No Child Support Refund

"A man cannot recoup child support payments he made for a son he later found out was not his own, the state Supreme Court has ruled, overturning lower courts' decisions.

In its unanimous ruling, the justices ruled that the man, identified only as Roy in the lawsuit, was not entitled to payments he made since his 1980 divorce because state law required such a challenge to be filed before the child turned 23 years old.

The court ruled that even though the man found out only long after his son turned 23 that he was not the father, it wasn't enough to force the biological father, identified as Patrick, to pay child support.

''This is a sad, heartbreaking case of a man who learned that an essential truth had been withheld from him for thirty years,'' wrote Justice Barry Albin. But the court thought that lawmakers envisioned such a scenario when creating the Parentage Act."

AP, N.Y. Times Link to Article (last visited 7-18-07 NVS)