State ex rel. Doe v. Court of Common Pleas (Capper)
Annotate this CaseAfter giving birth to a child in Ohio, Rachel Arnold placed the child for adoption. Relators' adoption of the child was finalized in May 2010. In October 2010, Todd Roccaro filed a complaint to establish paternity in the county court of common pleas. Roccaro named only Arnold as a defendant and did not name the child as a party to the case. In November 2011, Judge Thomas Capper ordered the parties to the parentage action, as well as a nonparty, the minor child, to submit to genetic testing. In January 2012, Relators, the child's adoptive parents, filed an action for a writ of prohibition to prohibit Judge Capper from proceeding in the parentage action and to direct him to enter a finding that all orders that had been entered in that case were void. The Supreme Court granted the writ, holding that Judge Capper patently and unambiguously lacked jurisdiction to proceed in the parentage proceeding since the child was not made a party to the case and good cause was not shown for not making the child a party.
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