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Second N.Y. Appellate Division Court Reaffirms Parental Rights of Married Lesbians

Posted on: February 21st, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

Following a precedent set on January 25 by the Albany-based N.Y. 3rd Department Appellate Division, the Brooklyn-based N.Y. 2nd Department Appellate Division issued a unanimous decision on February 21 ordering the dismissal of a sperm donor’s attempt to establish parentage and get legal visitation with a child born to a married lesbian couple.

As in the earlier case, Christopher YY v. Jessica ZZ & Nichole ZZ, 2018 WL 541768, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 489 (3rd Dept.), the sperm donor in this case, Joseph O. v. Danielle B. & Joynell B., 2018 WL 988920 (2nd Dept.), was not seeking custody but wanted legal acknowledgment of his biological parentage of the child and the legal right to visitation with the child.  Following the earlier ruling, and overruling Orange County Family Court Judge Victoria B. Campbell, the 2nd Department panel found that the principal of “equitable estoppel” barred Joseph O.’s lawsuit, even though the parties did not comply with a provision of the Domestic Relations Law, Section 73, which that would have created an “irrebuttable presumption” that the married couple, Danielle V. and Joynell B., are the only legal parents of the child.

The Domestic Relations Law provision was adopted years ago in response to the growing practice of donor insemination, for the purpose of assuring that when a married different-sex couple has a child using donated sperm, there will be no question that the mother’s husband is the parent of the child, who will be considered the legitimate offspring of their marriage. It provides that when the procedure is done by “a person duly authorized to practice medicine,” there is an “irrebuttable presumption of legitimacy” of the child, barring the sperm donor from any attempt to establish legal parentage or seek custody or visitation.

Unfortunately, the legislature has not revised the statute to reflect the existence of same-sex marriages, and many lesbian couples using donor insemination to conceive children don’t involve doctors in the procedure, which can be easily accomplished by the couple at home without professional assistance. In this case, Danielle and Joynell married in Connecticut in 2009 and used the Internet to find Joseph O., a sperm donor who was willing to agree in writing that he would have no parental rights or responsibilities.  They had a three-party written agreement to that effect.

The child was born in April 2012. According to the mothers, they had only sporadic contact with Joseph, who saw the child a few times each year since her birth, including some birthdays, but who was not treated as a father and not recognized as such by the child.  The two women were identified as the child’s parents on her birth certificate.

Claiming that his main purpose was to assure that he would have a continued right to visit with the child, Joseph filed suit in Orange County Family Court in September 2015, naming Danielle, the birth mother, as respondent. This lawsuit was dismissed on the ground that Joynelle should have been named as a “necessary” party, since she is also a legal parent of the child.  Joseph filed a new lawsuit in June 2016, naming both mothers as respondents, and seeking two things: legal visitation rights, and a declaration that he is the father of the child.  Joseph claimed that he had an established relationship with the child and that it would be in the child’s best interest for him to have visitation rights.

Danielle and Joynell moved to dismiss the case, claiming that there is a presumption of legitimacy of the child, both under New York common (non-statutory) law and under the Domestic Relations Law provision governing donor insemination. They also raise the argument of “equitable estoppel,” claiming that Joseph had no meaningful relationship with the child and, in any event, had waited too long to assert parental rights – more than three years since the child’s birth.

Family Court Judge Campbell appointed an attorney to represent the child’s interest, Kelley M. Enderley of Poughkeepsie, who sided with the mothers, affirming that “the child recognized only the respondents as her parents.” In an affidavit they filed in support of their motion to dismiss Joseph’s case, the mothers emphasized the limited contact they and their daughter had with Joseph, that he had seen the child only “sporadically,” and that the child did not recognize him as “anything other than an acquaintance of the family.”

Nonetheless, Judge Campbell denied their motion to dismiss, finding based on Joseph’s allegations of biological parenthood that the burden was on the mothers to show it was not in the child’s best interest to have a paternity test ordered to confirm that Joseph is her biological father or to have an “order of filiation” establishing his legal parental status. According to Judge Campbell, by allowing Joseph to have contact with the child over the time since her birth, the mothers had lost entitlement to the “presumption of legitimacy” of the child, and the question of equitable estoppel required a trial.

