the mother, the alleged father, and another individual for a hearing to be held on August 31. 1 The ⁴⁹⁰ alleged father filed an answer on August 29 claiming the action was barred by limitations. The trial judge dismissed the action on October 13 pursuant to that contention.* 2 The minor child claims that this two year statute of limitations denies “equal protection of the law to all those illegitimate children who do not file a paternity action within two years of birth.” 3 The present statutory provisions governing paternity actions are found in Code (1957, 1973 Repl.

Vol., 1978 Cum. Supp.) Art. 16, §§ 66A-66P, originally enacted by Chapter 722 of the Acts of 1963. Under these statutes an action such as the case at bar is civil in nature. Prior to that revision of our laws such proceedings were criminal in nature, although the effect of the prior law was to extract support from the father of an illegitimate child.

See, e.g., Code (1957) Art. 12, “Bastardy and Fornication” (repealed by the 1963 Act); Sheay ⁴⁹¹ v. State, 74 Md. 52 , 21 A. 607 (1891); Bake v. State, 21 Md. 422 (1864); Owens v. State, 10 Md. 164 (1856); and Oldham v. State, 5 Gill. 90 (1847). Art. 12, § 18 provided for limitations of two years from birth or “from the last payment by the accused for the maintenance and support of the said bastard child,” a provision enacted by Chapter 163 of the Acts of 1912. Earlier in our legal history the one year limitation provision applicable to misdemeanors found in Code (1912) Art. 57, § 11 and its predecessors was applicable to a prosecution for bastardy. Bake v. State, supra.

The present statutory scheme came about as a result of the report of the Commission to Study Problems of Illegitimacy among the Recipients of Public Welfare Monies in the Program for Aid to Dependent Children (1961). The General Assembly declared its purposes in § 66A: The General Assembly declares its conviction that the State has a duty to ameliorate the deprived social and economic status of children born out of wedlock and that the policies and procedures as contained in this subtitle and in § 66 of this article relative to establishing the paternity of such children, determining who shall have their custody or guardianship and who shall be charged with their maintenance and support are socially necessary and desirable, having as their threefold purpose (1) the promotion of the general welfare and best interests of such children by securing to them, as near as practical, the same right to support, care and education as legitimate children; (2) the imposition upon both parents of such children the basic obligations and responsibilities of parenthood and (3) the simplification of procedures. The same act made the necessary changes to Art. 16, § 66 so that the limitation period found in the old bastardy law was refined and placed in it. Although the mother is represented by the State’s Attorney, the proceeding is civil in nature.

See Dorsey v. English, 283 Md. 522, 530 , 390 A. 2d 1133 (1978), where we dubbed as “frivolous and unworthy of further ⁴⁹² comment” an allegation that a mother received an unfair advantage by being represented by the State’s Attorney. The minor child suggested repeatedly in argument to us that illegitimate children are entitled to a favored status. We find no support for such a contention in any of the decisions of the Supreme Court. For instance, in Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U. S. 762 , 97 S. Ct. 1459 , 52 L.Ed.2d 31 (1977), Mr. Justice Powell said for the Court: Appellants urge us to hold that classifications based on illegitimacy are “suspect,” so that any justifications must survive “strict scrutiny.” We considered and rejected a similar argument last Term in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495 (1976).

As we recognized in Lucas , illegitimacy is analogous in many respects to the personal characteristics that have been held to be suspect when used as the basis of statutory differentiations. Id., at 505 . We nevertheless concluded that the analogy was not sufficient to require “our most exacting scrutiny.” Id., at 506 . Despite the conclusion that classifications based on illegitimacy fall in a “realm of less than strictest scrutiny,” Lucas also establishes that the scrutiny “is not a toothless one,” id., at 510 , a proposition clearly demonstrated by our previous decisions in this area. [Id. at 767.] This should dispose of any argument that such persons are entitled to a special status.

In Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 , 92 S. Ct. 1400 , 31 L.Ed.2d 768 (1972), Mr. Justice Powell said for the Court: The tests to determine the validity of state statutes under the Equal Protection Clause have been variously expressed, but this Court requires, at a minimum, that a statutory classification bear some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose. Morey v. Doud, 354 U. S. 457 (1957); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955); Gulf, Colorado ⁴⁹³ & Santa Fe R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150 (1897); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (1886). Though the latitude given state economic and social regulation is necessarily broad, when state statutory classifications approach sensitive and fundamental personal rights, this Court exercises a stricter scrutiny, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663 (1966). The essential inquiry in all the foregoing cases is, however, inevitably a dual one: What legitimate state interest does the classification promote?

What fundamental personal rights might the classification endanger? [Id. at 172-73.] This test was repeated in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495, 504 , 96 S. Ct. 2755 , 49 L.Ed.2d 651 (1976). We believe it to be the test by which the validity of this particular statute should be determined. As recently as last December Mr. Justice Powell said in the plurality opinion in Lalli v. Lalli, 439 U. S. 259 , 99 S. Ct. 518, 527 , 58 L.Ed.2d 503 (1978), "Our inquiry under the Equal Protection Clause does not focus on the abstract ‘fairness’ of a state law, but on whether the statute’s relation to the state interests it is intended to promote is so tenuous that it lacks the rationality contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The purpose of a statute of limitations has been explained in a host of Maryland cases. See, e.g., Harig v. Johns-Manville Products, 284 Md. 70, 75-76 , 394 A. 2d 299 (1978); Walko Corp. v. Burger Chef, 281 Md. 207, 210-11 , 378 A. 2d 1100 (1977); Yingling v. Smith, 259 Md. 260, 264 , 269 A. 2d 612 (1970); and Bertonazzi v. Hillman, 241 Md. 361, 367 , 216 A. 2d 723 (1966), although not in precisely the same words each time.

Such statutes are designed primarily to assure fairness to defendants on the theory that claims asserted after evidence is gone, memories have faded, and witnesses disappeared are so stale as to be unjust, being somewhat similar to some of the factors considered in determining whether an accused has been denied his right of speedy trial as guaranteed by the Maryland Declaration of Rights or the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In Harig Chief Judge ⁴⁹⁴ Murphy commented for the Court relative to limitations, “Ordinarily, a potential tort plaintiff is immediately aware that he has been wronged.” Id. at 76 . Although a woman may not know immediately that she has conceived, certainly it follows that by the very nature of things it is not long after conception before she is aware of that fact. Judge Delaplaine said for our predecessors in McMahan v. Dorchester Fert.

Co., 184 Md. 155 , 40 A. 2d 313 (1944): Statutes of limitations are remedial legislation and rest upon sound public policy, for they are enacted to afford protection against stale claims after a lapse of time which ought to be sufficient for a person of ordinary diligence, and after which the defendant might be placed at a disadvantage by reason of long delay. By requiring persons to seek redress by actions at law within a reasonable time, the Legislature imposes a salutary vigilance and puts an end to litigation. \Id. at 159-60.] As Mr. Justice Powell so cogently said for the Court in Lalli : Establishing maternity is seldom difficult. As one New York Surrogate’s Court has observed, “the birth of the child is a recorded or registered event usually taking place in the presence of others. In most cases the child remains with the mother and for a time is necessarily reared by her.

That the child is the child of a particular woman is rarely difficult to prove.” In re Oritz, 60 Misc.2d 756, 761 , 303 N.Y.S.2d 806, 812 (Sur. Ct. 1969). Proof of paternity, by contrast, frequently is difficult when the father is not part of a formal family unit. “The putative father often goes his way unconscious of the birth of a child. Even if conscious, he is very often totally unconcerned because of the absence of any ties to the mother.

Indeed the mother may not know who is responsible for her pregnancy.” Ibid, (emphasis in original); accord, In re Flemm, 85 Misc.2d 855, 861 , 381 N.Y.S.2d 573, 576-577 (Sur. Ct. 1975); In re ⁴⁹⁵ Hendrix, 68 Misc.2d [439], 443, 326 N.Y.S.2d [646], 650 [(Sur. Ct. 1971)]; cf. Trimble [v. Gordon], 430 U. S. [762], 770, 772, 97 S. Ct. [1459], 1465, 1466 [, 52 L.