In California, the courts have ruled that men are not allowed to sue for past child support if they discover they are not the biological father of a child they have been helping to raise.

This legal precedent is based on the public policy interest of protecting the children involved. The concern is that it is not in the best interest of children, and could potentially place them at risk of harm, if a father is allowed to be compensated for child support expenses for a child that was not actually his.

A case on this same issue has been moving the through the court system in another state, and these California precedents were used in the trial court's decision to deny a father's right to sue the biological father of the daughter he help to raise.

In this case, the man was married to the girl's mother back in 1986. The couple had two daughters, the younger of whom was the product of an affair between the wife and her business partner. Her husband raised the daughter as his own, unsuspecting that she was actually not biologically his.

However, over the years, he began to suspect that maybe he was not her biological father. He took a DNA test that confirmed his suspicions. With that knowledge in hand he confronted his wife. The couple divorced in 2007, and he began his quest to hold the now 19-year-old girl's biological father financially responsible for her upbringing.

Despite the rulings in California and elsewhere, the judges hearing the appeal in this case determined that because the adult child already knows that she is not the biological daughter of the father who raised her, pursuing this type of claim for back child support will not necessarily harm her.

With that reversal, a lawsuit seeking damages in the amount of $190,000, or half of the amount spent to raise the girl, will now proceed. Depending on the outcome of this case, it may affect future similar cases in California and throughout the country.

Source: Fox News, "Connecticut man can seek payment from 19-year-old child's real father, judge rules," Feb. 2, 2012