Rubano v. DiCenzo
| Decision Date | 25 September 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-604-A.,97-604-A. |
| Citation | 759 A.2d 959 |
| Parties | Maureen V. RUBANO v. Concetta A. DiCENZO. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Present: WEISBERGER, C.J. LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.
Cynthia M. Gifford, Cherrie R. Perkins, Providence, for plaintiff.
Rosina L. Hunt, Woonsocket, Maureen Slack DiCristofaro, Richard S. Cardozo, Cumberland, Donna M. Nesselbush, Providence, Mary L. Bonauto, Boston, MA, for defendant.
Two women agreed to become the parents of a child. They arranged for one of them to conceive via artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. Following the child's birth, they raised him for four years while living together as domestic partners in the same household. Thereafter the women separated but the biological mother agreed to allow the nonbiological parent to have informal visits with the child. Under these circumstances, does the Family Court have jurisdiction over a petition brought to determine the existence of a mother and child relationship between the nonbiological parent and the child? If so, can the Family Court enforce the domestic partners' written agreement (embodied in a consent order previously entered by the court) to allow the nonbiological parent to have visitation with the child after the parents have separated? These are questions of first impression in Rhode Island. For the reasons related below, we answer both of them in the affirmative.
In 1988, plaintiff Maureen V. Rubano (Rubano) and defendant Concetta A. DiCenzo (DiCenzo) entered into what they characterize as a "committed relationship." Eventually they set up house together as domestic partners in Massachusetts. Three years later, still "more at love than law,"1 they decided to have and raise a child. Accordingly, they arranged for DiCenzo to conceive via artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. In 1992, DiCenzo gave birth to a son. Thereafter, acting together with Rubano, she caused his last name to be listed on the birth and baptismal certificates as Rubano-DiCenzo and sent out printed birth announcements identifying both of them as the child's parents. Although Rubano never adopted the child, for four years she lived together with DiCenzo and both of them raised the boy as their son. In 1996, however, the couple separated. Taking the boy with her, DiCenzo moved to Rhode Island.
Initially the parties set up an informal visitation schedule for Rubano to see the child. But in 1997 the schedule collapsed in the face of DiCenzo's resistance. Consequently, Rubano filed a miscellaneous petition in Family Court seeking to establish her de facto parental status and to obtain court-ordered visitation with the child. After Rubano filed the lawsuit, the court appointed a guardian ad litem for the boy. In due course, the guardian submitted her recommendations to the court and the parties negotiated a compromise that they embodied in a consent order (order). The order stipulated that Rubano was to have "permanent visitation with [the child]" on a periodic basis, in exchange for which she agreed to waive "any claim or cause of action she has or may have to recognition as a parent of the minor child * * *." After reviewing and approving its terms, including the parties' recitation that the visitation provisions of the order were "in the best interests of the minor child," the Chief Judge of the Family Court entered this agreement as an order of that court.2
DiCenzo, however, allegedly reneged yet again on the visitation agreement by thwarting Rubano's attempted visits with the child. DiCenzo, who by now had entered into a new relationship, contended that Rubano's visits had become psychologically harmful to the child. Charging once more into the breach, Rubano sought contempt relief from the Family Court and asked it to enforce the order. This time, however, DiCenzo was not as agreeable as when the parties had first formulated the order: she now argued that the Family Court lacked jurisdiction to enter the order in the first place, much less to enforce it. Rubano countered that the Legislature had bestowed jurisdiction upon the Family Court to resolve matters like this and that the court therefore should enforce its own order and Rubano's visitation agreement with DiCenzo. Expressing doubts about how these issues should be resolved, the Family Court certified to this Court the three questions set forth below.3 After reviewing the parties' legal briefs and that of the amici,4 and after considering their oral arguments, we respond to these questions as follows.
"Does a child, biological mother, and same sex partner, who have been involved in a committed relationship constitute a `family relationship' within the meaning of G.L. § 8-10-3, such that the Family Court has jurisdiction to entertain a miscellaneous petition for visitation by the former same sex partner when the same sex partner is no longer engaged in the committed relationship?"
