Law Commons^™

The Informal Property Rights Of Boomerang Children In The Home, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy

Maryland Law Review

Adult children living with their parents represent an increasingly common social phenomenon in the United States that challenges the boundaries of both the family and formal property rights. What is the legal status of adult children living with their parents? Do parents have any additional duties when they rescind permission for their child to live with them? Property and family scholars have not addressed this important issue. This Article fills the void. Instead of treating people who live together as strangers, owing no legal obligations to one another, I argue that under certain conditions living with others creates a property …

The Case For Relocation – Relocation Vs Continuity: Bnt V Bns [2014] Sghc 87, Jonathan Chen Yeen Muk

Jonathan Muk

BNT v BNS (“BNT”) is significant for the fact that it is one out of two major Singapore decisions dealing with a foreigner parent seeking permanent relocation of the children overseas. In coming to her decision, Judith Prakash J overruled the trial judge’s decision and denied the mother permission to bring the children back to their home country, Canada. An analysis of the case is worthwhile, considering that in the earlier decision of AZB v AYZ [2012] 3 SLR 627, Andrew Ang J had granted the mother permission to relocate the children from Singapore to the United States of America. …

Protecting Our Children: A Reformation Of South Carolina's Homicide By Child Abuse Laws, Brigid Benincasa

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Formalism For Family Law, Rebecca Aviel

William & Mary Law Review

Family law is simultaneously moving toward and away from formalist decision making. Examining family law across its various component doctrines—custody disputes, child support, jurisdiction, and parentage—reveals these two competing trends. In some of these areas, scholars and lawmakers have recognized that litigating under open-ended, amorphous standards is unpredictable and often painful, with costs that undermine the very purposes served by these legal frameworks; in these areas we are witnessing a turn toward determinate rules over judicial discretion as the preferred means of resolving disputes. In other areas, however, family law is experiencing a trend toward more flexible decision making that …

In Defense Of Surrogacy Agreements: A Modern Contract Law Perspective, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The American public’s attention was first exposed to the practice of surrogacy in 1988 with the drama and verdict of the Baby M case. Over the last twenty-five years the practice of surrogacy has slowly but surely become increasingly socially accepted and even welcomed. This evolution serves to emphasize the bizarre judicial and legislative silence regarding surrogacy that exists today in the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions. In this article I describe and trace the dramatic revolution that took place during the recent decades as the surrogacy practice has totally changed from one viewed as problematic and rejected to a …

The Development Of A Non-Profit Organization, Keep In Touch, As A Solution To The Problem Of Visitation, Shalom Z. Lapoint, Shalom Z. Lapoint

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This project discusses the development of Keep in Touch. Keep in Touch is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which is designed to aid the visitation process. Visitation is concerned with children and their families who have been separated. Reasons for separation vary; however, many children have been separated and would benefit greatly from a local visitation program. Items such as children’s rights, California’s mandatory mediation law, and the current conditions of the family court house in San Bernardino County are all discussed and examined as supporting evidence to the problem of family visitation. The goal of Keep in Touch is …

To Be Male: Homophobia, Sexism, And The Production Of “Masculine” Boys, Clifford Rosky

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This chapter is about the relationship between homophobia and sexism in family law. By conducting an empirical analysis of custody and visitation cases, it shows that stereotypes about the children of lesbian and gay parents are both sexist and homophobic. In some cases, the relationship between homophobia and sexism becomes especially obvious, when stereotypes explicitly conflate the sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender roles of children and parents. By looking more closely, however, we can find more subtle evidence of this relationship in a much wider range of cases, wherever stereotypes of the children of lesbian and gay parents appear. …

Advanced Property Issues In Family Law: An Annotated Bibliography, Travis Mcdonald, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

This bibliography covers law review articles published, for the most part, after 2006 on property issues within the context of family law. Articles for which the title is self-explanatory or that concern only a single case, state, or statute are cited, but not annotated.

Translating Religious Principles Into German Law: Boundaries And Contradictions, Pascale Fournier, Régine Tremblay

All Faculty Publications

First we present the basic rules of Islamic and Jewish law and the German state law that regulates them. Next we contend that the boundaries for shaping and applying religious norms are blurry. We argue that the conflicting outcomes might be explained by boundless discretion and informality in the religious adjudication process, but that this structure is not foreign to so-called secular family law. Thus, if the project of recognizing religious principles when it comes to family law is to be maintained, it must take stock of the conceptual and practical conflicts that inhere to the sphere of family law, …

Institutionalized Silence: The Problem Of Child Voicelessness In Divorce Proceedings, Brandon Sadowsky

Brandon Sadowsky

In this paper, I present the current state of child representation in divorce proceedings. I argue that children should be represented in all divorce proceedings. I then consider the best interest and client-directed models of child representation and argue that each model is supported by important intuitions: paternalism and autonomy, respectively. I try to formulate a hybrid model that satisfies both of these intuitions.

Intentional Parenthood: A Solution To The Plight Of Same-Sex Partners Striving For Legal Recognition As Parents, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

One significant ramification of the plight of same-sex partners attempting to receive legal recognition of their non-“traditional” family structure is their inability to be recognized as the legal and/or additional parent of a non-biologically related child either by adoption or following fertility treatments. It is a fact that gay partners are not legally recognized as married, therefore they are not granted the same legal recognition as their heterosexual peers. In this research, I will explore the main approaches available today to same-sex partners to acquire legal parentage and their inherent difficulties. I will suggest a way to circumvent those difficulties …

Modern Reformation: An Overview Of New York’S Domestic Relations Law Overhaul, Meaghan E. Howard

Touro Law Review

With nearly half of all first time marriages ending in divorce, there is no wonder that legal reform in the area of domestic relations law has recently taken the State of New York by storm. New York held onto the relic of fault-based divorce for an unusually long period of time, in part due to notions of marital sanctity and reinforcement of the traditional nuclear family. On the other hand, the State, after succumbing to the battle over no-fault divorce, quickly adopted a progressive social and legislative policy by validating the desire of same-sex couples to marry.

