The DNA Paternity Test: Legislating the Future Paternity Action

This Article will first briefly examine the historical development of the paternity suit in the beginning of Part II. Part II will then focus upon the standards of proof, presumptions and affirmative defenses concomitant to the traditional paternity action. Part III will examine the concepts and legal applications behind blood group / genetic marker testing and the probability formulas derived from these tests used to exclude or include a putative father. Part IV will examine the technology behind DNA paternity testing and its current evidentiary admissibility.

Part V will discuss some of the substantive and public policy issues relating to paternity determinations. Finally, in Part VI, we offer our version of a possible model uniform paternity statute which would create either a rebuttable or a conclusive presumption when the paternity test results achieve a certain level indicating paternity.