The Family Court has asked us to rule on whether it has the power to adjudicate Rubano's petition to determine her de facto parental status and to enforce the parties' visitation agreement under the Family Court's G.L.1956 § 8-10-3(a) jurisdiction to hear "equitable matters arising out of the family relationship." We begin our analysis by examining the above-referenced statutory language of § 8-10-3 to ascertain whether its provisions are clear and unambiguous, see State v. Alejo, 723 A.2d 762, 764 (R.I.1999) (per curiam)
; if so, "the statute may not be construed or extended but must be applied literally." Pizza Hut of America, Inc. v. Pastore, 519 A.2d 592, 593 (R.I.1987) (quoting Citizens for Preservation of Waterman Lake v. Davis, 420 A.2d 53, 57 (R.I.1980)). "[T]he Family Court, as a court of statutory origin, has no more powers than those expressly conferred upon it by the Legislature." Waldeck v. Piner, 488 A.2d 1218, 1220 (R.I.1985). Thus, it is powerless to act when the subject matter of a dispute is not within its statutory grant of jurisdiction. See Rogers v. Rogers, 98 R.I. 263, 267-68, 201 A.2d 140, 143 (1964).
Section 8-10-3, entitled "Establishment of court — Jurisdiction * * *," provides in pertinent part, as follows: "(a) There is hereby established a family court * * * to hear and determine * * * equitable matters arising out of the family relationship, wherein jurisdiction is acquired by the court by the filing of petitions for divorce, bed and board and separate maintenance * * *." (Emphasis added.)
Asserting that the above-referenced "family relationship" language in § 8-10-3 does not cover the situation presented by the case at bar, DiCenzo urges us to answer question number one in the negative. Rubano, on the other hand, posits a "liberal" interpretation of the "equitable matters arising out of the family relationship" jurisdiction of § 8-10-3, one that would encompass a sufficiently broad authority for the Family Court to take cognizance over disputes like this one. Section 8-10-2,5 she argues, buttresses her position because it mandates a "liberal" construction of the Family Court's jurisdictional grant of authority in order to realize the purposes of the law establishing the Family Court. Rubano reasons that the language of § 8-10-2 reveals a legislative intent to paint the Family Court's powers with a broad jurisdictional brush so it can protect the best interests of children who need its oversight. This intent, she suggests, calls for an expansive reading of this portion of the Family Court's jurisdictional statute to include the "family relationship" before us.
Upon reviewing the statutory language at issue, however, it is immediately apparent to us that this portion of § 8-10-36 does not grant jurisdiction to the Family Court in all "equitable matters arisingout of the family relationship," but only in those equitable matters "wherein jurisdiction is acquired by the court by the filing of petitions for divorce, bed and board and separate maintenance." This final limiting clause narrows the class of "equitable matters arising out of the family relationship" that the Family Court may hear under this portion of § 8-10-3(a) to only cases that originate in petitions for divorce, bed and board, and separate maintenance. Because neither Rubano nor DiCenzo ever has filed any such petition, neither Rubano's original petition to determine her parental status and to enforce the parties' visitation agreement nor her later efforts to uphold the parties' consent order fall within the limited "family relationship" jurisdictional provisions of § 8-10-3.
Accordingly, to answer question one, we need not determine whether the parties' involvement with each other and with the child constituted a "family relationship" within the meaning of this term as it is used in this portion of § 8-10-3(a). The statutory language that the Legislature used to vest the Family Court with equity jurisdiction in this subsection of § 8-10-3 is, by its terms, limited to situations in which the court's equitable jurisdiction is invoked by a petition for divorce, bed and board, or separate maintenance. Thus, we conclude, the Legislature did not intend for the Family Court to acquire jurisdiction over this type of controversy under the restricted "equitable matters arising out of the family relationship" jurisdictional provisions of § 8-10-3(a). Nevertheless, for the reasons discussed below, this does not mean that the Family Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate this dispute under some other provision of § 8-10-3 or under another statute.
"If the answer to the above question is in the negative, does such a conclusion violate Article I, section 5 of the Rhode Island Constitution?"
Article 1, section 5, of the Rhode Island Constitution provides, in pertinent part, as follows "Every person within this state ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which...
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