Like other states, Nebraska has a process by which a man and a woman who are unmarried can establish the man’s paternity without having to go through the formal process of going to court and having genetic testing. Many couples favor such an approach because it saves times and, in reality, there is no dispute as to who the father of the child is.
This process involves a dad’s signing an acknowledgement of paternity, which is a formal document recognized under Nebraska law. It is important for the father to realize, however, that signing this document means that he is going to be the legal father of the child. As such, he may want to talk his decision over with an attorney.
While this gives him the right to ask for custody and parenting time, it is also creates important responsibilities, including the responsibility to provide child support. As such, a dad will want to carefully consider whether or not to sign this document if he has any suspicion that he might wind up raising a child when, biologically, he is not the father.
A dad who signs an acknowledgement has 60 days to change his mind and effectively take back his signature. So long as he follows the process for doing so, he will then be back at square one and be able to insist that the court order genetic testing and go through the formal channels of establishing paternity.
After the 60 days, however, the dad will have to prove fraud, duress or a material mistake before a court will let him out of the legal obligations that an acknowledgement of paternity creates. He will not necessarily get child support stopped while he challenges his signed acknowledgement.