S.U. v. C.J., 19-1181
| Decision Date | 02 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-1181,19-1181 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | S.U., Petitioner Below, Petitioner v. C.J., Respondent Below, Respondent |
Self-represented petitioner S.U. appeals the Circuit Court of Gilmer County's December 11, 2019, order dismissing his "Emergency Petition to Disestablish Maternity of Gestational Surrogate."1 Respondent C.J., by counsel Jeffrey M. Strange, filed a response in support of the circuit court's order. Petitioner filed a reply. On appeal, petitioner argues that the circuit court erred in finding that res judicata barred his petition and in failing to rule on the merits of the case.
This Court has considered the parties' briefs and the record on appeal. The facts and legal arguments are adequately presented, and the decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument. Upon consideration of the standard of review, the briefs, and the record presented, the Court finds no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error. For these reasons, a memorandum decision affirming the circuit court's order is appropriate under Rule 21 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
The history of the parties, their relationship, and the births of their children were thoroughly discussed in petitioner's prior appeal to this Court. See S.U. v. C.J., No. 18-0566, 2019 WL 5692550 (W. Va. Nov. 4, 2019)(memorandum decision). Accordingly, it is unnecessary for this Court to recount the entirety of the parties' history herein, but it will suffice to reference certain facts that are relevant to the resolution of the instant matter. As this Court previously found, petitioner and respondent were in an intimate relationship for approximately twelve years and have four children together, said children having been conceived in nonconventional ways. Id. at *1. The parties initially attempted to conceive children throughsexual intercourse, but ultimately utilized various alternative methods of fertilization due to the fact that petitioner was listed as a female on his birth certificate. Id. According to petitioner, "he was not a binary male or female at birth, although he has always considered himself to be male." Id. Prior to the parties' relationship, petitioner had his ova harvested and stored, and these ova were used to conceive at least three of the parties' children through in vitro fertilization. Id. at *1-2. As this Court previously noted, at the time of these procedures, respondent believed that the embryos were from petitioner's sperm and an anonymous egg donor and she gave birth to all four of the parties' children. Id. Eventually, respondent became pregnant with twins, at which point the parties' relationship deteriorated and petitioner's history of verbal abuse toward respondent worsened. Id. at *2.
Prior to the twins' births, petitioner attempted to preclude respondent from being listed as the mother on the children's birth certificates by filing a "Petition for Declaration of Parentage." Id. According to petitioner, he and respondent entered into a custody agreement in 2005 that, in relevant part, required respondent to serve as a gestational surrogate for their three youngest children and precluded her from asserting custody over those children. Id. During prior proceedings in family court, petitioner's motion to amend the children's birth certificates to omit respondent was denied. Id. Importantly, after holding hearings to resolve the issues between the parties, "[t]he family court concluded that the purported Custodial Agreement was unenforceable" and that respondent's name would remain on the children's birth certificates. Id. at *3. Petitioner appealed this decision to the circuit court, which refused his appeal, and on to this Court, which affirmed the family court's ruling. Id. at *3-4. In affirming the lower courts, we found that "all of [petitioner's assignments of error] . . . [w]ere grounded on his contention that [respondent] was nothing more than a gestational surrogate for the parties' three youngest children." Id. at *4. We found that the family court resolved this conflict in respondent's favor and refused to disturb these findings. Id. In ruling that the custody agreement was unenforceable, this Court unequivocally concluded that respondent "is the legal mother of all four children." Id.
The same month that this Court issued its decision on his prior appeal, petitioner filed an "Emergency Petition to Disestablish Maternity of Gestational Surrogate" in the Circuit Court of Gilmer County seeking to have respondent removed from the birth certificates of the parties' three youngest children and to have them returned to his custody. Shortly after that petition's filing, the circuit court entered an order dismissing the matter. Citing this Court's opinion in S.U. v. C.J., the circuit court found that the "instant petition appears to be an attempt to have this [c]ourt overturn a decision of the W.Va. Supreme Court of Appeals, which this [c]ourt cannot do." Further, the court found that "[t]he rights of these parties to these children, and the issue of the birth certificate, have previously been decided by the Mason County Family Court, and affirmed by the W.Va. Supreme Court of Appeals." As such, the circuit court found that res judicata precluded petitioner "from re-opening these matters which have already been adjudicated." Accordingly, the court entered its December 11, 2019, order denying the petition. It is from this order that petitioner appeals.
We have previously set forth the following:
Syl., McCormick v. Allstate Ins. Co., 197 W.Va. 415, 475 S.E.2d 507 (1996).
Syl. Pt. 1, In re S.W., 236 W. Va. 309, 779 S.E.2d 577 (2015).
Syl. Pt. 3, Beahm v. 7 Eleven, Inc., 223 W. Va. 269, 672 S.E.2d 598 (2008). According to petitioner, the merits of the instant action and the prior action are different, as the latter "focused on placing [p]etitioner on the birth certificates of the unborn twin children because he was an unwed parent" while the second action concerns his request to remove respondent's name from the birth certificates. We find petitioner's argument disingenuous, given that it ignores his clear efforts to have respondent's name removed from the children's birth certificates in the prior family court proceeding. In that case, petitioner made a specific motion to have respondent removed from the children's birth certificates and argued that respondent should not be included on the birth certificates because of an alleged custodial agreement, which the lower courts and this Court rejected. S.U. v. C.J., 2019 WL 5692550 at *4. Petitioner's attempt in the instant appeal to manipulate the issues presented in the prior appeal is merely semantic and ignores the fact that the prior matter was concluded by this Court ruling that respondent was the children's legal mother. As such, we find that all three elements for res judicata are met: the prior proceeding resulted in an adjudication on the merits by a court with jurisdiction, the same parties were involved in both actions, and the cause of action determined in the prior action—whether respondent was the legal mother of the children at issue—is identical to the issue presented in the instant case.
Petitioner makes much of the fact that respondent had not yet given birth to the two youngest children when he filed his prior action in order to argue that the issues in the instant matter and the prior matter are not identical. What petitioner fails to recognize, however, is that in his prior case, he fully litigated the propriety of respondent's designation as the children's mother, which is the very issue he attempts to relitigate in this matter. Petitioner also cites to a third-party complaint filed by a hospital against respondent asserting fraud in her completion of a "Mother's Worksheet for Child's Birth Certificate" regarding her biological relation to the twoyoungest children as evidence that the issue in this matter differs from his prior lawsuit. This argument, however, is willfully obtuse as the ultimate issue being litigated in the two cases is respondent's inclusion on the children's birth certificates. In the prior action, petitioner alleged that respondent disregarded the terms of the alleged custodial agreement by placing herself on the children's birth certificates as their mother when she was simply a gestational surrogate; in the underlying action, petitioner alleged the exact same facts and attempted to bolster his argument with unsubstantiated allegations from a third-party complaint. However, these unproven allegations have no bearing on whether the issues in these two cases differ.
In support of his argument, petiti...
To continue reading
Request your trial