I don’t know if MB was receiving any public assistance. But in my state (at least this used to be the case), when a single mother who is not receiving child support requests public assistance for a child, the state would start a child support case, whether the mother wanted a case filed or not.
The mother would have to cooperate with the public assistance and child support agencies to help establish paternity. The father would pay child support to the state for the time the mother and child were on public assistance to reimburse for the family benefits.
Just making conversation here. As someone else said earlier, it doesn’t much matter... now that Evelyn is gone.