Department of Revenue o/b/o Cassandra Brown, Petitioner, v. Jermaine B. Gardner, Respondent. (2025)

The Department of Revenue (“DOR”), on behalf of Cassandra Brown (“Mother”), seeks certiorari relief from an order granting a motion for paternity testing filed by Jermaine Gardner (“Father”). We grant the petition and quash the order.

An administrative order established Father's support obligations for two children. DOR petitioned to supersede that order and add support for a third child (“S.G.”). In his answer to the petition, Father alleged that S.G. is not his child. He also filed a motion for scientific paternity testing. That same day, the court granted the motion, ordering Mother, Father, and S.G. to appear for testing. In its order denying DOR's motion for rehearing, the court found that paternity had yet to be adjudicated.

Certiorari is available only if the lower court's order departs from the law's essential requirements and causes harm that cannot be corrected in a post-judgment appeal. Scott v. Scott, 375 So. 3d 331, 333 (Fla. 5th DCA 2023) (quoting Jordan v. State, 350 So. 3d 103, 105 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022)). The presence of irreparable harm is a threshold jurisdictional issue. Id. (quoting Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp. v. San Perdido Ass'n, 104 So. 3d 344, 351 (Fla. 2012)).

When entered in error, an order that compels paternity testing causes irreparable harm because it cannot be corrected once the testing occurs. Dep't of Child. & Fams. v. D.A., 279 So. 3d 1268, 1269 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019); Dep't of Rev. ex rel. Meeker v. Silva, 214 So. 3d 766, 768 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017). This irreparable harm activates our certiorari jurisdiction, which allows us to consider if the order departs from the essential requirements of law. See N. Brevard Cnty. Hosp. Dist. v. Deligdish, 398 So. 3d 1126, 1130 (Fla. 5th DCA 2024). That occurs when an order violates a clearly established legal principle, resulting in a miscarriage of justice. Id. (quoting Allstate Ins. Co. v. Kaklamanos, 843 So. 2d 885, 889 (Fla. 2003)). Such is the case here.

Father signed a voluntary acknowledgement of paternity for S.G. Doing so created a rebuttable presumption of paternity, which Father could have rescinded within sixty days. See § 742.10(1), Fla. Stat. (2018). But after sixty days, the acknowledgment established Father's paternity, which he then could challenge “in court only on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact.” See id. § 742.10(4). Alternatively, he could have petitioned to disestablish his paternity under section 742.18(1), Florida Statutes (2018). See Dep't of Rev. by Zelaya v. Trochez, 343 So. 3d 668, 670 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022); see also Fernandez v. Dep't of Rev., Child Support, 971 So. 2d 875, 877 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007) (explaining that once paternity is established, the burden is on the father “to commence his own action in the circuit court to prove that what was previously admitted, his fatherhood, is in fact a falsehood” (emphasis added)).

Father did none of these things. Under these circumstances—in which he did not rescind his voluntary acknowledgement, later challenge it in court by raising cognizable statutory grounds, or petition to disestablish paternity—his motion for testing in a child support case is akin to a discovery request. See Trochez, 343 So. 3d at 670; Silva, 214 So. 3d at 769; Fla. Dep't of Rev. ex rel. Corbitt v. Alletag, 156 So. 3d 1110, 1112 n.2 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015).

However, a court may not order genetic testing in a family law case unless the proceedings place paternity in controversy and good cause for testing exists. Silva, 214 So. 3d at 769 (quoting Alletag, 156 So. 3d at 1112). Here, even assuming arguendo that Father's answer to DOR's petition was enough to “place paternity in controversy,” see Alletag, 156 So. 3d at 1113, he cannot show “good cause” without alleging and proving fraud, duress, material mistake of fact, or grounds for disestablishing paternity under section 742.18. See State, Dep't of Rev. ex rel. Chambers v. Travis, 971 So. 2d 157, 161 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007). Moreover, the court “made no finding of ‘good cause’ in the challenged order nor was there any testimony or evidence presented that could have supported such a finding.” See Silva, 214 So. 3d at 769. Thus, even “if construed as a discovery order, it was improvidently entered.” See id. Therefore, we grant DOR's petition and quash the order granting scientific paternity testing. See id.

Petition Granted; Order Quashed.

Per Curiam.

Jay, C.J., and Harris and Kilbane, JJ., concur.