An odd child custody battle is now before the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
The story begins with a marriage between Eric Harner and his wife. The couple soon had a daughter, but divorced three years later, leaving primary custody of the child with the mother. Alliance Defense Fund attorney David Dye tells OneNewsNow that both remarried. However, the former wife died, leaving the little girl in the custody of her biological father. Dye says the stepfather then sued for custody. "Well, the trial court sided with that gentleman, and the trial court made the little girl go back to live with the stepfather rather than with her own father, her stepmom, and her half brother," the attorney explains. He further emphasizes that nothing has surfaced in the two-and-a-half years of litigation to indicate the biological father is not worthy of raising his own daughter. State law permits a third party to gain custody only under strict circumstances. "Well, the primary criteria is that they have to be acting in a parental role with the parent's permission," says Dye. "And in this case, [the biological] dad never gave consent, never gave permission for this new stepdad to assume his parental role and to be a parent to the child." Dye concludes that the stepfather should have never been given custody by the lower court. He contends the state has no compelling reason to take the child away from her natural father. A final decision will come in two to six months.
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