Husband Has No Parental Rights | DNA Test Showed Not Parent

Tennessee child custody case summary on parental rights in divorce.

Darla Jo Adams Audirsch v. Griffin Lynn Audirsch

The husband and wife in this Moore County, Tennessee, case were married when the mother gave birth to a child.  But both parties acknowledged, and a DNA test established, that the husband was not the father of the child.  The trial court denied the husband any parenting time, and he appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The mother did not file a brief with the appeals court or otherwise participate in the appeal.

The husband argued that, despite the biological evidence, that he was the “legal parent” of the child.  He based this upon a Tennessee Statute which creates a presumption that when a child is born during a marriage, that the man married to the mother is the child’s father.

But the appeals court noted that while this statute creates a presumption that the man is the father, that presumption can be rebutted by the evidence.  In this case, the DNA test (which the court pointed out had been requested by the husband) said that there was a zero percent chance that he was the biological father.

In this case, the court held that the presumption had been rebutted, and the statute provided that once the presumption had been rebutted, the man was no longer the legal parent.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court and remanded the case for any necessary proceedings.  The court’s unanimous opinion was authored by Judge Arnold B. Goldin.

No. M2020-00279-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 22,  2021).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Child Custody Laws in Tennessee.