The Appellate Division found these rulings to be erroneous. Although the parties had not complied with the donor insemination statute, the court followed the earlier 3rd Department ruling holding that the statute was “not intended to be the exclusive means to establish the parentage of a child born through artificial insemination of a donor.”  More importantly, the court reaffirmed the emerging consensus among New York courts that married lesbian couples who have children through donor insemination are entitled to enjoy the presumption – codified elsewhere in the state’s Domestic Relations Law and in the Family Court Act – that the child is the legitimate child of the birth mother and her wife.

Although that presumption is not irrebuttable, an attempt by the sperm donor to rebut it may be blocked under the doctrine of equitable estoppel to “preserve that status of legitimacy for the child” under the circumstances presented in this case, in order to “protect a child’s established relationship with another who has assumed the parental role” – that is, Joynell, the wife of the child’s birth mother.

Here, all the facts came together to support dismissing Joseph’s case. He agreed when he donated his sperm that he would not seek any parental rights, he was not named on the birth certificate, and although he was certainly aware of the child’s birth, he did nothing to assert his legal claim for more than three years.  “During that time,” wrote the court, “the child has lived with and been cared for exclusively by the respondents, each of whom has developed a loving parental relationship with her.”

By contrast, although Joseph has had occasional contact, he can’t claim to have developed a parental relationship with the child, and he “acknowledges that he does not actually seek a parental role,” he is just interested in making sure that he has a legal right to continue seeing the child, in case her mothers decide to deny him access.

“Under the particular circumstances presented here,” wrote the court, “it would be unjust and inequitable to disrupt the child’s close parental relationship with each of the respondents and permit the petitioner to take a parental role when he has knowingly acquiesced in the development of a close relationship between the child and another parent figure.”

Thus, the Family Court should have granted the mothers’ motion to dismiss both of Joseph’s requests – for an order of filiation and for visitation rights – since “it has long been the rule in this State that, absent extraordinary circumstances, only parents have the right to seek custody or visitation of a minor child,” and Joseph is not a legal parent. This last quotation is from the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, in its important ruling, Brooke B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 28 N.Y.3d 1 (2016), recognizing the parental rights of same-sex couples.

The Appellate Division Justices on the panel that decided this case are Reinaldo E. Rivera, L. Priscilla Hall, Betsy Barros, and Valerie Brathwaite Nelson.

The mothers are represented by The Kurland Group (Yetta G. Kurland and Erica T. Kagan) and the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York through its Legal Director, Brett Figlewski.  The American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys filed an amicus brief written by attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Rumbold & Seidelman LLP.  Joseph O. is represented by Paul N. Weber of Cornwall, New York.

 

N.Y. Family Court Judge Uses Equitable Estoppel to Find Co-Parent Standing in the Absence of Pre-Conception Agreement

Posted on: October 3rd, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

Filling a gap in New York family law left open by the New York Court of Appeals’ 2016 decision In the Matter of Brooke S.B., 28 N.Y.3d 1, 61 N.E.3d 48839 N.Y.S.3d 89, Nassau County Family Court Judge Thomas Rademaker held in J.C. v. N.P., a decision published by the New York Law Journal on September 27, 2017, that the doctrine of equitable estoppel could be used to establish the standing of a lesbian co-parent who could not show that she and her former partner, the birth mother, had a written pre-conception agreement concerning parentage of the two children that were born during their relationship. (At the time of writing, the opinion had not yet appeared in the Lexis or Westlaw databases or been assigned a N.Y. Slip Opinion number, and the version of the opinion published on the Law Journal website did not include a docket number, but bore the date of publication of September 27.) In Brooke S.B., a similar case in other respects, the Court of Appeals had relied on the plaintiff’s allegation of the existence of a pre-conception agreement in determining the standing of an unmarried co-parent to seek custody, and stated “we do not opine on the proper test, if any, to be applied in situations in which a couple has not entered into a pre-conception agreement.”

