Court Approved Paternity DNA Testing
If you are looking at having a paternity test done then you should be aware of the two different types of tests that are available. The first test is what many medical professionals call a “curiosity” test. These are the kind that you take at home and have results analyzed by lab and sent back to you via mail. The second kind of test is called a court-approved DNA test and it usually involves testing performed at local hospitals or medical facilities under the supervision of medical personnel.
Why would the court system differentiate between the two? Paternity can have serious financial and legal implications when trying to determine who the father of a child is. Unfortunately, often this can be a very heated debate and all too often many fathers do not want to take responsibility or in some cases mothers of the child will implicate an innocent person because of variety of factors.
At-home tests, while they do provide accurate results, cannot guarantee where the samples collected for DNA analysis came from. Since at-home testing companies merely test the samples you provide, they take no part in the collection or labeling of samples sent in. It is very possible under these circumstances for the wrong samples to be sent in or for someone to deliberately send in samples that did not come from the correct source.
Under a court-approved test the samples are collected by trained personnel who will verify the identify of each person they are collecting from, properly label and store the samples as well as (in most cases) take secondary samples in case the first one is contaminated or unusable. They will then send these to the lab via secure methods for it to be analyzed and the results sent back.
There are some situations in which the court will allow for home-based tests to be admitted as evidence to the court. Usually this happens when the suspected father is not challenging the paternity and has volunteered to do the test. However, in any situation where the suspected father is denying parenthood there have been no documented court cases to date showing that a court has allowed home-based tests to be used as evidence.
Court-approved paternity tests normally range in price from $250 to $2,000 depending on when they are given. For the majority of the tests the price range falls in the $250 range which is comparable to what many at-home testing companies charge. If you need to undertake a paternity test you should consult with your lawyer before you spend money that you may not have to, or spend more money than necessary. If the court requires a court-approved that then there is no need to have your own independent test performed.
If you want to take a court-approved paternity test to have as evidence before you go to court you can find out which ones are accepted in court by contacting your local court directly. They usually maintain a list of hospitals and medical clinics that will perform the test according to prescribed guidelines and then will certify the results for the court. They may also let you know, depending on your case type, if you would be eligible to submit an at-home test as evidence.