Category Archives: Family Law
Susan Corbett and Jessica Lai, ‘To Have and to Hold? Intellectual Property as Relationship Property’
ABSTRACT The equitable division of property between separating parties is a time consuming and onerous task for the courts. The corresponding legal expenses incurred by the separating parties can be very high. Accordingly, there have been calls for reform of the relevant legislation in both New Zealand and England and Wales. Both the Property (Relationships) […]
‘Egg Donation, Commodification, and Coercive Payments’
Kimberly D Krawiec, ‘Gametes: Commodification and The Fertility Industry’, in The Routledge Handbook of Commodification, Vida Panitch and Elodie Bertrand eds, (forthcoming 2024), available at SSRN (22 April 2023). A growing number of couples and individuals use some combination of in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, egg donors, sperm donors, and gestational surrogates to have children. […]
Heled, Levin, Lytton and Vertinsky, ‘Righting a Reproductive Wrong: A Statutory Tort Solution to Misrepresentation by Reproductive Tissue Providers’
ABSTRACT Fraud, misrepresentation, and other unfair trade practices plague the market for human reproductive tissue. The sale of sperm, eggs, and embryos is virtually unregulated in almost all states, and courts have been inhospitable to victims. As a result, children are born with genetic disorders that impose extreme financial and personal hardship. Proposals for direct […]
David Morrison, ‘Fathers, daughters, and matters of trust’
ABSTRACT This article arises from a complex family dispute and some difficulty in determining the full facts underpinning the complaint. Information given by the parties grudgingly, partially, and in very poor order, caused the primary judge in the penultimate case considered herein to no doubt reluctantly prefer the daughter’s version of events over that of […]
Claudia Lima Marques and Lucas Lixinski, ‘Family and Succession Law’
ABSTRACT This chapter describes the current state of family and succession law in Brazil. The underlying principle behind these bodies of law is a move towards secularization, which is influenced by feminist social movements, and a lessening of church power during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. The military dictatorship occupied […]
Yehezkel Margalit, ‘From (Moral) Status (Of the Frozen Embryo) To (Relational) Contract and Back Again to (Relational Moral) Status’
ABSTRACT The already existing hundreds of thousands of unused frozen embryos coupled with the skyrocketing rate of divorce raise numerous moral, legal, social, and religious dilemmas. Among the most daunting problems are the moral and legal status of the frozen embryo; what should its fate be in the event of conflicts between the progenitors; and […]
Meredith Render, ‘Blake v Stradford, 725 NYS 2d 189 (Dist Ct 2001)’
ABSTRACT This piece engages in a reimagining of the classic property case of Blake v Stradford through a feminist lens, as part of Cambridge University Press’s series, Feminist Judgments. In the original case, an unmarried male and female romantic couple resided together for several years (along with their children) in a house owned by the […]
Bala, ‘Who Owns Children’s DNA?’
ABSTRACT In recent years, DNA has become increasingly easy to collect, test, and sequence, making it far more accessible to law enforcement. While legal scholars have examined this phenomenon generally, this Article examines the control and use of children’s DNA, asking who ultimately owns children’s DNA. I explore two common ways parents – currently considered […]
Feinberg, ‘The Boundaries of Multi-Parentage’
ABSTRACT Multi-parentage has arrived. In recent years, a growing number of courts and legislatures have recognized that a child may have more than two legal parents. A number of significant societal, medical, and legal developments have contributed to the trend toward multi-parentage recognition. The traditional family structure of a married different-sex couple and their biological […]
Matsumura, ‘The Marital Habitus’
ABSTRACT The law on the books has recognized the right of cohabitants to create enforceable legal obligations with each other for half a century. Yet few seek to enforce such obligations, and their attempts almost never prevail. This article explores one possible explanation for the invisibility of their claims. Marriage is so deeply rooted in […]