In a case of first impression, CALG’s Claudia Ribet and Jennifer Teaford persuaded the California Court of Appeal’s Second District to reject a sperm donor’s petition that sought presumed parent status of a child who had already been adopted.
CALG represented a married lesbian couple who entered into a sperm donor contract with a friend and conceived their daughter through in vitro fertilization using the donor’s sperm. Within months of the birth, the spouse finalized a stepparent adoption of her daughter with voluntary consent from the donor.
The donor played a fatherly role for the first part of the child’s life, but when that contact stopped, he sought to be recognized as a presumed parent or a third parent, or to have enforceable visitation as a nonparent.
Consulting at the superior court level and taking the lead on appeal, Claudia and Jennifer convinced the Second District that the consequence of a final adoption order is to give a child’s adoptive parents — and not the courts — the right to decide with whom the child spends her time.
You can read the opinion in C.C. v. L.B. et al. by clicking here.