The Court of Appeals’ statement left an ambiguity for lower courts confronted by cases such as J.C. v. N.P.. Does “if any” mean that co-parents who lack evidence of a pre-conception agreement are categorically barred from establishing standing to seek custody and visitation after their relationship with the child’s birth mother ends, as would be the case under the older precedents overruled in Brooke?  Or, to the contrary, could it just mean that lower courts have room to consider other legal doctrines that would enable them to reach what should be the overriding question in such custody/visitation disputes: what is in the best interest of the children?

Judge Rademaker opted for the second approach. “It is doubtful that the Court of Appeals meant that no test should apply and it is beyond doubt that the Court of Appeals carefully tailored their holding to the fact specific case before them.  Simply put, the holding in Brooke applies to situations when a pre-conception agreement is proven to exist by clear and convincing evidence.”  Further, the “if any” comment struck Rademaker as showing that the Court of Appeals felt it was premature to take the next step of allowing a co-parent to establish standing based on events that occurred upon and after the birth of the child until an appropriate case arose that required determination of that question.  While finding that relying solely on a “best interest of the child” test would provide “far too amorphous a standard” to determine co-parent standing, wrote Rademaker, “Given precedent, the social and legal acknowledgement of same sex marital status, parentage, and the like, this Court looks to the doctrine of equitable estoppel for guidance in the instant matter.”  Rademaker explained that this doctrine has been frequently pressed into service by New York courts in determining that a man without a biological/genetic relationship to a child can be deemed a parent in certain circumstances, and he noted that those opinions emphasized that the overriding factor in such cases should be the best interest of the child.

“To prevail on the grounds of estoppel, the moving party bears the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evidence, that she has the right to the relief being sought,” the judge wrote, disclaiming any intent to create rigid guidelines or lists of factors that must be proven, while taking note of the factors that had been cited by the courts in cases determining men’s status as fathers.

In this case, the court found, J.C. and N.P. began their relationship around January 10, 2014, at which time N.P. was still married to, but separated from, another woman. Within days, N.P. became pregnant through donor insemination, and J.C. participated fully during the pregnancy, accompanying N.P. on doctor visits.  “Throughout their relationship,” Rademaker found, “including the pregnancies, the parties lived together in each other’s homes which they separately owned, dividing time between the two homes depending upon the season and work schedules.”  When their first child, C.C., was born on September 29, 2014, they brought him to J.C.’s house, where a nursery room had been prepared for the child.  Through the women’s subsequent relationship, including the birth to N.P. of a second child conceived through donor insemination who was born in May 2016, the women both functioned as parents, were regarded as a family by the children’s pediatrician, neighbors, and their other family members.  The two children are described by the court as “biological siblings,” presumably because the same man served as sperm donor for both children.

There was also documentary evidence, in the form of an email N.P. sent to her parents on October 16, 2015, as she and J.C. were going to the airport for N.P. to travel, in which she stated: “Since I have a child, don’t have a legal will and [JC] and I aren’t married yet, I figured I would put my wishes in writing just in case of an unfortunate event and I don’t return from Miami safely. Since [JC] is [CC]’s co-parent and other mommy, my wish is for her to have full custody and raise [CC] as her own in the instance I’m not on this earth to raise her myself.  Thank you!”  Although N.P. testified that this was sent to assuage J.C.’s concerns, the court found no reason to believe the statement was sincerely meant.

In a footnote, Judge Rademaker specifically rejected N.P.’s argument that J.C.’s standing claim was barred by the fact that N.P. was married to another woman at the time of C.C.’s conception. “It has been held that the presumption of legitimacy is a presumption of a biological relationship, not a legal relationship,” he wrote, “and therefore has no application to same-gender married couples,” citing Matter of Paczkowski v. Paczkowski, 128 App. Div. 3d 968 (2nd Dept. 2001).  “Moreover,” he wrote, “respondent’s judgment of divorce from her prior spouse clearly rebuts any presumption that C.C. is a child of that marriage, and respondent is bound by that determination under the doctrine of collateral estoppel.”  He also rejected N.P.’s argument that the failure of J.C. to adopt the children due to N.P.’s negative response to J.C.’s suggestions should carry more weight than the tangible evidence of N.P. treating J.C. as a parent and sharing parenting responsibilities with her.  “Simply stated,” wrote the judge, “respondent may have been apprehensive at times about the course of the relationship and perhaps even embarrassed by comments made by petitioner at particular family events but respondent’s daily words and actions with and toward petitioner, as well as CC and AJ [the second child], throughout the relationships were, in fact, quite different.”

