Also known as: Uniform Paternity Act · UAP · Uniform Parentage Act
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A uniform statute that established procedures for determining the legal parentage of a child born outside marriage. The act supplied mechanisms such as acknowledgments, presumptions, and adjudications to fix rights and obligations between parent and child.
Danielle and Chase executed partial surrogacy consent forms naming Chase as intended father before his death. After the child was born to the gestational surrogate, Danielle petitioned the probate court to recognize the child as Chase's heir. The court applied the parentage rules cross-referenced by the governing probate statute and determined whether the incomplete documentation satisfied the required standards for establishing legal parentage.
Elisa and her former partner had agreed to raise twins conceived through anonymous donor insemination. After separation, the county sought child support from Elisa on the ground that she had held the children out as her own. The court examined whether her conduct established parentage under the applicable uniform framework and imposed a support obligation.
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Gerald was married to the child's mother when the child was born. Michael later sought to establish his own paternity through genetic evidence. The court weighed the marital presumption against the biological claim and decided whether the presumption could be overcome under the uniform rules governing competing parentage assertions.
Mark and Crispina entered a surrogacy agreement and provided an embryo created with their genetic material. After the child was born, a dispute arose over legal parentage between the intended parents and the surrogate. The court applied the intent-based standards of the governing uniform act to determine which parties held legal parent status.
Jonathan Lehr had not established a legal relationship with his child and received no notice of an adoption proceeding. He challenged the adoption on due-process grounds. The court considered whether the uniform paternity framework required notice to an unwed father who had not taken affirmative steps to secure parental rights.
Later enactments such as the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017 expressly list the 1960 Uniform Act on Paternity as superseded. Courts therefore apply the newer act's provisions on acknowledgments, presumptions, and adjudications rather than the older statute.
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The act authorizes voluntary acknowledgments signed by both parents, presumptions arising from marriage or cohabitation, and judicial adjudications supported by genetic or other evidence.
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Yes. The acknowledgment must be signed by the woman who gave birth and the acknowledging parent, and those signatures must be attested by a notarial officer or witnessed.
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A proceeding to adjudicate competing claims must be resolved under the best-interests standard after considering the length and quality of each relationship and the harm that would result from disrupting an existing bond.
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Yes. The governing notice provision requires that any individual already recognized as a parent under the act receive notice so that the parent may intervene and protect the existing relationship.
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…attributes of their respective bodies of family law. For example, as of the end of 1982, only eight States had adopted the Uniform Parentage Act. 9A U. L. A. 171 (Supp. 1983). [^maj-12]: See Hafen, Marriage, Kinship, and Sexual Privacy, 81 Mich. L. Rev. 463, 479-481 (1983). [^maj-13]: See Trimble v. Gordon , 430 U. S. 762, 769…