Have any of you come across this? Absolutely insane case that's still rumbling on.
I'll provide a link to the story - its well worth a read - but basically it's this:
Circe and Kell were two ladies in a relationship at one time. Kell was a multi millionaire, Circe was a UK national living in NY who worked as Kell's office manager. They bought an apartment together and Circe said she wanted to adopt. Kell said sure.
Because they were looking at Ethiopia to adopt from and same sex adoptions wouldn't fly, Circe started the process on her own. Kell would theoretically then adopt the child after it arrived.
However they broke up. After a period of time Circe decides she still wants a child and two years after they broke up she welcomes a little boy from Ethiopia. The adoption proceeded in her name only.
She's still friends with Kell, and still works for her. And being from the Uk she has no family support so she takes all offers of babysitting from all friends. Years pass.
Kell becomes more and more demanding of time with the boy. Circe decides it's a nice thing for him. Kell demands some recognition as being more special than everyone else. Circe tries to appease Kell with the honourary title of godmother. Kell starts going on about how it's like GodMOTHER, right? Circe starts to get freaked out and makes plans to move back to the UK permanently.
The weekend before the move Kell offers to take the boy for a night to allow Circe time to pack up everything. The next day, expecting him back, Circe answers the door to a lawyer. She has an order for Circe to be in court in 2 hours time to surrender their passports. Kell is suing for custody and has an injunction to stop Circe leaving the country. Kell was claiming that she was a tacit parent cos she took the boy for overnight visits on occasion and spent a lot of time in the boys life, and that she had initially been intended to be any future child's parent and was never told otherwise.
The case dragged on for 9 months, during which Kell was granted "visitation" twice a week. Kell's funds were unlimited whereas Circe had to sell her apartment to fund her lawyers and herself and the child are staying in the back of a friends house.
Unbelievable. A couple of weeks ago Kell lost, but is intending to appeal. She clearly intends to keep this thing in the courts as long as possible until she wins.
www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/22/what-makes-a-parent/amp
The thing that has freaked out a lot of NY parents is that if she wins she opens the door for anyone who has spent time with your child could win parental responsibility. A nanny for example could argue she was an informal parent!
Has anyone heard of this one?