The parties’ relationship ended early in 2017 and they separated, but J.C. continued “to see, care for, and tend to the children,” and they all went together on a ski weekend trip in February “together with the children sharing the same room together with the children after the relationship purportedly ended.”

Rademaker found that J.C. had “established by clear and convincing evidence that respondent created, fostered, furthered, and nurtured a parent-like relationship between the children and petitioner. Commencing just a few days after the older child’s conception, and continuing well after the demise of the parties’ relationship, respondent acted as if petitioner was a parent and acknowledged to petitioner, the children, and others that petition was essentially a parent, to wit, a “Mommy,” and both respondent and the children benefitted from this parent-like relationship on a daily basis for years.  Petitioner is adjudicated to be a parent of the subject children and therefore, has standing to seek visitation and custody.”

The next step will be for the court to determine whether it is in the best interest of the children for J.C. to be granted custody and visitation rights.

The Law Journal article reporting on the decision suggested that this was the “first” New York court decision to “offer an answer” to the question whether a co-parent could be adjudicated to be a parent in the absence of a pre-conception agreement. Neither the article nor the opinion identified counsel for the parties.  In a footnote, Judge Rademaker acknowledged the “invaluable assistance of Court Attorney Jeremy Jorgensen in the preparation of this decision.”

 

Kansas’ Narrow Interpretation of Obergefell Rejected by Federal District Court

Posted on: July 25th, 2016 by Art Leonard No Comments

U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree, who had ruled on November 4, 2014, that the Kansas constitutional amendment and statutes banning same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, has issued a final ruling in that case, Marie v. Mosier, 2016 WL 3951744 (D. Kan., July 22, 2016), effectively finding that Kansas officials cannot be trusted to comply voluntarily with the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), without the prod of an injunction that would subject them to contempt proceedings if they fail to comply fully.  In light of the initial refusal by the state to issue appropriate birth certificates for children of lesbian couples, and continuing ambiguity about how state officials will handle such situations, the court rejected the state’s argument that the lawsuit should be dismissed as “moot” or that its prior rulings should be vacated as unnecessarily in light of Obergefell.

When Judge Crabtree issued his preliminary injunction in 2014, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Kansas, had already issued rulings prohibiting Oklahoma and Utah from enforcing their laws against same-sex marriage, and the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to review those rulings on October 6, 2014, so they had gone into effect.  Shortly afterward, however, the 6th Circuit had ruled against marriage equality, and in January 2015 the Supreme Court announced it would review that decision.  On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell that same-sex couples were entitled to the same marriage rights under state law as different-sex couples.  After Obergefell, the Kansas defendants moved to dismiss Marie v. Mosier as “moot,” but the plaintiffs moved instead to have the court issue a declaration that the Kansas ban on marriage equality was unconstitutional and to issue an injunction requiring the state to comply with Obergefell.  This responded to an argument that was being made by some marriage equality resisters that the Supreme Court’s decision applied only to states in the 6th Circuit, and to the announced opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and other Kansas officials.  The plaintiffs feared that Kansas would not give full effect to the “equality” requirement of the Supreme Court’s decision, despite assurances by the state’s attorney that it would do so.

At that time, Judge Crabtree decided to give the state the benefit of the doubt. On August 10, 2015, he issued a declaratory judgment, but withheld injunctive relief to give the state time to comply voluntarily.  Voluntary compliance did follow in many respects, such as issuing marriage licenses, but the plaintiffs responded to the state’s contention that it had complied voluntarily by bringing to the court’s attention two instances in which state officials had refused to issue birth certificates listing both mothers of children born to married lesbian couples.  Indeed, in one of those cases the mothers had gone into state court to get an order to issue an appropriate birth certificate, and the state initially resisted the state court order.  Subsequently both of those cases were resolved by the state issuing appropriate birth certificates, but contradictory statements issued from officials of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, one suggesting that in future same-sex couples would be treated the same as different-sex couples when children were conceived through donor insemination, but the other stating that same-sex couples would have to alert the department in advance so that a case-by-case determination could be made about whether a birth certificate listing both women would be issued.

