Family Law Commons^™

A Scarcity Of Organs, Judith C. Areen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The scarcity of organs will be eliminated only if significantly more people agree to donate their own organs and those of close family members. For this, a more fundamental rethinking of the present system of organ retrieval may be required. Such a revision would begin by placing the debate between supporters of a system based on voluntary giving and those who favor either a market system or one based on expropriation (presumed consent) in the larger context of debate about the kind of society we favor.

Representing Children, Donald N. Duquette

Articles

The Child Protection Law, MCLA 722.630, and the Juvenile Court Rules, MCR 5.915 (B)(2), require the Juvenile Court to appoint an attorney for the child in child protection proceedings. Although the child protection law identifies some of the expectations of the child's counsel,t many questions remain. What does it mean to be a good child advocate in these cases? How does one identify the best interests of the children? What is the place of the child's wishes in identifying the goals of the advocate? Beyond the letter of the law, what ought to be the proper role of the child's …

Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller

Articles

There has been much, mostly inconclusive, discussion about how to define the household in a manner suitable for comparative purposes. Certain conventional criteria are not very useful in the Icelandic context, where it appears that a person could be attached to more than one household, where the laws suggest it was possible for more than one household to be resident in the same uncompartmentalised farmhouse; and where headship might often be shared. Definitions, for example, based on co residence or on commensalism do not jibe all that well with the pastoral transhumance practised by the Icelanders. Sheep were tended and …

Baby M And The Cassandra Problem, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I of this essay outlines the facts of the Baby M case and traces the reasoning the New Jersey Supreme Court used to justify the legal conclusions that it reached.

Part II then identifies the three common analytical techniques or modes of argument on which the state supreme court relied in conducting its analysis and suggests that each is itself too dependent upon unprincipled policy preferences to have excluded such preferences from the decisionmaking process.

Finally, Part III suggests that no matter how strong an argument one might offer to demonstrate the systemic vulnerability of principle to preference, the …

A Civil Liberties Analysis Of Surrogacy Arrangements, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay the author comes to the following conclusions based upon a civil liberties analysis. First, surrogacy arrangements cannot be prohibited or criminalized. Second, the state cannot ban the exchange of money for surrogacy services, provided the money is paid for conception, gestation, and birth. Money, however, cannot be paid on condition that the gestational mother waive her parental rights over the child. Third, contractual provisions that require the gestational mother to waive her parental rights or her rights to privacy and autonomy are void and unenforceable. Fourth, when the child is born, both the gestational mother and the …

State-Interest Analysis In Fourteenth-Amendment "Privacy" Law: An Essay On The Constitutionalization Of Social Issues, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Asked to resolve a social issue, Americans today turn readily to rights and to the Constitution that is understood to embody them. Many "vice" issues have long been thought particularly apt for a rights analysis. A constitutional resolution of vice issues is therefore inevitably a possibility, and its wisdom is inevitably a question. In this essay, I want to address that question by investigating an area of the law that has been recently constitutionalized family law. Family law is an example worth studying because rights thinking has won a considerable prominence in it: The Constitution has been used to transform …

Washington's New Quasi-Community Property Act: Protecting The Immigrant Spouse, Thomas R. Andrews

Articles

In 1986, Washington followed the lead of several other community property jurisdictions by adopting quasi-community property legislation. The act is designed to prevent a spouse who has onerously acquired property during marriage while the couple resided in a common law state from disinheriting his or her surviving spouse as to that property after moving to Washington. It has significant implications not only for married couples contemplating a move to Washington, but also for those who have moved to Washington from common law jurisdictions in the past. This article explains why the risk of disinheritance arises, describes the provisions of Washington's …

The Surrogate Responds: The Need For Reform In Adoption Proceedings, C. Raymond Radigan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Children's Preference In Adjudicated Custody Decisions, Elizabeth S. Scott, N. Dickon Reppucci, Mark Aber

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, courts usually paid little attention to the child's wishes in deciding which parent should have custody upon divorce. Today, statutes in many states direct courts to consider the child's preference, often as one among several factors that guide decisionmaking. With some exceptions, the law gives only general guidance and does not specify under what circumstances and to what extent the child's desire should affect the decision. Little is known about how important this factor is, what variables influence the weight accorded the child's preference, or how courts obtain and evaluate evidence about the child's wishes.

This Article began as …

Defining "Support" Under Bankruptcy Law: Revitalization Of The "Necessaries" Doctrine, Sheryl L. Scheible

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recognition of the social reality that marriage often does not last forever, divorce law in the United States has undergone radical changes in the past few decades.' All states have relaxed restrictions on divorce by adopting some form of no-fault divorce grounds. In addition, recent developments have facilitated the termination of a married couple's relationship in economic terms as well. For instance, states today are less inclined to consider the role of marital fault in the settlement of the financial incidents of divorce, and encourage divorcing couples to end their marriages by negotiation and contract in order to minimize …

The Supreme Court And The New Family Law: Working Through The Pelech Trilogy, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

The trilogy of family law decisions, released by the Supreme Court of Canada on 4 June 1987, represents perhaps the most important statement of the past two decades by Canada's highest court on this rapidly changing area of law. Although decided under the repealed Divorce Act of 1968, judicial analyses of support and domestic contracts are likely to be little altered under the 1985 Act. Furthermore, that these cases reveal the Court's underlying philosophy of the new family law as a whole suggests a significance that transcends specific amendments to the Act. With respect to the outcome of each individual …