Maneuvering Modernity: Family Law As A Battle Field In Colonial Taiwan (1895-1945), Yun-Ru Chen

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

Twenty five years after launching its own legal modernization in response to Western imperialism, Japan imposed a modern legal system upon its first colony, Taiwan. In accordance with the “respecting old custom” colonial policy, the Japanese created a system called Taiwanese customary law, a mixture of imperial Chinese laws, local customs and European legal concepts, and gradually implemented its newly adopted European-style Meiji Civil Code (1898). However, even since the late 1910s when the colonial policy changed into “full-flag assimilation,” family law remained an exception to the transplantation of Japanese laws. That did not, however, mean that family law was …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Best-Interests Standard: The Close Connection Between Substance And Process In Resolving Divorce-Related Parenting Disputes, Jana B. Singer

Jana B. Singer

This essay, written for a Symposium celebrating the child custody scholarship of Professor Robert Mnookin, examines the close connection between changes in substantive child custody doctrine and changes in custody dispute resolution processes over the past 30 years. Part I of the article explores how the widespread adoption of an unmediated “best interest of the child” standard, and the ensuing rejection of the sole custody paradigm, precipitated a shift from adversarial to non-adversarial resolution of divorce-related parenting disputes. Part II of the essay reverses the direction of the analytic lens and considers how the shift from adversarial to non-adversarial dispute …

The Exploratory Study Of Custody And Visitation Rights For Children In Same-Sex Families, Valencia Tamir Johnson Dr.

Valencia T Johnson

In today’s society, same-sex marriages are being legalize in some states with certain stipulations and statutory requirements in respected states. Since there are more states legalizing same-sex marriages, the courts are facing tougher challenges in Family Law that pertains to the Custody and Visitation Rights for Children in Same-Sex Families. Due to the lack of legal and judicial interpretation of statutory laws in the Custody and Visitation Rights for Children in Same-Sex Families, further research need to be explored. In addition, the article addresses the legal and judicial authority of interpreting the law in various states. The article provide a …

Why Turner V. Rogers Was And Wasn’T Correctly Decided: How The Fourteenth Amendment Should Be Read For Child Support Contemnors, Gina Rose Lauterio

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Three Waves Of Married Women’S Property Acts In The Nineteenth Century With A Focus On Mississippi, New York And Oregon, Joe Custer

Joe Custer

Paper starts with a brief section on early America and social reform that provides a background on why married women's property acts (MWPA's) passed when they did in nineteenth century America. After laying the foundation, the paper delves into the three waves in which the MWPA's were passed in the nineteenth century focusing for the first time in the literature on one specific state for each wave. The three states; Mississippi, New York and Oregon, are examined leading up to passage. Next, the paper will look into the judicial reaction of each State’s highest court. Were the courts supportive of …

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored.

This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored.

This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

A Jurisprudence Clarified Or "Mcleod-Ed"?: The Real Constitutional Impact Of Court-Mandated Postsecondary Educational Support, Emily A. Evans

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intimate Liability: Emotional Harm, Family Law, And Stereotyped Narratives In Interspousal Torts, Fernanda G. Nicola

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Tort liability expanded in the twentieth century, a shift scholars generally attribute to the reorganization of tort law around the fault principle. In privileging compensation and deterrence, this reconfiguration ended various restrictions on liability, long viewed as arbitrary, including limits to the recovery for emotional harm and interspousal immunities. Tort and family law scholars alike portray the end of such immunities as a milestone for gender equality. Their elimination enables spouses and partners to secure compensation for emotional and physical abuse arising in intimate relationships. Yet, tort law is not operating in this way. On the contrary, by endorsing a …

Esclusione Di Valori Mobiliari E Immobili Dalla Comunione Legale Fra Coniugi, Valerio Sangiovanni

Valerio Sangiovanni

No abstract provided.

Whatever Your Thoughts On Marriage, Gay Divorce Is A Concern, Nathan B. Oman

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Why We Should Raise The Marriage Age, Vivian E. Hamilton

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Husband-Wife Homicide: An Essay From A Family Law Perspective, Margaret Howard

Margaret Howard

No abstract provided.

Heuristics, Cognitive Biases, And Accountability: Decision-Making In Dependency Court, Matthew I. Fraidin

Journal Articles

On tens of thousands of occasions each year, state court judges wrongly separate children from their families and place them in foster care. And while a child is in foster care, judges are called on to render hundreds of decisions affecting every aspect of the child’s life. This Article uses insights from social psychology research to analyze the environment of dependency court and to recommend changes that will improve decisions. Research indicates that decision makers aware at the time they make a decision that they will be called upon later to explain it may engage in a systematic, deliberate decision-making …

What’S Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored. This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

Rumors Of The Sharia Threat Are Greatly Exaggerated: What American Judges Really Do With Islamic Family Law In Their Courtrooms, Asifa Quraishi-Landes

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex And Statutory Uniformity: Harmonizing The Legal Treatment Of Semen, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Misused Concepts And Misguided Questions: Fundamental Confusions In Family Law Debates, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.