Judge Crabtree concluded that the case was not “moot” and an injunction was necessary. In this case, there was clear evidence that state officials were complying reluctantly with Obergefell, sometimes only under the prodding of court orders, so the court could not conclude that there was no longer an issue of whether same-sex couples in Kansas could expect to receive equal treatment from all instrumentalities of the state government in all circumstances.

“Exercising its remedial discretion,” wrote Crabtree, “the court has decided to grant a permanent injunction forbidding defendants (and their successors) from enforcing or applying any aspect of Kansas law that treats same-sex married couples differently than opposite-sex married couples. As the court noted last August, a significant value exists in giving public officials a reasonable opportunity to comply voluntarily with a mandate by the Supreme Court.  The record here shows that defendants have said they will comply with Obergefell and, in many instances, they have acted to implement the changes that compliance requires.  But even after Obergefell and even after this court’s declaratory judgment, the record also demonstrated one defendant’s department deliberately refused to treat two same-sex married couples in the same fashion it routinely treats opposite-sex couples.  This disparate treatment did not result from oversight, inadvertence, or decisions made at lower levels of the department.  To the contrary, the conduct involved officials who the court would expect to know about Obergefell, this court’s preliminary injunction [from 2014], and the defendants’ assurances that they intended to comply with Obergefell.  This conduct required one same-sex couple to file an action in state court to get something that an opposite-sex couple would have received as a matter of course.”

In reaching this conclusion, Judge Crabtree listed the decisions by judges in numerous other states who issued permanent injunctions against those states after the Obergefell decision upon finding that the cases were not “moot” because of actual or potential failures of those states fully to comply with Obergefell’s equality mandate.  These included decisions from Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Dakota, Idaho, and Louisiana.  The only court to reach a contrary conclusion was in South Carolina, where the state government had quickly fallen into line after the Supreme Court refused to review the 4th Circuit’s decision in the Virginia marriage equality case.  Given the birth certificate contretemps in Kansas, the case was clearly distinguishable.

Crabtree sympathized with the plaintiffs’ concern about “whether defendants will comply voluntarily with Obergefell without the judicial oversight that an injunction permits.”  His response to this concern was to provide that the court will maintain supervisory oversight for three years, which means that at the first sign that a government official in Kansas is denying equal treatment to a same-sex couple, direct application can be made to Judge Crabtree for relief without the need to run into state court and start a new lawsuit.  “The court finds that permanent injunctive relief could prevent future same-sex married persons from having to do what the Smiths had to do,” he wrote: “initiate a separate lawsuit and incur expenses to secure the equal treatment that Obergefell promises.”

In rejecting the defendants’ argument that Obergefell was a narrow ruling that did not address the issue of birth certificates for children born to same-sex couples, Crabtree pointed out that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the Supreme Court specifically mentioned this issue!  “The Supreme Court found that the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marital status include ‘taxation; inheritance and property rights; spousal privilege; hospital access; medical decision making authority; adoption rights; the rights and benefits of survivors; birth and death certificates; health insurance; and child custody, support, and visitation rules.’”  By quoting from the Obergefell opinion, Crabtree made clear that Kansas may not impose any different treatment on same-sex couples regarding any of these issues without running afoul of Obergefell.

He also rejected the bizarre argument made by Kansas that one lesbian married couple that encountered birth certificate issues was not entitled to recognition of their marriage under Obergefell because they were married in Canada and the Full Faith and Credit Clause refers on to other states.  Judge Crabtree pointed out that Kansas’s own marriage recognition statute provides that “all marriages which would be valid by the law of the country in which the same are contracted, shall be valid in all courts and places in this state.”  If Kansas automatically recognizes different-sex marriages contracted in other countries, Obergefell’s equality requirement would mandate application of this rule to same-sex marriages.

“In sum,” wrote Crabtree, “defendants’ argument that Obergefell’s holding was narrow is unpersuasive,” and he quoted Justice Kennedy’s comment that a “slower, case-by-case determination of the required availability of specific public benefits to same-sex couples would deny gays and lesbians many rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage.”  “Perhaps defendants will provide the voluntary compliance with Obergefell that they promise,” Crabtree wrote.  “But the court cannot assign plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to such uncertainty.  In short, defendants’ assurances of future compliance do not provide the reliability that those rights deserve.”

