Woman seeks maintenance from purported real father of her child, saying ex-husband was father only in name

She also asked the man to submit to a paternity test to determine the biological father of the child. If he was proven to be the father, the woman asked the court to declare him to be the biological father and for him to bear the costs of paternity testing.

The man asked the court to strike out the entirety of the woman’s application, saying it disclosed no cause of action as the woman had no evidence to prove he was the father, and that it was an abuse of court process.

JUDGE’S FINDINGS

Assistant Registrar Jasmine Loo said the seemingly simple set of facts in this case “belied novel legal questions” including the court’s power to order a paternity test.

Ms Loo found that, despite the man’s arguments, the woman’s application did disclose a reasonable cause of action.

The man had raised concerns about the credibility of the woman’s narrative, given that she claimed to have had sexual relations with him in the same month that she married her now-ex-husband.

He highlighted the implausibility of the woman discovering her pregnancy, becoming estranged from him and then reconciling with and marrying her husband within one month.

However, Ms Loo said the threshold for striking out was whether the application demonstrated some chance of success or raised a question fit to be decided at trial. This is a high threshold and a case would not be struck out even if it is weak and unlikely to succeed.

She found that there was at least a question to be tried of whether the child, who was born between nine to 10 months after the woman claimed she had sex with the alleged biological father, was the biological daughter of the respondent.

The man also argued that the onus should not fall on him to prove that he was not the girl’s father, given that she should be presumed to be the ex-husband’s child under the Evidence Act or because of the birth certificate.

Ms Loo said that while the burden was on the woman to prove the child was the respondent’s daughter in the main application, the burden was on the man in his striking-out application to show that the woman’s application had no chance of success. He did not meet this high threshold, she said.

She also found that the question of whether the court has the power to order a paternity test is a question fit to be decided in a hearing.

The man had also argued that the issue should have been raised during divorce proceedings between the woman and her ex-husband.

Ms Loo said that the divorce was granted by consent on an uncontested basis, in chambers. She said the alleged biological father was not party to those proceedings and suffered no prejudice from a potential maintenance claim not being brought against him during the divorce proceedings.

The respondent also asked why the woman was filing the application only now, when she had always purportedly known he was the father. In response, the woman said she had not been aware of her legal rights to maintenance until she was advised, and that she only commenced the proceedings after the man denied paternity in June 2025.

The man also argued that if the woman sought maintenance for the child while her divorce judgment with her ex-husband subsisted, this would permit double recovery of the child’s expenses, which are presumably being borne by the ex-husband.

Ms Loo said it was not evident that the rule of double discovery would preclude the woman from obtaining what she sought. In assessing the law, she said the reasonable sum of the child’s maintenance could increase “if a second parent of greater means was found”.

She said it may not be wrong for a parent to pay higher maintenance to provide a child a better standard of living and was not satisfied that the rule against double recovery was entirely applicable to child maintenance proceedings.

She also found that there was no abuse of court process by the woman as claimed by the man.

She dismissed his application to strike out the woman’s bid to have the issues tried. The issue of paternity and a hearing to decide whether she will obtain the maintenance she seeks from the alleged biological father will take place at a later date.

As the man had lost his striking-out application, he was ordered to pay costs of S$2,000 to the woman, with disbursements of S$150.