In a case showing the pressing need for revision and updating of New York’s Domestic Relations Law to reflect modern-day family realities and effectively take account of the existence of the N.Y. Marriage Equality Act, the Appellate Division, 3rd Department, ruled on January 25 that a sperm donor to a lesbian married couple was “equitably estopped” from seeking a paternity determination regarding the child conceived using his sperm, and countermanded a ruling by Chemung … <Read More>
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 … <Read More>
The Court of Appeals of Arizona ruled on October 11 that as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), holding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and that their marriages must receive equal treatment under the law to those of different-sex couples, the Arizona courts must construe the state’s paternity statute in a gender neutral way so that the same-sex spouse of … <Read More>
The New York Appellate Division, Second Department, an intermediate appellate court based in Brooklyn, issued a unanimous ruling on April 6 affirming a decision by Suffolk County Family Court Judge Deborah Poulos recognizing the parental status of a lesbian co-parent, now resident in Arizona, who is seeking visitation with two children who were conceived through donor insemination while she was legally partnered with their birth mother, first as a California domestic partner and then as … <Read More>
Senior U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel (Southern District of Ohio) ruled on January 30 that Christa Dias, who was fired as a computer technology coordinator from two schools of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati after she told her principal at one of the schools that she was pregnant, is entitled to a jury trial of her pregnancy discrimination complaint under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but not of her breach … <Read More>