Recent Reforms In Family Law: Progress Or Backlash?, Brenda Hoggett

Dalhousie Law Journal

My qualifications for delivering this lecture in honour of the late Horace E. Read are questionable. As an English academic family lawyer, I cannot claim an interest in the substantive areas of law which most interested him. As a member of the English Law Commission, however, I can claim an interest in legislation and the legislative process and Horace Read is perhaps best known outside North America for his pioneering work on the teaching of methods of making and applying legislation, including of course his Cases and Materials on Legislation. I should like, therefore, to offer him some thoughts on …

Family Law: Cases, Comments & Questions, Alastair Bissett-Johnson

Dalhousie Law Journal

The thought that a Canadian, who has difficulty mastering the Federal Divorce Law together with that of 13 Provincial or Territorial bodies of family law might benefit from reading a large American casebook with national coverage requires explanation. In fact the problems of family law seem to run along defined channels of human behaviour which transcend national boundaries. The solutions are not always the same (hence the nature of this book in breaking out of particular mind sets) but the underlying problems are.

Reflections On The Significance Of The Sex/Gender System: Divorce Law Reform In New York, Isabel Marcus

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Classifying Marital And Separate Property--Combinations And Increase In Value Of Separate Property, Joan M. Krauskopf

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legal History Of The Family, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America by Michael Grossberg

Clark Memorandum: Spring/Summer 1987, J. Reuben Clark Law School, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Going Dutch (Kira P. Davis)
• Abandoning Children to Their Rights (Bruce C. Hafen)

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: The Role Of The Noneconomic Contribution Of The Physical Custodian In Establishing Child Support, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Where The Wind Blows: Fee Shifting In Domestic Relations Cases, Wenona Y. Whitfield

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Claims Of Adults Molested As Children: Maturation Of Harm And The Statute Of Limitations Hurdle, Carolyn B. Handler

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Note, focusing on New York law, demonstrates that the statute of limitations is the primary procedural difficulty that adult victims of childhood incest abuse encounter in bringing their civil claims. Specifically, the traditionally short statutes of limitations for assault, battery and infliction of mental distress often preclude the adult victim of childhood incest from seeking a remedy within the statutorily prescribed time. Part II of this Note presents an overview of the nature of incest abuse and its resultant injuries and considers the purposes and policies behind statutes of limitations. Part II also sets out the various common law …

Maternal Liability: Courts Strive To Keep Doors Open To Fetal Protection - But Can They Succeed, 20 J. Marshall L. Rev. 747 (1987), Shannon S. Sullivan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ordinary People: Soviet-American Transnational Marriage And The International Implications Of Divided Spouses, Julia T. Garrett

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

They are indeed ordinary people. This comment examines the problem of divided spouses and blocked marriages within the framework of international law and the complex realties of superpower politics between the United States and Soviet Union. The author utilizes illustrative cases, suggests remedies, and discusses the possible future international implications of leaving the issue unresolved.

Lemley V. Barr: Who Gets Baby Ryan And Who Should Decide, Thomas G. Steele

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Equitable Distribution Of Professional Degrees Upon Divorce In North Carolina, Carole S. Gailor, Meredith J. Mcgill

Campbell Law Review

This article will examine the concept of the advanced degree as property subject to equitable distribution in the context of the North Carolina equitable distribution of marital property statute and the prevalent theories of compensation to the working spouse within the scope of North Carolina's statutory property distribution and spousal maintenance schemes.

Enforcing Surrogate Motherhood Agreements: The Trouble With Specific Performance, Susan M. Wolf

NYLS Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Surrogacy V. The Thirteenth Amendment, Cyril C. Means Jr.

NYLS Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

The Right To Parenthood And The Best Interests Of The Child: A Perspective On Surrogate Motherhood In Jewish And Israeli Law, Pinhas Shifman

NYLS Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Using Hindsight To Change Child Support Obligations: A Survey Of Retroactive Modification And Reimbursement Of Child Support In North Carolina, Beverly W. Massey

Campbell Law Review

The ratification of Chapter 50, section 13.10 of the North Carolina General Statutes, effective October 1, 1987, now focuses attention on the retroactive modifiability of court-ordered child support obligations in this state. Retroactive liability for child support, however, is not limited to retroactive changes in court-ordered support. The concept also includes retroactive changes in contractual child support obligations, as well as several miscellaneous remedies that allow a court to reimburse a parent, the state, or a third-party provider of necessaries for past expenditures on the child's behalf.

Casenotes: Family Law — A Professional Degree Or License Acquired During Marriage Is Not Marital Property Subject To Equitable Distribution Under The Property Disposition In Annulment And Divorce Law. Archer V. Archer, 303 Md. 347, 493 A.2d 1074 (1985), Shoshana L. Katz

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Maryland's Statutory Hearsay Exception For Reliable Statements By Alleged Child Abuse Victims: A Hesitant Step Forward, Lynn Mclain

University of Baltimore Law Review

The Maryland General Assembly recently passed legislation, effective July 1, 1988, which grants a trial court the opportunity to allow a physician, psychologist, social worker, or teacher to testify to an out-of-court statement made by an alleged child abuse victim if the court finds that the circumstances in which the statement was made exhibit sufficient particularized guarantees of reliability. This article discusses the need for such an exception to the rule precluding admission of hearsay for statements made by alleged victims of child abuse, exposes the inadequacies of pre-existing exceptions, addresses the constitutional considerations raised by admission of such hearsay …