The last issue before the court was an award of attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs. He ordered them to submit their fee bill promptly, and if Kansas disputes the amount (which they will likely do, since the state’s budget has been decimated by Governor Brownback’s unrealistic tax-cutting measures, which have led, among other things, to a crisis in school funding that caused a confrontation with the state’s Supreme Court), Judge Crabtree will address the issue promptly.

Lesbian Co-Parent Seeks Expedited Supreme Court Review of Alabama Refusal to Recognize Adoption

Posted on: November 22nd, 2015 by Art Leonard No Comments

Attorneys for V.L., the adoptive mother of children born to her former same-sex partner, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to review an erroneous decision by the Alabama Supreme Court to refuse to recognize the adoption that was approved by the Georgia Superior Court, and have also asked SCOTUS to restore her visitation rights while the appeal is pending by suspending the Alabama Supreme Court’s order in the case.  The petitions were filed on November 16.

V.L., who is represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and cooperating attorneys from Jenner & Block LLP (Washington, D.C.), with local counsel Traci Owen Vella and Heather Fann in Birmingham, Alabama, lived with E.L. in a seventeen-year relationship.  In May 2000 V.L. changed her last name to E.L.’s last name, and the women decided to have and raise children together.  E.L. subsequently gave birth to one child in 2002 and twins in 2004 through donor insemination.  The women played equal parental roles in raising the kids.  In order to provide more security to their legal relationship, they rented a residence in Atlanta and obtained a legal adoption from the Georgia (Fulton County) Superior Court so that V.L. would be the legal parent of the children.  The Georgia judge construed that state’s adoption law to allow second-parent adoptions without terminating the birth mother’s parental rights, as several other Georgia trial courts have also done.  So far, there is no Georgia appellate ruling against such adoptions, and the Georgia Supreme Court has not addressed the issue directly.

After the adoption, the women returned to Alabama and resumed living there are a family until the women separated and E.L. eventually cut off V.L.’s contact with the children.  V.L. registered the adoption with an Alabama court and filed an action seeking custody or visitation.  The Alabama trial and appellate courts concluded that V.L. must be recognized as an adoptive parent entitled to seek a determination of custody or visitation, with E.L. appealing every step of the way, until she won a reversal from the Alabama Supreme Court on September 18.

The lower Alabama courts correctly applied the Full Faith and Credit Clause (FFCC) of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that the courts of one state accord “full faith and credit” to the judgments issued by courts in other states.  More than a century of well-established court precedents provide that courts may not refuse to accord full faith and credit to a sister state court’s ruling because of a disagreement over the merits of that ruling.  The limited exception to full faith and credit would be cases where the court that issued the judgment did not have jurisdiction to do so, either because the court was not authorized to decide such cases or because the parties were not properly within the jurisdiction of the court.  In this case, the Georgia Superior Court had specifically concluded that it had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter of the case.  Indeed, Georgia statutes provide that the Superior Court has jurisdiction over all adoption proceedings.

A majority of the Alabama Supreme Court, however, departing from established constitutional precedents, decided based on its own reading of Georgia’s adoption statute that the Georgia law could not properly be construed to allow second-parent adoptions.  Even though the Georgia appellate courts have never specifically disapproved such adoptions, and courts of several other states have approved them in the context of similarly-worded adoption statutes, the Alabama court decided that the Georgia Superior Court’s departure from the Alabama Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Georgia adoption statute is a “jurisdictional” fault that justifies refusing to recognize the adoption.

This startling result drew a sharp dissent from a member of the court, who wrote that it “creates a dangerous precedent that calls into question the finality of adoptions in Alabama: Any irregularity in a probate court’s decision in an adoption would now arguably create a defect in that court’s subject matter jurisdiction.”

