U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled on June 30 that Indiana was failing to comply with the Supreme Court’s mandate for marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, decided last June 26, when the state refused to list the same-sex spouses of birth mothers on their children’s birth certificates. Ruling on cases brought by several same-sex couples who were married before their children were born, Judge Pratt found that the mandate to afford equal marriage … <Read More>
donor insemination
N.Y. Appellate Division Approves Comity for California Parentage Rights of Lesbian Co-Parent
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>
Nassau County (N.Y.) Family Court Rejects Lesbian Co-Parent Custody Petition
Nassau County (NY) Family Court Judge Edmund M. Dane rejected a lesbian co-parent’s joint custody petition on June 30, finding that despite the 2011 passage of New York’s Marriage Equality Law, the state’s child custody laws fail to acknowledge parental claims of a co-parent who was not married to the child’s birth mother when the child was born. Jann P. v. Jamie P., NYLJ 1202664272007 (published July 23, 2014).
According to Judge Dane’s opinion, the … <Read More>
Florida Supreme Court Rules 4-3 in Favor of Lesbian Co-Parent Egg Donor’s Right to Seek Custody
Ruling on a question of first impression for Florida, the state’s Supreme Court split 4-3, finding that a lesbian co-parent who had donated an egg that was fertilized in vitro and implanted in her same-sex partner, could seek custody of the resulting child whom she had parented for the first two years of the child’s life before the couple’s relationship ended. The court approved a ruling by the 5th District Court of Appeal that a … <Read More>
Presumed Parenthood for California Domestic Partners – Did This Issue Have to Be Litigated?
Under longstanding legal principles in most American jurisdictions, and definitely in California, when a married woman has a child, her spouse is presumed to be the legal parent of the child. When California first established legally-recognized domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, this status brought with it only a limited menu of rights and responsibilities. However, through a few rounds of amendments, the domestic partnership status was expanded to come close to matching the legal rights … <Read More>
Pregnant Lesbian Will Get Jury Trial Against Catholic School
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>