Chapter IV: Action for subsidies

Any child whose paternal filiation is not legally established may claim subsidies from the person who had relations with his mother during the legal period of conception. The action may be brought throughout the child’s minority; the child may still bring it within ten years of coming of age if it was not brought during his minority. The action is admissible even if the father or mother was, at the…

Subsidies are settled, in the form of a pension, according to the needs of the child, the resources of the debtor, the family situation of the latter. The pension may be due beyond the majority of the child, if he is still in need, unless this condition is attributable to him through no fault of his own.

The defendant may dismiss the claim by proving by any means that he cannot be the father of the child.

The burden of subsidies passes to the debtor’s estate according to the rules of article 767.

Articles 327 paragraph 2, and 328 above are applicable to the action for subsidies.

The judgment awarding the subsidies creates between the debtor and the beneficiary and, where applicable, between each of them and the parents or spouse of the other, the impediments to marriage regulated by articles 161 to 164 of this code.

Res judicata on the action for subsidies does not raise any bar to a subsequent action for paternity. The award of subsidies will cease to have effect if the paternal filiation of the child is subsequently established against someone other than the debtor.