LAW MARKS: Mark Johnson's occasional--and occasionally irreverent--review of recent developments in family law and civil procedure. For February 2005, topics include Oregon's recent revision of the law of judgments, "habitual residence" under the Hague Convention, and lesbian parentage rights.
The Court of Appeals has begun the perhaps lengthy process of unraveling the 2003 legislature's revision of the law of judgments. The new law, among many other provisions, created four types of judgments--limited, general, supplemental, and corrected--where before there was only one. In Garcia v. DMV, the court concluded on a 6-4 vote that a general judgment was appealable, even though the clerk entered it in the register incorrectly as a limited judgment. In Galfano v. KTVL-TV, the court held that a document entitled "supplemental general judgment" (there being no such thing under the statute) similarly was appealable. And the court dismissed an appeal in Strawn v. Farmers Ins. Co. after determining that the "limited judgement" entered in that case was not a final judgment as to some of the claims it decided.
In a case decided under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the children of an American couple stationed on a military base in Germany did not become "habitually resident" in that country after an eight-month stay. In Holder v. Holder , the court distinguished other cases involving military families and held that the petitioner had shown neither a "settled intention" by the couple to abandon the United States as the children's place of residence, nor that their children had become "acclimatized" to life in Germany. In an interesting sidelight, the court held that assignment of the case for trial before a magistrate judge did not violate the Convention's requirement that the case be handled under the "most expeditious procedures available."
The Indiana Court of Appeals held in King v. S.B. that the mother of a child born to her by donor insemination could not deny the equal parentage rights of her lesbian partner. The court relied on an earlier Indiana Supreme Court decision applying the same principles to a child born by donor insemination during a heterosexual marriage.
The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers has passed two resolutions endorsing marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples and calling upon the United States Congress and every American state to enact legislation providing such equality to same-sex couples and their children.
Mark Johnson is an appeals attorney practicing in Portland, Oregon. He also provides attorney coaching, consulting, and collaboration on a wide range of family law issues. Mark is available to act as a reference judge in Oregon family law cases.
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