Paternity: an Overview

Indiana categorizes cases with children born-out-of-wedlock under the heading of paternity cases. The Indiana Code provides an entire Article of the Family Law and Juvenile Law Code for paternity matters (see IC 31-14).

Lacking a marriage is one of the three major differences between divorce (dissolution of marriage) cases and paternity cases. The other differences include the possible involvement of the prosecuting attorney, that only the county juvenile court has jurisdiction over the case, and that property issues have no place in paternity proceedings.

Paternity cases share generally with divorce cases the law on custody, parenting time (visitation), and child support. On this blog, you will find articles listed by subject. I broke these topics into child support, child custody, paternity, and parenting time/visitation. You will find some overlap in the articles because of law's overlap. Where there does exist a difference between divorce and paternity statutes, you will find those articles under paternity heading.

You will also find that there are some subtle and important differences between divorces and paternity cases. Those I have filed under the category of paternity.

For those who were living together and who acquired property as well as children, you need to look at the articles under cohabitation.