Unmarried TN Same-Sex Domestic Partner Lacks Standing to Assert Parental Rights

Tennessee case summary on custody, de facto parentage, and same-sex parentage in divorce.

Christina Jane Compher v. Dana Janelle Whitfield

Unmarried TN Same-Sex Domestic Partner Lacks Standing to Assert Parental Rights

The two parties in this case were living in Maryland in 2002 when they began a committed personal same-sex relationship and domestic partnership.  They were never married, and in 2004, they moved to Tennessee with their children from prior relationships.  They decided that one of the two would remain at home as a stay-at-home parent, while the other would support the family.  They decided to have another child using anonymous donated sperm, and they agreed to be equal parents, despite only one of them having a biological connection to the child.

In 2012, a child was born, and for the next seven years, both parties co-parented and held the child out as being both of theirs.    Then, the relationship soured and they separated.  Despite initially trying to co-parent the child, eventually the biological mother cut off the child’s contact with her former partner.

The former partner then went to court to establish parentage based upon a Tennessee statute.

The trial court, citing a recent Court of Appeals decision, ruled in favor of the biological mother, and held that the former partner had no standing.  The former partner then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which began its opinion by noting that yet another case addressing a similar issue had recently been decided.

The lower court had based its ruling on the grounds that the former partner lacked standing to sue, and the appeals court, after stating the standard of review, turned to this issue.  It began by reviewing the history of the concept of standing in similar cases.  In the most recent case, the non-biological parent had been found to have standing, but there was an important distinction.  In that earlier case, the two parties were married, and Tennessee has long had a presumption that the male spouse is presumed to be the parent of a child born to the female spouse.  That case had extended that presumption to the spouses in a same-sex marriage.

In the case of unmarried persons, the only way that a male can establish parentage is by a biological status.  In this case, the former partner could not establish parentage either by marriage, or by biology.  Therefore, the Court of Appeals agreed that she lacked standing.

The former partner also argued that she should be considered a parent under the doctrine of de facto parentage, but the Court of Appeals agreed that this doctrine did not apply.  It also held that this holding was supported under the Constitution.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

No. M2021–00474-COA-R3-JV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 1, 2022).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.