New Jersey judge awards full custody of twins born through surrogacy to gay father

The New Jersey case of A.G.R. v. D.R.H. & S.H. is a story of much that can go wrong.  At the center of the case are two twin girls, born in October 2006.  There has been litigation about their parentage and care since they were five months old.  The girls were born to AGR, who was a gestational surrogate for her brother, DRH, and his partner, SH, who is the children's biological father.  AGR

Texas Supreme Court lets stand lower court order registering the parentage judgment of a gay male couple

On September 30, the Texas Supreme Court denied review in a case brought by the nonbiological father of a child born using his ex-partner's sperm to a California surrogate mother. The couple, Jerry Berwick and Richard Wagner, lived in Texas, and had a child in December 2005 pursuant to a gestational surrogacy contract in California. Berwick is the biological father. Pursuant to agreements filed

Wisconsin court leaves stand a parentage order for a nonbio mom but precludes such orders in the future

The most horrific part of last month's North Carolina Boseman v. Jarrell opinion against second-parent adoption was that it said the court that granted the adoption lacked "subject matter jurisdiction," which means that the order was void, along with all second-parent adoption orders, the moment it was granted. That wiped out every second-parent adoption in the state.Well, within days of that

British Columbia Attorney General's White Paper proposes explicit recognition of three parents

Hats off to New Jersey lawyer Bill Singer for alerting me to the article in yesterday's Vancouver Sun on an aspect of family law reform under consideration in British Columbia. While the article focuses largely on the possibility of a child having three legal parents, the White Paper released by the province's Attorney General in July, proposing a complete overall of the Family Law Act, is much

Virginia really does enforce custody orders from other states

My post on the most recent Miller-Jenkins ruling explained that the history of that case is filled with Virginia court rulings that Virginia will enforce child custody and visitation orders properly entered in another state. In that case, the state was Vermont. Yesterday, a Virginia appeals court again reiterated the basic principle of child custody law that every state must enforce the custody