Thompson v. Thompson

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this appeal it is contended that the two year statute of limitations provision to establish the paternity of a child, contained in Maryland Code, art. 16, § 66 (e), violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the fourteenth ²⁵⁷ amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Since we find that this provision is not violative of those constitutional clauses, we shall affirm the holding of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County that appellant’s paternity suit against appellee is barred by limitation. The record indicates that on May 10,1969, Veronica Mason gave birth to Michele Thompson.

Ms. Mason took no legal action to establish the paternity of her illegitimate child or to obtain support for the child from the putative father, Michael Thompson, appellee, until December 1, 1971, when she filed a paternity petition on behalf of her daughter in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. Appellee did not file an answer to the petition until August 29,1977, 1 when he alleged that the action was barred by the two year statute of limitations set forth in Maryland Code, art. 16, § 66 (e). Separate counsel was appointed by the court on October 11, 1977, to represent the infant, Michele Thompson, who is the appellant in this appeal. The matter was thereafter heard by Judge E. Mackall Childs who, on October 13, 1977, held that the paternity action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

Section 66 (e) reads in full: “(e) Proceedings to establish paternity under the subtitle ‘Paternity Proceedings’ and to charge the putative father of an illegitimate child or children with their support and maintenance shall be commenced during the pregnancy of the mother thereof or within two (2) years after the birth of such child or children; except that if the putative father of such child or children has acknowledged in writing the paternity of the child or children or has made payment or otherwise provided for the support and maintenance of the child or children, it is sufficient if the proceedings are commenced within two (2) years of the date of such acknowledgement or the last such payment or provision; provided, that the ²⁵⁸ institution of proceedings under the former Article 12 of this Code, title ‘Bastardy and Fornication,’ prior to June 1, 1963, shall suspend the further running of the period of limitations provided for herein.” Appellant does not contest the fact that she failed to abide by the requirements of § 66 (e). Rather, she contends that § 66 (e) is unconstitutional for several reasons: (1) It requires illegitimate children, such as appellant, to commence a paternity action within two years of their birth thereby “denying... [them] fundamental rights enjoyed by other children...,” in violation of their right to equal protection under the law. as embodied in the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. (2) It “is an overly restrictive means of achieving a state goal of preventing fraudulent claims ...,” in contravention of the equal protection and due process clauses of the fourteenth amendment. (3) It “forecloses the right of an illegitimate child to establish her paternity unless action is commenced within two years of her birth thus allowing another individual to waive the child’s fundamental right, and thus raising an irrebuttable presumption that her claim is fraudulent or stale, and thus refusing her notice or an opportunity to be heard... in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment----” 2 Addressing appellant’s first contention, that § 66 (e) violated her right to equal protection by requiring her to commence paternity and support actions within two years of ²⁵⁹ birth, which is not required of legitimate children, we observe that the Supreme Court, through a series of cases over the last ten years, has slowly departed from the traditional two-tier equal protection analysis where the alleged constitutional infringement concerns illegitimate children.

The initial cases, Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968), and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U. S. 78 (1968), serve as little, if any, precedential value since the Court concluded that the statutes there contested could not be justified regardless of what standard — strict scrutiny, rational basis or otherwise — was utilized in assessing their constitutional viability. The Court merely asserted the obvious “premise that illegitimate children are not ‘nonpersons’ that “[t]hey are humans, live, and have their being”; that “[tjhey are clearly ‘persons’ within the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment”, and, accordingly, are entitled to at least minimal protection thereunder. Levy v. Louisiana, supra, at 70. Beginning with Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972), a third standard of analysis, inferable but not specifically articulated therein, began to evolve when the statutory classification under attack would deprive illegitimate children of rights otherwise accorded legitimate children.

This standard, which falls somewhere between the traditional strict scrutiny and rational basis tests, was expressed at page 178 of the opinion, as follows: “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?” The Court recently had occasion to reiterate this middle standard of constitutional evaluation in Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U. S. 762, 767 (1977), when it declared: “Appellants urge us to hold that classifications based on illegitimacy are ‘suspect,’ so that any justifications must survive ‘strict scrutiny.’ We ²⁶⁰ considered and rejected a similar argument last Term in Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495 , 96 S.Ct. 2755 , 49 L.Ed.2d 751 (1976). *** 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, 96 S.Ct. at 2764 , a proposition clearly demonstrated by our previous decisions in this area.” Appellant asserts that under the principles enunciated in Weber, Mathews and Trimble , § 66 (e) does not effectively promote a legitimate state interest. She contends that “[tjhough the state does have an interest in encouraging the prompt and orderly resolution of litigation, a limitation cannot be applied wholesale with the effect of totally excluding an entire class of claims.” We cannot subscribe to appellant’s position. Statutes of limitations, although they may arbitrarily deprive some otherwisé rightful claimants of access to the courts, have long been recognized as a valid exercise of a state’s right to regulate the functioning of its judicial system.

They 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.” Bertonazzi v. Hillman, Adm'x, 241 Md. 361, 367 (1966). Indeed, the Supreme Court recognized in Weber, supra, at 174 , that “arbitrary lines” may be drawn by the states to “facilitate potentially difficult problems of proof.” Moreover, in Gomez v. Perez, 409 U. S. 535, 538 (1973), the Court “recognize[d] the lurking problems with respect to proof of paternity.” The Court added the caveat that “[t]hose problems are not to be lightly brushed aside, but neither can they be made into an impenetrable barrier that works to shield otherwise invidious discrimination.” Id. That the General Assembly of Maryland did not purposefully seek to discriminate against illegitimate children becomes self-evident when the limitations provision ²⁶¹ of § 66 (e) is read in conjunction with the declaration 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.” We believe that § 66 (e) was enacted by the legislature in a sincere endeavor to avoid the pitfalls inherent in establishing paternity and to facilitate the resolution of the difficult problems of proof in paternity cases. We see no distinction in this regard between § 66 (e) and the various statutes of limitations covering other areas of substantive law. 3 In State v. Rawlings, 38 Md. App. 479 (1978), this Court specifically addressed and affirmed the raison d’etre of a statute of limitations with regard to the institution of a paternity action.

At pages 484-85, we said: “[T]he determination of the paternity of illegitimate children presents special problems. Although the situation has improved, proof of paternity remains an inexact science. See Shaw and Kass, Illegitimacy, Child Support, and Paternity Testing, 13 Houston L. Rev. 41, 47 (1975). Once an individual is accused of ²⁶² being the father óf the child he may have a difficult time rebutting the charge.

The legislature recognized the problem and after weighing the various interests involved provided for uniform procedures for determining disputed paternity coupled with a set statute of limitations to protect the rights of the alleged father. The State admitted below it was trying to circumvent these procedures to avoid being confronted with the two year limitation provision contained in Art. 16,. § 66 (e). This we cannot allow because while it is reasonable to remove the effect of two year limitations when there has been a clear confession of paternity, to do so otherwise is to put an alleged father in an impossible position.” (Footnote omitted.) We decline, here, to recede from the foregoing analysis and, accordingly, conclude that § 66 (e) does, indeed, promote a legitimate state interest. Under the second prong of the Weber, Mathews, Trimble analysis, we must examine what, if any, fundamental personal rights might be endangered by the two year limitation provision of § 66