Petitioning SCOTUS, V.L. argued that the Alabama Supreme Court’s departure from established constitutional precedent, in general contradiction with more than a century of precedent and in direct contradiction of the Denver-based U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2007 ruling, Finstuen v. Crutcher, 496 F.3d 1139, requires a resolution of whether state courts are permitted to inquire into the merits of rulings by sister state courts in deciding whether to accord full faith and credit to those judgments, particularly in adoption cases where the result would be to interfere with family relationships that had been established and then legally ratified in completed adoption proceedings.   In the Finstuen case, the 10th Circuit invalidated an Oklahoma statute that barred recognition of same-sex couple adoptions, holding that the statute violated the obligation of Oklahoma courts under the full faith and credit clause to recognize such adoption judgments.

Under the rulings of the Alabama trial and intermediate appellate courts V.L. had been enjoying visitation rights with the children on a temporary basis while E.L. pursued her appeal.  Shortly after its ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court suspended that visitation.  In addition to her petition for review, V.L. filed a petition with SCOTUS requesting a stay of the Alabama Supreme Court order and restoring her visitation rights while this appeal is pending.  This is in accord with her argument that she is the legal adoptive parent of those children and thus is entitled to continued contact of some sort unless E.L. can show that she is unfit or poses a danger to the children.  Because of the appeals of the recognition rulings in this case, there has not yet been a determination by the Alabama trial court whether it is in the best interest of these children for their adoptive mother to have custody or visitation.  By its erroneous decision that V.L. is not a parent with standing to contest these issues, the Alabama Supreme Court has decreed that there be no inquiry into the best interest of the children — an inquiry that should be at the heart of custody and visitation decisions when parents split up.

Iowa Supreme Court Rules for Lesbian Couple in Birth Certificate Dispute

Posted on: May 6th, 2013 by Art Leonard No Comments

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled on May 3 that a state law providing that the husband of a married woman who gives birth to a child is the presumptive father is unconstitutional to the extent that it doesn’t also provide such a presumption of parentage for married lesbian couples.  Although the court rejected a lower court ruling interpreting the statute to lead to such a result, the court affirmed the lower court using its alternative constitutional ruling.  The ruling in Gartner v. Iowa Department of Public Health also evidences the changes in the court due to the defeat of three members in a retention election the year after the court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.

Melissa and Heather Gartner have been a couple since December 2003.  They held a commitment ceremony in 2006 and decided to have children together, with Heather becoming pregnant through anonymous donor insemination.  When their child was born, they went through a second-parent adoption ceremony, obtaining a substitute birth certificate showing both women as parents of the child. 

After Heather became pregnant a second time using the same anonymous donor, the unanimous Iowa Supreme Court ruled in Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862 (Iowa 2009), that same-sex couples are entitled to marry.  Shortly thereafter but before their second child was born, Melissa and Heather were married.  After the birth of their child, they applied for a birth certificate showing both women as parents, on the assumption that a child born to a married woman would also be deemed the child of the mother’s spouse.  But the State Health Department issued a certificate listing only one parent, Heather, and the Department insisted that if Melissa wanted to be listed on the birth certificate, she would have to go through an adoption proceeding.

Polk County District Judge Eliza J. Ovrom ruled in favor of the Gartners’ claim that both women should be listed on the birth certificate, construing state law to require it.  She was interpreting Iowa Code sec. 144.13(2), which provide that if a “mother was married at the time of conception, birth, or at any time during the period between conception and birth, the name of the husband shall be entered on the certificate as the father of the child unless paternity has been determined otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction, in which case the name of the father as determined by the court shall be entered by the department.”  Relying on another statute that provides that state laws should be interpreted as applying to both men and women when only one gender was used in the statute, and in light of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex couples were entitled to the same marital rights as different-sex couples, Judge Ovrom found that the statute should be construed in a gender neutral manner, requiring the listing of the birth mother’s spouse regardless of sex.  The state appealed.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice David Wiggins found that the trial court’s interpretation was inconsistent with the statutory language and the law.  While the Iowa Code does provide for gender neutral interpretation when a statute refers to a particular gender, he found, this principle of gender neutral interpretation is not used when a statute refers to both genders.  The parental presumption statute refers to both the mother and the father, each having a distinct role, so Justice Wiggins asserted that these nouns could not be given gender-neutral meanings in construing the statute.

