JRL-S LEGAL UPDATE is an occasional newsletter reviewing recent developments in family law and civil procedure. For July 2007, topics include reinstatement of terminated spousal support, a custodial parent’s discretion to have elective surgery performed upon a child, and a review of local and national same-sex domestic partnership developments.
The Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court judgment in Cheever and Halperin that reinstated a spousal support obligation after the wife’s intervening four-year marriage ended in divorce. This is the court’s first written decision on the reinstatement statute. It is largely consistent with an amendment to the statute enacted during the legislature’s current session.
The Supreme Court has allowed review in Boldt and Boldt, a case in which the custodial father proposes to circumcise the parties’ 12-year-old child. The Court of Appeals had previously affirmed without opinion the trial court’s denial of a hearing on the merits of the mother’s objection to the surgery and request to change custody because of it.
On Ma 9, 2007, Governor Ted Kulongoski signed the Oregon Family Fairness Act , a statewide domestic partnership statute that extended to unmarried same-sex couples, upon registration with the state, most of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. Oregon becomes the ninth American state to accord some form of recognition to same-sex couples. The measure will take effect January 1 absent a referendum, which has been threatened.
Denying a petition for a writ of certiorari on April 30, the United States Supreme Court may have put an end to the first, although surely not the last, celebrated case that showed the dangers inherent in creating a new legal status for same-sex couples that is separate from marriage. Lisa and Janet Miller-Jenkins lived together in Virginia, traveled to Vermont and entered into a civil union, bore a child in Virginia, and eventually relocated to Vermont, where they lived as a family with their child for about a year. The mothers separated, and Lisa returned to Virginia with the child. Vermont awarded Janet temporary visitation. The Virginia trial court declined to recognize Janet’s parentage and refused to register the Vermont visitation order. The Virginia Court of Appeals reversed, the Vermont court held Lisa in contempt, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, and the federal Court declined to review the Vermont decision.
JRL-S LEGAL UPDATE is authored by Mark Johnson, a shareholder and appeals attorney at Johnson & Lechman-Su PC in Portland, Oregon. Mark also provides attorneys with legal ethics advice as well as coaching, consulting, and collaboration on a wide range of family law issues. He is available to act as a reference judge in Oregon family law cases.
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