So here is my client, fighting her half-sister in Superior Court of Los Angeles County North East District, over whether she qualifies an heir of her natural father’s estate under California Probate Code §6451 because she had been adopted away as an infant. I am interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence, and opposing counsel drops this one on me …
Essentially, he says that he is going to claim on behalf of his client that my client’s mother was a “loose” woman and maybe my client is not truly an heir of her dead father, because maybe he wasn’t the natural father of my client after all … Forget that they looked alike, shared common birth marks, and that he told her he was her father, just accept that he could have been mistaken all those years. OK, and is there a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell you?
Opposing counsel and I agree that in the 21st century, the way to solve this dilemma is by having our client’s submit to DNA testing. One problem; the father’s body has been cremated; what do we use as a source of DNA?
I’ll tell you where we found it in the next post.