Yuen: St. Paul lesbian couple win paternity case in Minnesota appeals court

A sperm donor — even one who loves and cares for the child he helped conceive through artificial insemination — is not the same as a dad.

That’s exactly what Julianna and Catherine Sheridan of St. Paul have been saying for the past year and a half. This week, the Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed, reversing a lower court’s decision that had allowed a paternity case filed by their child’s sperm donor to proceed.

The appellate court’s decision is not just a victory for one lesbian couple at the heart of this groundbreaking case, but for all Minnesota families who have relied on assisted reproduction.

In March I shared with you the story of the Sheridans, who were fighting to keep full custody and parental rights of their daughter, who’s now 6. The couple’s world was turned upside down after the child’s sperm donor, a close friend, filed a claim for paternity in March 2023 when the girl was almost 5.

A district court judicial referee permitted the case to proceed, shocking family law attorneys and LGBTQ advocates who said Minnesota law already barred sperm or egg donors from claiming parentage. On Monday, a three-judge panel reversed and sent back the lower court’s decision with instructions to dismiss the case.

The court was not swayed by Chris Edrington’s claims that he had standing for paternity because he had welcomed the girl into his home and referred to her as his daughter. One of his arguments — that a law addressing artificial insemination in cases involving a “licensed physician” — did not bolster his case for court-mandated genetic testing. (The Sheridans used an at-home insemination kit for Julianna to get pregnant.)

“[The statute] acts as a shield for married couples who conceive through assisted reproduction, under the supervision of a licensed physician, from facing parentage claims from third-party donors,” the court wrote. “But it does not act as a sword for donors to assert parentage based on positive genetic test results against married couples who used at-home assisted reproduction procedures.”

Reached by phone this week, the Sheridans were ecstatic: The ruling could not have been more in their favor.

“I feel like we can breathe for the first time in a year and a half,” said Julianna Sheridan. “This weight off our shoulders is unbelievable.”

Their attorney, Erica Holzer, said that if the case been allowed to proceed, it could have had massive repercussions for other LGBTQ families and opened the floodgates to litigation.

“The court clarified that families like Julianna and Catherine’s deserve protection from these types of claims, and that if a sperm donor down the road changes his mind and files for paternity, his claim will be dismissed at the outset,” Holzer said. “This case has established that sperm and egg donors do not have standing to be parents.”

The ruling isn’t the only decision that will strengthen the rights of parents who’ve used assisted reproductive technology. A state law that went into effect this month further clarifies that donors are not parents.

The paternity case is a reminder of how fraught these arrangements can be without boundaries and expectations explicitly spelled out. And when a little kid is involved, they carry lasting ramifications.

When Julianna and Catherine got married in 2017, they saw a future together with kids. They selected their friend, Chris Edrington, to be a known sperm donor, fully expecting him to be involved in their daughter’s life and preparing to tell her about their genetic connection when she was ready. The couple insist he was never to be regarded as her dad, but they failed to get their agreement in writing.

After the baby was born, no one disputes that Edrington was a doting presence, caring for the girl weekly, feeding her bottles, and singing to her and playing guitar until she fell asleep.

But the couple say they were blindsided when he filed the lawsuit demanding parenting time and asking the courts to declare him the girl’s legal dad.

For more than four years, “we thought things were going well,” said Julianna.

The couple were happy that their daughter had a relationship with Edrington, and that he had a relationship with her.

“Then it all changed,” she said.

When I reported on this case in March, one question puzzled me: Why would Edrington jeopardize losing all contact with the kid he regarded as his daughter by filing this legal action?

I never learned the answer because he declined to speak to me, and his attorney never returned my calls.

But after the appeals court’s decision was issued Monday, I tried Edrington again. This time, he talked.

He disputes the Sheridans’ assumption that a “change of heart” is what prompted him to decide he wanted to be more than the girl’s sperm donor. But he admits he had no idea how his feelings would develop for the girl over the years.

“She is an endearing, alluring and beautiful kid, and she looks just like me, and I fell in love with her,” he told me.

He agrees that from the outset, the Sheridans told him they would be the moms, and he would be “Chris.” But Edrington said that the agreement was still unclear. In hindsight, he says, they should have put their intentions in writing. Even today, though, he says he isn’t sure what exactly he should have sought.

As the baby grew older, she constantly asked Edrington if he were her father, he said. The catalyst for the lawsuit, he said, “is that I needed to stop lying” to her.

The other trigger for the legal action is that he sensed Julianna was pulling away and he feared the couple would move their family to another state. He was unwilling to participate in a legal process known as second-parent adoption — making sure Catherine was legally recognized as the child’s parent.

I’ll note here that the Sheridans said they weren’t planning to sever ties between their daughter and Edrington. In fact, he babysat her three days before they were served with the lawsuit. They also maintain that they had been explicit that they weren’t interested in co-parenting with him when they asked Edrington to help conceive their child.

They did admit to one claim that Edrington shared with me: Shortly after the order was issued Monday, the couple drove by his house to celebrate. Julianna confessed to shouting out of the car window, “We won!” using an expletive.

“We couldn’t stop ourselves,” she conceded. “What we said to him was a PG version of the hell he put us through and how we feel.”

Edrington understandably said he felt hurt by that. He also seemed to not fully appreciate how a married couple would be devastated by the prospect of redefining their family and being ordered by a court to share custody of their child.

Julianna said she and Catherine might be open for their family’s relationship with Edrington to continue in the future. But for now, they’re taking some deep breaths and taking the time to heal. “Now we get a few more weeks of summer without a dark cloud over our lives.”

A little girl born to two moms, who loves camping and Valleyfair, will enter first grade in the fall.

I told Edrington that after hearing his story, while I was empathetic to his emotions, I still didn’t agree with what he did. He should have been more upfront with the couple before taking them to court. At times he regrets filing the suit, he said, but it was the only way he could seek “parenting time.”

“If I did anything wrong, it was not knowing how I was going to feel,” he said.

He has 30 days to decide whether to petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to hear his case.