BILL NUMBER: S465
SPONSOR: HOYLMAN-SIGAL
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the domestic relations law and the family court act, in
relation to establishing confirmatory adoptions and allowing courts to
grant the custody and support from more than two parents
 
PURPOSE:
Establishes confirmatory adoptions and allowing courts to grant the
custody and support from more than two parents
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section one amends the Domestic Relations Law Article 7 by adding to
Title 1 Section 109 a definition for the term "confirmatory adoption".
Section two amends the Domestic Relations Law Article 7 by adding a new
title, Title 5 "Confirmatory Adoptions," that allows parents who
conceived their children using ART to adopt them using a streamlined
process, and sets forth the procedure for such confirmatory adoptions.
Section three amends Article 5 of the Family Court Act by adding a new
Article 5-D (title).
Part one provides relevant definitions relating to parentage, including
adding a presumption of parentage for individuals who reside in the same
household as a child and hold them out as their own.
Part two sets forth the requirements to qualify as a de facto parent of
a child and the procedure for obtaining a judgment of parentage.
Part three sets forth provisions for court adjudication of competing
claims of parentage and authorizes courts to find a child to have more
than two parents in certain circumstances.
Section four amends the Domestic Relations Law Article 5 Section 70(a)
to allow any parent to seek custody of their child and make clear that a
court may grant custody to more than two parents.
Section five amends The Family Court Act Article 4 to reflect that a
child may have a legal relationship with more than two parents.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
This bill makes adoption and parentage more accessible to LGBTQ fami-
lies, especially those who conceive through assisted reproduction, and
affords them the same rights and protections other parents enjoy. New
York enacted the Child Parent Security Act (CPSA) in 2020 to make the
state's family law to protect families that use assisted reproduction,
including LGBTQ families. The law made many positive changes, including
allowing same sex parents using assisted reproduction to sign a Volun-
tary Acknowledgement of Parentage (VAP), clarifying the parentage of
children conceived using assisted reproductive technology, and legaliz-
ing compensated surrogacy. It was an incredible step forward, but there
is still more to be done in New York to give LGBTQ and other nontradi-
tional families the protections they need and deserve under the law. The
first and second sections of this proposed legislation establish a
streamlined confirmatory adoption process for parents who are already
recognized as parents under New York law. Currently, when a child
conceived through assisted reproduction is born to LGBTQ parents, both
members of the couple are legal parents under the Child Parent Security
Act. But many such families still need to complete an adoption to be
sure their parental rights will be respected. A family who plans to
travel abroad or pass foreign citizenship onto their child may need to
adopt because many countries do not recognize judgments of parentage and
discriminate against LGBTQ families. Completing such an adoption
currently requires an expensive and intrusive process including a back-
ground check and home inspection even though the parents are adopting
their own child. This bill creates a streamlined confirmatory adoption
process that will protect LGBTQ families facing a denial of their
parental rights in other countries.
Nineteen states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey,
have already created a streamlined confirmatory adoption process to
allow people who are already legal parents to obtain a judgment of
adoption efficiently and affordably. Current New York law fails same-sex
couples seeking to confirm their parentage through adoption because it
forces them to go through the standard adoption process that requires a
home investigation and criminal background check. The home inspection,
background check, and hearing process is extremely expensive, intrusive,
and time consuming, making it inaccessible to many parents. This bill
establishes a consistent streamlined confirmatory adoption process where
people who already have legal parentage over their children can confirm
that relationship through adoption without a home inspection, criminal
background check, or a court hearing, which will make the process
affordable and more accessible to LGBTQ families.
The third section of this bill will recognize functional parents who
have cared for and raised a child, either from birth or for a signif-
icant portion of the child's life, but have not been legally recognized
as parents. § 582-101, the "holding out" provision recognizes a parent
who has lived with a child since their birth or adoption, functioned as
the child's parent and presented themselves to the world as the child's
parent. The bill also creates a court adjudication process to recognize
de facto parents, who are people that are not biological or legal
parents of the child but function as parents of a child, raising and
loving the child as their own, as legal parents of the child. It will
create a clear, accessible path to legal parentage for LGBTQ parents who
have been functioning as parents of their child without legal rights or
protection. This parentage process will be a vital step forward in
protecting the parent-child relationship for LGBTQ family situations
that aren't covered under the existing parentage provisions.
The bill also makes clear that people who have been adjudicated to be a
parent under de facto parentage and holding out will have the same
rights and responsibilities as any other parent, including an obligation
to financially support the child. Moreover, the proposed legislation
protects survivors of domestic abuse because it specifically precludes
abusers from seeking custody of a victim's child by claiming the victim
fostered a parent-child relationship between the abuser and their child.
At present, existing New York parentage law does not protect a victim
who was intimidated into allowing an abuser to form a relationship with
their child. Under this bill, if someone who is seeking de facto parent-
age is has engaged in intimate partner violence, the victim can submit
evidence of that abuse to defeat the abuser's parentage claim.
