After a DNA test proved conclusively that Nicholas Walter was not the biological father of a child, the Court of Appeals ruled that any outstanding child support arrearage was discharged

In 1993, Michele Gunter filed a paternity action against Nicholas Todd Walter, alleging that he was the father of her child. Based upon Gunter’s representations that she had not had sexual relations with any other man, Walter consented to an order declaring him the father of the child. The court ordered Walter to pay Gunter child support in the amount of $43 per week.

Walter failed to pay much in the way of support. Nevertheless, in March 2000, Walter filed a motion for the court to order genetic testing to establish whether he was indeed the father. The testing proved that Walter could not be the father. As a result, the trial court relieved Walter of any prospective obligation to pay child support, but refused to absolve him of his obligation to pay the child support arrearage in the amount of $11,228 that had accrued through the date Walter requested the DNA testing. Walter appealed, and the Court of Appeals of Maryland heard his case. 

The Court of Appeals, in a split decision, reversed the ruling of the circuit court, and held that Walter did not have any obligation to pay any portion of the arrearage, saying, “we hold that Walter cannot be legally obligated for child support arrearages that result from a now-vacated paternity judgment.” 

In a stinging dissent, Judge Wilner argued that the Court’s decision rewarded Walter for his defiance of the child support order entered seven years earlier. Judge Wilner wrote: