Opinion ID: 6355971
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Our Existing Case Law

Text: ¶ 12. Four prior decisions of this Court set the stage for this case: In re B.L.V.B. , 160 Vt. 368 , 628 A.2d 1271 (1993), Titchenal , 166 Vt. 373 , 693 A.2d 682 , Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins , 2006 VT 78 , 180 Vt. 441 , 912 A.2d 951 , and Moreau , 2014 VT 31 , 196 Vt. 183 , 95 A.3d 416 . Together, these cases support the proposition that in a narrow class of cases in which there is no competing claimant, parental status can flow from the mutual agreement and actions of the established legal parent and a putative second parent even in the absence of a marriage or a civil union between the parents or a biological connection between putative parent and child. ¶ 13. In In re B.L.V.B. , 160 Vt. 368 , 628 A.2d 1271 , this Court first recognized that in certain cases a legal status between parent and child may arise from the mutual agreement and joint conduct of the child's legally recognized parent and the intended second parent even without a connection through marriage or biology. In that decision, the Court also recognized the Legislature's intent that statutes concerning parent and child be construed in a way that promotes the welfare of children. In these ways, the Court laid a critical foundation for its developing understanding of parenthood. ¶ 14. Deborah, the petitioner in In re B.L.V.B. , and her partner Jane were in a committed relationship. They decided that Jane would bear children conceived with sperm from an anonymous donor, and they would raise the children together. They had two children. Deborah assisted at the births, and she and Jane were equally responsible for raising and parenting both children. Vermont's adoption laws at the time provided that when a person adopts a child, the parental rights of prior parents were extinguished, except when the adoption is made by a spouse of a natural parent. Id. at 370 , 628 A.2d at 1273 (quotation omitted). The probate court concluded that because Deborah and Jane were not married, this step-parent exception did not apply and Deborah could only adopt if Jane relinquished her parental status. Id. ¶ 15. On appeal, this Court first emphasized that the primary concern of Vermont's adoption statutes is to promote the welfare of children and that the statutes should be implemented in a way that promotes that goal. Id. at 371 , 628 A.2d at 1273 . Noting that the precise circumstances of these adoptions may not have been contemplated during the initial drafting of the statute, the Court concluded that [t]he intent of the legislature was to protect the security of family units by defining the legal rights and responsibilities of children who find themselves in circumstances that do not include two biological parents. Id. at 373 , 628 A.2d at 1274 . With this in mind, the Court rejected a narrow interpretation of the statute, explaining, we cannot conclude that the legislature ever meant to terminate the parental rights of a biological parent who intended to continue raising a child with the help of a partner. Id. To conclude otherwise, the Court explained, would produce the unreasonable and irrational result of defeating adoptions that are otherwise indisputably in the best interests of children. Id. ¶ 16. The Court acknowledged the changing family structures that had given rise to the case, and stated: It is not the courts that have engendered the diverse composition of today's families. It is the advancement of reproductive  technologies and society's recognition of alternative lifestyles that have produced families in which a biological, and therefore a legal, connection is no longer the sole organizing principle. But it is the courts that are required to define, declare and protect the rights of children raised in these families, usually upon their dissolution. At that point, courts are left to vindicate the public interest in the children's financial support and emotional well-being by developing theories of parenthood, so that legal strangers who are de facto parents may be awarded custody or visitation or reached for support.... It is surely in the best interests of children, and the state, to facilitate adoptions in these circumstances so that legal rights and responsibilities may be determined now and any problems that arise later may be resolved within the recognized framework of domestic relations laws. Id. at 376 , 628 A.2d at 1276 . ¶ 17. The specific issue before the Court in In re B.L.V.B. -the availability of second-parent adoptions to unmarried partners-was different from the issue in this case. But several features of the Court's analysis presage our discussion in subsequent decisions, including the Court's recognition that biology and marriage are not the only indicia of family formation that are worthy of judicial recognition; that mutual intent to conceive and parent a child, and follow through in doing so, warrant the law's cognizance; and that our statutes should be construed to bring the recognized framework of our domestic relations laws to families as we find them. ¶ 18. This Court's decision several years later in Titchenal does not necessarily represent a retreat from these principles. In Titchenal , a lesbian couple decided to have a child together. When attempts to conceive through donor insemination failed, one of the women adopted. The second mother did not adopt the child because at the time they did not believe the then-current adoption statute would allow them both to adopt. 2 After the couple split, the nonadoptive mother, who could not at the time have legally married the child's adoptive mother, asked the superior court (predecessor to what is now the Civil Division of the Superior Court) to invoke its general equitable authority to afford her parent-child contact with the child she had co-parented for many years. The majority rejected a framework in which the family court adjudicates disputes concerning parental rights and responsibilities and parent-child contact in divorce, parentage, dependency and neglect, relief-from-abuse, nonsupport and separation, and other statutory proceedings, but the superior court exerts its equitable powers to adjudicate such disputes outside of statutory proceedings. Titchenal , 166 Vt. at 376-77, 693 A.2d at 684 ; see also Moreau , 2014 VT 31 , ¶ 45, 196 Vt. 183 , 95 A.3d 416 (Robinson, J., dissenting) (discussing core holding of Titchenal in detail). Much of the Court's discussion in Titchenal focused on the fact that the putative mother was seeking relief in the wrong court on the basis of the wrong theory, and the controlling holding of Titchenal