In today's society, it is becoming more and more common for a child to
have more than two parents. The second and third sections of this bill
include provisions allowing courts to recognize more than two parents of
a child when it is in the child's best interests. Multi-parent planned
families come in many forms, such as same-sex couples who conceive a
child with a third person who, unlike a donor or surrogate, is a full
co-parent of the child. Furthermore, polyamorous families, where more
than two people have a romantic relationship, with the consent of all
the people involved, can result in a multi-parent family if they create
or raise a child together.
Within the past few years, states have begun to recognize the existence
of multi-parent families. Six states, including California, Vermont, and
Connecticut, have enacted statutes that recognize a child can have more
than two legal parents. The 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, adopted by the
Uniform Law Commission to assist the states in updating their laws to
reflect best practices also allows legal recognition of families with
more than two parents. U.P.A § 613 (amended 2017). Some New York courts
have also acted to protect children with more than two parents. In 2017,
a New York court upheld a child's relationship with his three parents in
Dawn M. v. Michael M. because failing to recognize the child's third
parent would deprive him of a continued relationship with the person he
understood to be his mother and undermine his best interests. Dawn M. v.
Michael M. 55 Misc. 3d 865 (Sup Ct, NY County 2017). When a child has an
established relationship with three loving parents, the law should
recognize those relationships and protect the child and their parents.
This legislation will allow give courts explicit authority to recognize
a child to have more than two parents when not doing so would be detri-
mental to the child. The bill also al lows existing parents to consent
to another parent adopting their child in a confirmatory adoption case,
thereby permitting a child to have more than two adoptive parents when
all parents consent.
Relatedly, the fourth and fifth sections of the bill amend current New
York custody and child support laws to accommodate multi-parent fami-
lies. The fourth section of the bill changes Article 5, Section 4 of the
New York Domestic Relations Law § 70 so that "any" parent of a child may
file a court action for custody. New York courts have interpreted the
current language of the statute, which reads "either parent" as barring
more than two parents from having standing to seek custody of a child
See Matter of David S. v. Samantha G. 59 Misc. ,3d 960 (Fam Ct 2018)
(holding that "there is not currently any New York statute which grants
legal parentage to three parties, nor is there any New York case law
precedent for such a determination"); Matter of Shanna 0. v James P. 176
A.D.3d 1334 (3rd Dept 2019) (holding that, barring extraordinary circum-
stances, de facto parents do not have standing to seek custody); (Matter
of Tomeka N.H. v. Jesus R.), 183 A.D.3d 106 (4th Dept 2020) (holding
that the use of the word "either" in the statute indicates that a child
can only have two legal parents and a third party petitioner may only
establish standing when there is a pre-conception agreement with the
biological parent to raise the child as co-parents. This meant that a
person who functioned as a child's parent could not seek custody of the
child if the child already had two legal parents, no matter how long
they cared for the child or how important the functional parent was to
the child. This proposed legislation will give courts the ability to
recognize all parents of a child and review their custody claims, award-
ing custody to more than two parents where it is in the child's best
interests to do so. This will protect children in non-traditional fami-
lies, ensuring they cannot be torn apart from functional parents who
love and care for them.
The fifth section of the bill will similarly amend the Family Court Act
Article 4 Section 5 language concerning child support, changing current
language that uses "either" or "both" parents to "any" and "all" parents
to ensure that every person considered to be a legal parent of a child
will have an obligation to financially support that child. This ensures
that a child with more than two parents can receive all the support they
are entitled to.
LGBTQ+ families have historically been denied basic and vital legal
protections in the United States and in New York. The gaps in current
New York family law when it comes to the recognition of non-biological
parent-child relationships puts LGBTQ+ families and children in a
vulnerable position. For New York to truly be able to claim it is a safe
and progressive state for the LGBTQ+ community, the legislature needs to
expand the current parentage and adoption framework to be inclusive of
all types of families. This memo advocates legislative action as the
preferred route for further family law reform, particularly for adoption
and de facto parentage. Such legislation ultimately results in a
predictable, more enduring framework allowing same-sex couples and
nontraditional families to secure their legal parentage, and more impor-
tantly, providing children the legal protection of all parents.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
S.1787 of 2023-2024 CHoylman-Sigal): Died in Children and Families
A.10259 of 2023-2024 (Gonzelez-Rojas): Died in Judiciary
S.9280 of 2021-2022 (Hoylman): Died in Children and Families
A.10523 of 2021-2022 (Gonzelez-Rojas): Died in Judiciary
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have
become a law. Effective immediately, the addition, amendment and/or
repeal of any rule or regulation necessary for the implementation of
this act on its effective date are authorized to be made and completed
on or before such effective date.

Statutes affected:
S465: 109 domestic relations law, 70 domestic relations law