Thus, the Supreme Court needed to address an issue that the trial court had avoided: whether the statute is constitutional.  And the court found that it was not, applying a straightforward equal protection analysis.  Noting that the state was not asking the court to reconsider its same-sex marriage decision in this case, Justice Wiggins noted that in Varnum the court had ruled that cases of discrimination on account of sexual orientation are subject to heightened scrutiny under Iowa’s constitution.  This put the burden on the state “to show the statutory classification is substantially related to an important governmental objective,” because the statute was treating like classes differently.  Under the statute, when a married woman bears a child through anonymous donor insemination, her husband is listed as the father on the birth certificate, but her wife is not listed as the mother.  (Indeed, the parents are not required by law to disclose to the state that whether the husband is the biological father of the child, as the statute is indifferent to this  unless the biological father comes forward to rebut the presumption.)  Married lesbians and married heterosexual women who become pregnant through donor insemination are similarly situated, as are their spouses.

The state argued some purported state interests to justify differential treatment, but the court made mincemeat out of them.  The state’s three “interests” were “accuracy of birth certificates, efficiency and effectiveness of government administration, and the determination of paternity.” 

As to the first, the court pointed out that the current system “does not always accurately identify the biological father,” since a married woman who becomes pregnant through donor insemination has no obligation to reveal that fact to the state.  Her husband is presumed to be the father and will be listed as such.  “In that situation,” wrote Wiggins, “the Department is not aware the couple conceived the child by an anonymous sperm donor.”  Requiring a lesbian mother’s spouse to adopt does not provide for any more accuracy on birth certificates in terms of identifying the child’s lawful parents.

Turning to the issue of administrative efficiency and effectiveness, the court opined that requiring married lesbian co-parents to go through adoption procedures is less efficient, not more efficient, than just automatically listing the legal spouse on the certificate.  As to the part of the provision involving rebuttal of the presumption, the court wrote that it is rare for a sperm donor to come forward to rebut the presumption of paternity, and of course it never happens with anonymous donors, who are not informed about the use of their sperm.

As to establishing paternity, the court said, “When a lesbian couple is married, it is just as important to establish who is financially responsible for the child and the legal rights of the nonbirthing spouse.  It is important for our laws to recognize that married lesbian couples who have children enjoy the same benefits and burdens as married opposite-sex couples who have children.  By naming the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a married lesbian couple’s child, the child is ensured support from that parent and the parent establishes fundamental legal rights at the moment of birth.  Therefore, the only explanation for not listing the nonbirthing lesbian spouse on the birth certificate is stereotype or prejudice.”  Indeed, the term “stereotype or prejudice” occurred several times in the opinion, as the court concluded that each of the state’s proffered reasons fails and the Department’s refusal to list Melissa on the birth certificate was due to “stereotype or prejudice.”

The trial court had ordered the Department to issue the requested birth certificate to the Gartners, but had stayed its order regarding any other lesbian couples.  In affirming the trial court on constitutional grounds, the court also lifted that stay.

Although there was no dissent, the three justices who were appointed in 2011 in place of the three who were denied retention by the voters in 2010 did not join the court’s opinion.  One was noted as not participating in this case.  The other two, in a brief “special concurrence,” observing that the state “accepts the decision in Varnum v. Brien for purposes of this appeal,” agreed that “if Varnum is the law, then Iowa Code section 144.13(2) cannot be constitutionally applied to deny Melissa Gartner’s request to be listed as parent on the birth certificate of the child delivered by her same-sex spouse.”  Not to put too fine a point on it, these justices are leery about appearing to accept the validity of the Varnum decision, although the successful retention last fall of another member of the Varnum majority should have put their fears to rest.

Lambda Legal represents the Gartners in their quest for a proper birth certificate for their second child, with attorneys from Lambda’s Chicago office, Camilla B. Taylor and Kenneth D. Upton, Jr., joined by local counsel Sharon K. Malheiro of Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts P.C. of Des Moines.  Amicus support came from the National Association of Social Workers, Iowa Chapter, the ACLU, and an amicus on behalf of family law professors by attorneys from National Center for Lesbian Rights.  Of course, the anti-gay Iowa Family Policy Center weighted in on behalf of the Department of Public Health.