What constitutes an ongoing relationship is subjective. One court found a genuine relationship where the putative father visited the child almost daily for a year after the birth and then monthly after he and the mother broke up.16 In contrast, an ongoing relationship did not exist where the father willingly left the child in the mother's custody and visited her and the child on a weekly basis, then neglected visitation after the agency took custody.17 A lack of communication with the child, in itself, does not constitute grounds for finding a putative father's consent unnecessary.18 But failure to communicate may speak to abandonment.19 Because an ongoing relationship can be hard to establish and to define, the putative father should always provide sufficient financial support.
Sufficient financial support
No formula exists for determining an acceptable support amount. Instead, the amount of financial support the father provides must be reasonably in line with his ability.20 A father's payment of less than three percent of his income, for example, would probably be insufficient.21
The support must also have "real support value." Buying toys and clothes for the child where they are not requested and the child has enough of them does not constitute real value.22 Similarly, placing the child on a medical insurance policy through the father's employer, where the policy is neither used nor within the mother's knowledge, does not constitute real support value.23 Nor will gifts, money, or incidentals given to the child qualify as support.24
That a third party is already supporting the child does not justify failure to support.25 The putative father's duty exists, therefore, even where the petitioner is a step-parent living with the child, where the child receives social security benefits,26 or where the mother is living with the father's parents.27 If the father has not supported or cared for the minor, he must show that his failure was not willful.28
When failure to support is willful
Courts find willfulness where the father could have made sufficient payments, but voluntarily did not.29 For example, a gainfully employed father who paid substantial support while dating the mother, but nothing after the relationship ended, willingly failed to support.30 A father voluntarily choosing unemployment or non-monetary employment may constitute willfulness.31
In contrast, courts have found failure to support justified where the putative father was rarely employed, on welfare, and applying for social security;32 where the father only made between $0 and $6,000 per year since the child's birth but had provided repair and other in kind services to the mother and had been in jail part of the time;33 and where the father was a minor and had little income.34 In the latter case, the duty to support may fall on the minor father's parents But the duty may fall on the minor father if he has own significant income.35
_____________16 Bowes.
17 In re Cameron
18 See In re Adoption of R.C.A., 2003-Ohio-607 at 14.
19 Id. at footnote 4.
20 See Bowes, above, note 14.
21 In re Adoption of Wagner (1997), 117 Ohio App.3d 448, 454.
22 In re Adoption of Strawser (1987), 36 Ohio App.3d 232.
23 Id; See also In re Adoption of Knight (1994), 97 Ohio App.3d 670, 673.
24 In re Adoption of Labo (1987), 47 Ohio App.3d 57, 60; In re Adoption of McCarthy (Jan. 17, 1992), Lucas App. No. L-91-199, unreported.
25 In re Adoption of Hart (1989), 62 Ohio App.3d 544; In re Lozan 82-LW-1317 (2nd).
26 In re Adoption of Barkhurst 02-LW-3650 (12th) at 26.
27 Hart, above, note 25.
28 Bowes, above, note 14, at 581 citing In re Adoption of Masa (1986), 23 Ohio St.3d 163 and Santosky v. Kramer (1982), 455 U.S. 745.
29 In re Adoption of McDermitt (1980), 63 Ohio St.2d 301, 306; In re Adoption of Lewis (1966), 8 Ohio St. 2d 25.
30 In re Adoption of Strawser (1987), 36 Ohio App.3d 232.
31 In re Adoption of Deems 93-LW-4464 (3rd).
32 In re Adoption of Darnall 92-LW-0331 (3rd).
33 Bowes, above note 14.
34 In re Adoption of Suvak, 2004-Ohio-536.
35 Suvak at 18.
