Objection for a U.S. Court to the Defendant's Memorandum in a Paternity Case Where the Father Was Recorded on the Mother's Statement

Introduction

In a paternity case pending before a court in the United States, the defendant submitted a memorandum prepared by a Ukrainian attorney. The memorandum purported to explain to the U.S. court how Ukrainian law treats a birth record in which the father's details were entered on the mother's statement.

The memorandum misstated that law. Its author read Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine in isolation from Article 128 of the same Code, to which it is directly linked, and construed provisions of the Family Code and the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine in a way designed to support dismissal of the mother's claim.

In October 2025, Attorney Dmytro Chuguienko of Disputes Law Firm prepared a written objection to the memorandum. The objection explains to the U.S. court how current Ukrainian legislation, and the way Ukrainian courts apply it, define the legal effect of a father's entry made on the mother's statement in a paternity case.

The objection was delivered to the Client in English and Ukrainian on October 15, 2025, six days after she retained the firm.

The Client's Problem

Registration of the child's birth

The Client, a Ukrainian citizen, gave birth to a daughter in Dnipro on March 4, 2016, while unmarried. At registration, the parents did not file a joint application, and the father did not file an application acknowledging paternity.

The civil registry office registered the birth on the mother's application dated March 29, 2016, and entered the father's details under Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine. The father's surname and citizenship were recorded as those of the mother, and his first name and patronymic were recorded as the mother stated them.

The registry office left the "Date of Birth" and "Place of Residence" fields in the father's section of the birth record blank. The child's patronymic was formed from the name the mother gave as the father's first name.

The Client filed a paternity claim against a U.S. citizen whom she believes to be the child's biological father. The case is before a court in the United States.

The defendant's memorandum

During the proceedings, the defendant submitted a memorandum by a Ukrainian attorney dated August 4, 2025, titled "On the Determination of Facts under the Law of Ukraine." The five-page memorandum is written in Ukrainian and opens with a statement of the author's qualifications and years of practice.

The author signed the memorandum with a declaration under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of New York. That declaration shows the document was intended from the outset for use outside Ukraine.

The author based his conclusions on a Full Extract from the State Register of Civil Status Records concerning the child's birth record. The Solomianskyi Civil Registry Office in Kyiv generated that extract on June 17, 2025, at the author's own request.

The author cited Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine and paragraph 18 of the Rules for State Registration of Civil Status Acts in Ukraine as in force on the child's date of birth. He then listed the ways a father may be recorded in Ukraine: if the parents are married, the mother's husband is recorded as the father; if they are not, the father is recorded on a joint application of the parents, on the father's own application, under a court judgment, or on the mother's statement in her sole application.

From the last of these, the author drew a sweeping conclusion about Ukrainian law, stating in substance that where the mother is unmarried and there is no joint application of the parents, current Ukrainian legislation makes it possible to record "virtually any person" as the child's father.

He further stressed that civil servants do not verify the information about the father given in the mother's application, and that Ukrainian law neither provides for nor requires the father's documents. He used this to argue that the father's entry in the birth certificate is unreliable.

Relying on Article 77 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the author concluded that the birth certificate, insofar as it concerns the father, contains no information relevant to the facts in issue. On that basis, he asserted that under Article 77(4) the court may not consider such evidence.

The memorandum culminated in the assertion that the claim had been brought against the wrong defendant. According to the author, a certificate naming as father a Ukrainian citizen with the mother's surname in no way shows that this person and the U.S. citizen sued by the Client are one and the same.

The author relied on paragraph 40 of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court ruling of April 17, 2018, in case No. 523/9076/16-ц, under which a court, having heard a case, dismisses the claim against an improper defendant. The memorandum closes with the conclusion that, under Ukrainian law, suing an improper defendant is grounds for the court to dismiss the claim.

Each point in the memorandum built on the previous one. Taken together, they were meant to persuade the U.S. court that Ukrainian law barred the mother's claim before any evidence of the child's descent from the defendant was examined.

Legal Position and Actions Taken

On October 9, 2025, the Client entered into an agreement on professional legal assistance with Disputes Law Firm. Under the task attached to the agreement, the parties defined the scope of work as preparing an objection to the memorandum in English.

The attorney reviewed the memorandum together with the registry extract it relied on and the provisions it cited. The objection is addressed "To All Whom It May Concern," so it can be submitted to any court or authority presented with the memorandum.

Like the memorandum, the objection opens with the attorney's credentials: Dmytro Chuguienko has practiced law since August 2016 under a certificate issued by the Kyiv Regional Bar Council. The objection then sets out the content of the memorandum, each of the author's points, and the rebuttal to each.

The objection states that every argument in the memorandum contains significant legal errors, rests on an incomplete and one-sided reading of the legislation, and disregards case law on establishing paternity. All of the rebuttals start from the same provision the author himself cited.

Under Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine, when a child is born to an unmarried mother and there is no joint application of the parents, no application by the father, and no court judgment, the father's entry in the Birth Register is made using the mother's surname and citizenship, while the father's first name and patronymic are recorded as she states them.

The purpose of an entry made on the mother's statement

An entry under Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine is a temporary mechanism that allows a child to be registered immediately after birth. It secures the right set out in Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name and to acquire a nationality.

The author of the memorandum ignored the link between Article 135 and Article 128 of the Family Code of Ukraine, "Recognition of Paternity by Court Judgment." Article 128(4) provides that a court shall accept a claim for recognition of paternity if the father's entry in the Birth Register was made in accordance with Article 135(1) of the Code.

Accordingly, the very entry on the mother's statement that the author relied on is the condition under which a court accepts a paternity claim. In a paternity case, the Supreme Court of Ukraine held that Article 128 of the Family Code governs precisely the situation where the father's entry was made on the mother's statement, and that in that situation a person who considers himself the child's father may bring a claim to have his paternity recognized (Supreme Court of Ukraine, ruling of March 8, 2023, case No. 205/5698/21).

As the objection explains, Article 135 protects the child's rights where the biological father does not voluntarily acknowledge paternity. It gives the child a name, a nationality and initial registration; it is not a means of arbitrarily designating who the father is.

Father's details that the registry does not verify

The author correctly described the registration procedure: the civil registry office does not verify the father's first name and patronymic stated by the mother. From that fact, however, he drew the wrong legal conclusion.

The first name and patronymic the mother gives under Article 135 of the Family Code of Ukraine are not information about a specific person. They are entered only so that the "Information about the Father" section of the birth certificate is not left empty.

For that reason, on the child's date of birth, paragraph 18 of Chapter 1, Section III of the Rules for State Registration of Civil Status Acts in Ukraine, approved by Order of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine No. 52/5 of October 18, 2000, provided that in this situation the "Date of Birth" and "Place of Residence" fields in the father's section are not filled in. If the entry were meant to identify the father, the registry would require exactly those details.

The father's surname in such an entry does not belong to the father either: it is recorded as the mother's surname. The certificate thus shows a combination of the mother's surname with a first name and patronymic chosen by the mother, and that combination may match no actual person or may coincide with the names of several different people.

In a case contesting paternity, the Supreme Court of Ukraine noted that the father's first name and patronymic, which the registry enters on the mother's statement, depend on her discretion and do not always match the name of the biological father (Supreme Court of Ukraine, ruling of January 10, 2024, case No. 285/874/20).

Had an entry under Article 135 identified a specific person and established paternity, the legislature would have had no reason to provide for judicial recognition of paternity under Article 128 of the Family Code of Ukraine. An entry on the mother's statement is a formal, technical entry that the court replaces with the father's details once the case is decided.

In a paternity case, a court does not treat the birth certificate as proof of paternity and examines all the circumstances, including evidence of the child's biological descent and the results of genetic testing. The court decides the child's descent on the totality of the evidence, and the Supreme Court regards DNA testing as the only scientific method for accurately establishing paternity with respect to a particular child (Supreme Court of Ukraine, ruling of March 8, 2023, case No. 205/5698/21).

The birth certificate as relevant evidence

Relevant evidence is evidence that contains information concerning the facts in issue (Article 77(1) of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine). In a paternity case, the fact in issue is the child's descent from a particular person, namely the defendant.

The birth certificate contains reliable information about the child, the date and place of birth, and the mother. In that respect, it is relevant and admissible evidence of the child's identity and of the Client's maternity.

The certificate contains no information about the father as a specific individual, since an entry under Article 135 records no date of birth, place of residence or other identifying details. At the same time, the certificate proves that the birth record contains exactly this kind of formal father's entry, which is subject to amendment on the basis of a court judgment.

Without the certificate, the court could not establish which child the claim concerns or which birth record must be amended. The operative part of a judgment recognizing paternity must contain all the details needed to register paternity, including the number of the child's birth record, its date and the registry office that made it (Supreme Court of Ukraine, ruling of March 8, 2023, case No. 205/5698/21).

The certificate therefore bears directly on the facts in issue, and Article 77(4) of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine does not apply to it.

The proper defendant in a paternity case

In a paternity case, the defendant is the person whom the plaintiff believes to be the child's biological father. A different name in the father's entry does not make that defendant improper, because the court hears the case precisely to establish the child's descent and to amend the birth record.

Absent an application by the father, paternity may be recognized by a court judgment (Article 128(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine). Applied consistently, the memorandum's logic would mean that no paternity claim could ever be heard while the father's entry bears a different name, which would render that provision meaningless.

Until the results of genetic testing are available, neither the plaintiff, nor the author of the memorandum, nor the court knows whether the defendant is the child's biological father. Establishing that fact on the evidence of the child's biological descent is the task of the court hearing the case.

The objection's overall conclusion

In its overall conclusion, the objection states that the memorandum is an attempt to create legal obstacles to a hearing on the merits by construing individual provisions outside their systemic context, purpose and judicial application.

The attorney concluded that the memorandum provides no legal grounds for dismissing the claim and that the court should reject it as containing no reliable information. The question of paternity should be decided on the evidence of the child's biological descent from the defendant.

As with the memorandum, a copy of the attorney's certificate of the right to practice law is attached to the objection.

Result

On October 15, 2025, six days after the agreement was signed, the Client received the objection to the memorandum in English and Ukrainian.

The objection rebuts each of the memorandum's four points with reference to the Family Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Rules for State Registration of Civil Status Acts in Ukraine and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Client can submit it to the U.S. court in response to the defendant's arguments on Ukrainian law.

Conclusion

An entry of the father's details made on the mother's statement under Article 135(1) of the Family Code of Ukraine is the condition under which a court accepts a claim for recognition of paternity. The defendant's reliance on such an entry therefore cannot serve as grounds for dismissing the claim.

Six days after retaining the firm, the Client had in hand a written explanation of Ukrainian law in English, prepared by a Ukrainian attorney, which the U.S. court can compare with the defendant's memorandum point by point.