was narrow and turned on the procedural and jurisdictional posture of the case. ¶ 19. Nevertheless, there is no question that in its opinion the Court expressed  skepticism about the concept of de facto parenthood pursuant to which parental rights, even the more limited right of parent-child contact, may arise from an established parent-child bond in the absence of a legal adoption, biological connection, or marriage. See, e.g., Titchenal , 166 Vt. at 385 , 693 A.2d at 689 (In our view, [the public policy] considerations are not so clear and compelling that they require us to acknowledge that de facto parents have a legally cognizable right to parent-child contact .... ). The Court was particularly concerned that a wide range of adults who had relationships with a child, such as relatives, foster parents, and even day-care providers, might claim rights to parent-child contact on the basis of their parent-like relationships. Id. at 382-83 , 693 A.2d at 687-88 . This general sensibility, rather than the actual controlling holding, has become the primary legacy of Titchenal . ¶ 20. In Miller-Jenkins , 2006 VT 78 , 180 Vt. 441 , 912 A.2d 951 , the Court had an opportunity to consider a similar case without the jurisdictional problems. In that case, two women who had a child conceived through donor insemination during the course of their civil union were before the court in a statutory civil union dissolution action. The biological mother of the parties' child sought to cut off contact between the child and the nonbiological mother, arguing that a nonbiological putative parent could not be a legally recognized parent. Given that the case arose in the family court in a statutory civil union dissolution case, the primary obstacle that defeated the nonadoptive mother in Titchenal was not present. The nonbiological mother was not invoking equity to claim parent-like rights on the ground that she had a parent-like relationship with the child; her statutory claim was that she was the child's parent. ¶ 21. In ruling that the nonbiological mother in Miller-Jenkins was a legal parent to the child, this Court took several significant analytic steps. First, the Court rejected the argument that the parentage statute-both its use of the term natural parent and the presumptions built into that statute-establishes a framework for determining who is and is not a parent under Vermont law. Id. ¶¶ 53-55 ; see 15 V.S.A. § 308. Explaining that the parentage statute does not contain a definition of parent, and that the presumptions in the statute were designed to allow for summary child support adjudication in certain cases rather than to limit who may and may not be deemed a parent, the Court concluded that the parentage statute was irrelevant to determining whether the nonbiological mother was a legal parent. Id. ¶ 55. ¶ 22. Second, and most important, the Court did not conclude that simply by virtue of her civil union with the child's biological mother at the time the child was born, the nonbiological mother was the legal parent. It could have done so. Instead, the Court identified a series of factors that supported its conclusion, including not only the parties' civil union at the time of the child's birth, but also their mutual intention that they would co-parent the child, the nonbiological mother's participation in the decision that the biological mother would give birth through donor insemination, the fact that they both treated the nonbiological mother as the child's parent, and the fact that there was no other person claiming to be the child's parent. Id. ¶ 56. The Court expressly disclaimed the suggestion that a single factor-the parties' civil union-was dispositive. Although it described this factor as extremely persuasive evidence of joint parentage, the Court concluded that [b]ecause so many factors are present in this case that allow us to hold that the nonbiologically-related  partner is the child's parent, we need not address which factors may be dispositive on the issue in a closer case. Id. ¶ 58. In that regard, the Court noted, [t]his is not a close case under the precedents from other states. Id. ¶ 23. Finally, in recognizing that a nonbiological parent's legal status may arise from the parents' mutual agreement to bring a child into their family and raise the child as co-parents, their actual conduct in doing so, and the absence of any other putative parent, the Court never once mentioned the Titchenal decision. The omission could be interpreted as signaling that, while Titchenal may still be good law as to its narrow procedural and jurisdictional holding, that decision's general skepticism toward claims of parentage arising from the mutual intent and conduct of the parents no longer reflected the prevailing view of the Court. But it could also be interpreted as a response to a narrower theory of parenthood, entirely consistent with the Court's rejection of a broad theory of parental rights for people with parent-like relationships. In Miller-Jenkins , the putative mother did not cast herself as a legal stranger to the child who was entitled to parental rights through the operation of equity on the basis of her parent-like relationship; she asserted that she was the child's second parent by virtue of her pre-conception agreement with the child's biological mother to bring the child into the world and her post-conception conduct in serving as a second parent to the child. Thus understood, the Court's understanding of parenthood in Miller-Jenkins is not inconsistent with its discussion in Titchenal that rejects a broader theory. ¶ 24. This Court's rejection of a putative parent's claim to parentage in Moreau , 2014 VT 31 , 196 Vt. 183 , 95 A.3d 416 , is not necessarily inconsistent with Miller-Jenkins . The Court in Moreau considered a parentage claim by a father who was not married to the children's birth mother nor biologically related to them, but who had co-parented the children in question for many years with mother's consent and encouragement. The father did not allege that he and the mother agreed in advance to bring the children into their family and raise them together, and, at least in theory, the children had a biological father with a potential claim to parental status on that basis. In rejecting the putative father's parentage claim, the Court hearkened back to Titchenal and this Court's rejection of a broad theory of de facto parenthood. In distinguishing Miller-Jenkins , the Court suggested that the Miller-Jenkins holding rested on the parties' civil union status. Id. ¶¶ 15-17. ¶ 25. Together, these decisions, all of which remain good law, establish the framework for this case.