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leading DNA testing lab was wrong..

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mindsecho

Junior Member
We had a DNA test done on my son shortly after he was born because my fiance and i had broken up and during that time i had a one night stand...well the test came back that he was not that father..and we assumed the one nighter was...well after careful consideration...dates...circumstances ...etc...we insisted the test be done again...we both believed the test was wrong...well my son is now 16 months old...his father lost out on the first year + of his life and cause alot of grief between us...because the lab was WRONG! What should we do..can we file a suit against them and win? This was a LEADING DNA FACILITY in the country..it cost us 550.00 for the test.
I live in florida until i move back to south dakota...the baby was tested in florida and father tested in south dakota
 
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ceara19

Senior Member
You made no mention as to whether or not the 2nd test was done or the result of that test. That info is very important.
 

nextwife

Senior Member
Gee, I think it might be important information that the PUBLIC should be aware of. I wonder how many erroneous results they created that caused the wrong guy to pay CS for another man's child?

There is more and more info coming out of human error in these testing labs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000998.htmlPaternity

Suit Raises Doubts About DNA Tests

Va. Judge Rejects Results, Questions Lab Work in Case of D.C. Hair Salon Owner

By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page C01

Washington hairdresser Andre Chreky gladly agreed to a DNA test when a former employee hit him with a paternity suit.

The claim was absurd, Chreky said he remembers thinking. He had stopped dating the woman years before she gave birth to the boy, now a teenager. This would all be over soon. DNA doesn't lie.


A former employee sought, and won, child support from Andre Chreky, who denied being the father. After a two-year fight, Chreky won his appeal.
A former employee sought, and won, child support from Andre Chreky, who denied being the father. After a two-year fight, Chreky won his appeal. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

The results were back in a month, on a two-page report from Laboratory Corp. of America, or LabCorp, one of the largest paternity testers in the country and the state of Virginia's exclusive contractor: "The probability of paternity is 99.99 percent."

"It's crazy," Chreky, 50, who lives with his wife and two children in Great Falls, recalled saying. "We need to take this to battle."

The fight lasted two years. When it ended in May, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David T. Stitt not only ruled in Chreky's favor, but also raised serious questions about the reliability of DNA testing during a time when it is relied on to prove paternity, guilt, innocence and more.

"I thought LabCorp's performance was shoddy," Stitt said at a hearing in May after ruling that the state did not prove Chreky was the father. "I think something unfair happened in this case, where a citizen was put to the greatest extent to defend himself against what really has turned out to be a moving target as far as where LabCorp is concerned. . . . I'm concerned about what level of oversight is being exercised by the commonwealth of LabCorp's work."

The state is not appealing Stitt's ruling.

LabCorp handles more than 100,000 DNA paternity tests for many public and private clients every year, including Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard and Anne Arundel counties in Maryland. (The District handles its own DNA testing.) But evidence at Chreky's trial showed that the company has only five people reviewing the data and making paternity determinations -- with one supervisor testifying that he issues an average of one paternity report every four minutes during a 10-hour shift.

DNA experts say Chreky's case underscores a growing problem in the burgeoning field of DNA testing: People make mistakes, and people collect the DNA samples and perform the analysis. So, they say, although DNA is as reliable as ever as a definitive science, the people reading and analyzing that science are imperfect. And the volume of DNA testing keeps rising.

The ruling in Chreky's case came as Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) ordered a review of DNA testing at the state's criminal forensic lab after an audit detected human error in an analysis of a death row inmate's case.

Laurence D. Mueller, an evolutionary biology professor at the University of California-Irvine who has been tracking lab errors in DNA cases for years, said DNA labs "use techniques that have been automated, like Hostess Twinkies on an assembly line. Most of the time, the Twinkies are fine. But once in a while, you see a bad one."

The bad ones, some biologists say, are coming more frequently.
 
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mindsecho

Junior Member
lab review

ceara19 said:
You made no mention as to whether or not the 2nd test was done or the result of that test. That info is very important.
Yes there was a lab review done and that proved that the testing facility was WRONG....we are very upset over this...he missed out on the first 15 months of his sons life because of them...and it caused us hardship in our relationship also which we have now got back together and are planning to get married
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
mindsecho said:
We had a DNA test done on my son shortly after he was born because my fiance and i had broken up and during that time i had a one night stand...well the test came back that he was not that father..and we assumed the one nighter was...well after careful consideration...dates...circumstances ...etc...we insisted the test be done again...we both believed the test was wrong...well my son is now 16 months old...his father lost out on the first year + of his life and cause alot of grief between us...because the lab was WRONG! What should we do..can we file a suit against them and win? This was a LEADING DNA FACILITY in the country..it cost us 550.00 for the test.
I live in florida until i move back to south dakota...the baby was tested in florida and father tested in south dakota
Your damages were the $550 for the erroneous test; sue them for that in small claims.


(By the way, on any of the material the lab sent you, were there any guarantees?)
 

mindsecho

Junior Member
seniorjudge said:
Your damages were the $550 for the erroneous test; sue them for that in small claims.


(By the way, on any of the material the lab sent you, were there any guarantees?)
They have said for the last year and a half that the test is FULL PROOF and that they arent wrong...this wouldnt have even got this far if i didnt KNOW the truth about the results and push the subject and MAKE them LOOK INTO IT...my fiance lost the first year + of his sons life, and my son missed out bonding with his father...
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
mindsecho said:
They have said for the last year and a half that the test is FULL PROOF and that they arent wrong...this wouldnt have even got this far if i didnt KNOW the truth about the results and push the subject and MAKE them LOOK INTO IT...my fiance lost the first year + of his sons life, and my son missed out bonding with his father...
If you have a written guarantee that the test is fool proof, then ask for your money back.
 

ceara19

Senior Member
mindsecho said:
They have said for the last year and a half that the test is FULL PROOF and that they arent wrong...this wouldnt have even got this far if i didnt KNOW the truth about the results and push the subject and MAKE them LOOK INTO IT...my fiance lost the first year + of his sons life, and my son missed out bonding with his father...
If you look at the consent forms you signed when the test was done, they explain that DNA testing is acurate 99.98% (or whatever the actual stats are) of the time. The company would just use the argument that your case happened to be in that very rare .02%.
 

rmet4nzkx

Senior Member
Was a paternity case ever opened?
Were both putative father's tested?
Was this a court ordered test?
Who moved where, when and why?
Was there another test to prove him the father, is it court ordered?
Are there any court orders.
The problem with the arguments that this interfered with your relaitonship, is that your relationship was in jeopardy when you had a 1 night stand with another man and opened up the question, just remember they will bring that up in court. At this point you may sue in small claims court, if yu can prove the test was in error beyond the published criteria for the test, which are not guarenteed to be 100% fool proof.
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
rmet4nzkx said:
Was a paternity case ever opened?
Were both putative father's tested?
Was this a court ordered test?
Who moved where, when and why?
Was there another test to prove him the father, is it court ordered?
Are there any court orders.
The problem with the arguments that this interfered with your relaitonship, is that your relationship was in jeopardy when you had a 1 night stand with another man and opened up the question, just remember they will bring that up in court. At this point you may sue in small claims court, if yu can prove the test was in error beyond the published criteria for the test, which are not guarenteed to be 100% fool proof.
Doc, that is a really stupid post.

She doesn't want to hear that.

She just wants to blame someone else and get paid for it the bargain.

Get with the program here....:p
 

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