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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Empirics Of Child Custody, Margaret Ryznar
The Empirics Of Child Custody, Margaret Ryznar
Cleveland State Law Review
Child custody issues are as American as apple pie, with only a quarter of children seeing their parents married until the end. The legal standard for custody is the best interests of the child, but the greyness of this inquiry allows courts to make difficult judgments. In family law, such discretionary standards govern factually diverse cases and make it difficult to draw conclusions from individual cases. This Article offers an objective measurement in family law by empirically examining a sample of Indiana divorce cases filed during three months in 2008 that involved children. The resulting analysis of child custody and …
Due Date: Enforcing Surrogacy Promises In The Best Interest Of The Child, Browne C. Lewis
Due Date: Enforcing Surrogacy Promises In The Best Interest Of The Child, Browne C. Lewis
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
Professor Lewis argues that the courts should apply contract principles and not family law principles to resolve surrogacy disputes. Since children are unique, Professor Lewis argues, courts should presume that the contract should be specifically enforced. As a result, the intended mother should be adjudicated the legal mother. However, Professor Lewis further argues the the surrogate should be able to present evidence of changed circumstances to rebut the presumption of specific performance and permit the court to determine maternity based upon the best interests of the child.
Three Lies And A Truth: Adjudicating Maternity In Surrogacy Disputes, Browne C. Lewis
Three Lies And A Truth: Adjudicating Maternity In Surrogacy Disputes, Browne C. Lewis
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
Historically, courts were called on to answer the following question: What makes a man a legal father? Courts applied different presumptions to arrive at the answer. For example, if the case involved a married couple, the woman's husband was presumed to be the legal father.1 In situations involving an unmarried woman, the man who helped to conceive the child was the legal father. While paternity was being litigated, maternity was resolved-the woman who gave birth to the child was the child's legal mother. The phrase “momma's baby, papa's maybe” reflected society's attitude towards maternity. Since the woman who gave birth …
Fathers, Foreskins, And Family Law, Dena S. Davis
Fathers, Foreskins, And Family Law, Dena S. Davis
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In the United States, a custodial parent has the right and responsibility to make medical decisions for one's child. But does that right encompass consenting for a surgical procedure for which there is little or no medical justification? What if the noncustodial parent opposed the procedure? And when is a child old enough to make the decision for him- or herself? How should a physician respond when asked to perform a surgical procedure when the decision is enmeshed in family controversy? These and other questions are considered in Boldt, a recent family law case decided by the Supreme Court of …
How Parents And Children Disappear In Our Courts - And Why It Need Not Ever Happen Again, James A. Cosby
How Parents And Children Disappear In Our Courts - And Why It Need Not Ever Happen Again, James A. Cosby
Cleveland State Law Review
Part One of this Article further examines those moral, factual and legal dynamics in the family that make these cases so difficult. Part Two summarizes the present state of the law, and demonstrates precisely where and why the current legal approach is falling short. I will show how the law specifically fails to adequately define the rights of parents, substantively as well as procedurally and, I will furthermore demonstrate how, in their current forms, the doctrines of parental autonomy and the best interests of the child are far too broad and too rigid for many cases involving the parent-child relationship. …
Squeezing Subjectivity From The Doctrine Of Unconscionability, Paul Bennett Marrow
Squeezing Subjectivity From The Doctrine Of Unconscionability, Paul Bennett Marrow
Cleveland State Law Review
Issues of unconscionability are most often encountered in two arenas: commercial agreements and family law agreements. In the first arena this Article proposes that the analysis should focus on the impact of a suspect term on the integrity of the contracting system or to an enabling statute. If a contract term materially undermines or compromises the integrity of the system for contracting or the integrity of an enabling statute, it should be found unconscionable. In the family law arena things differ because of the substance of the relationships involved and because the need for mutual consideration is de-emphasized. Accordingly, in …
Contract Sports, Martha M. Ertman
Contract Sports, Martha M. Ertman
Cleveland State Law Review
I explore ways that the private law of commerce can be imported to the private law of domestic relations to remedy family law's inadequacy and inequality. Existing domestic relations law posits heterosexual marriage as naturally superior to other forms of intimate affiliation, rendering the others (such as cohabitation, same-sex sexuality, and polyamory) unnatural and inferior. As such, it fails to recognize many intimate affiliations. Two examples of bridging the divide between private business law and private family law that I discuss in this essay are cohabitation contracts and Premarital Security Agreements. Importing private business models to domestic relations law has …
The Dna Paternity Test: Legislating The Future Paternity Action, E. Donald Shapiro, Stewart Reifler, Claudia L. Psome
The Dna Paternity Test: Legislating The Future Paternity Action, E. Donald Shapiro, Stewart Reifler, Claudia L. Psome
Journal of Law and Health
This Article will first briefly examine the historical development of the paternity suit in the beginning of Part II. Part II will then focus upon the standards of proof, presumptions and affirmative defenses concomitant to the traditional paternity action. Part III will examine the concepts and legal applications behind blood group / genetic marker testing and the probability formulas derived from these tests used to exclude or include a putative father. Part IV will examine the technology behind DNA paternity testing and its current evidentiary admissibility. Part V will discuss some of the substantive and public policy issues relating to …