I’ve just been talking to a tax colleague, Sarah L., about fascinating and topical legal issues — no, not the Supreme Court’s opinions in the firefighter or banking cases, or Justice Souter’s retirement or the new consumer finance agency– instead, we’ve been trying to get the full story on Michael Jackson’s paternity and the custody of his three children. Sarah has pointed out, “it sounds like he took *full* advantage of ART (assisted reproductive technology). Here’s what I’ve gleaned from various gossip sources: Michael Jackson is not the biological father of any of the children, and his ex-wife, who carried two of the children, is not their biological mother. All three kids were conceived using egg donors, sperm donors, and IVF. Also, Michael Jackson never adopted any of the children. Depending on how this plays out, there could be a lot of legal issues here.” As we write this, a will has just surfaced, according to a Wall Street Journal story, although it is still not clear whom (if anyone) was named as testamentary guardian or as conservator of the estate for the children. Besides, the “parents” are typically the preferred guardians; Debbie Rowe’s status is complicated, but she apparently gave birth to 2 of the 3 children while she was married to Jackson. In our world, where eggs and sperm can — appropriately — be sold, where surrogacy has been so much in the news (Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, just to drop a few names), where Jon and Kate are splitting up and they’re splitting the care for the 8,where we’ve heard little in the past month from Nadya Suleman and her octuplets (see here for the article that Jennifer Collins and I wrote about that ART situation), custody of the Jackson children may simply be a footnote — but a useful one for my trusts and estates and family law casebooks.
Posted by Naomi Cahn on June 30, 2009 at 04:55 PM
Comments
Also, what’s up with the Courier font? Is this some sort of inside joke designed to conjure up images of old time tab journalism, or is it just a technical glitch?
Posted by: ohwilleke | Jul 1, 2009 2:23:21 PM
Given the children’s ages (IIRC, the youngest is seven), the presumption of paternity that attaches to children born during a marriage, the frequent anonymity of sperm donors, the importance of continuing the status quo in the case of non-infant children, the existence of birth certificates, and the likely existence of a will, I very much doubt that there will be legally important paternity issues in the Michael Jackson estate. Even if an egg donor were to come forward and have a positive DNA match to one or more of the children, a court would likey award custody based on pre-mortem paternity status, pre-mortem custody arrangements, and pre-mortem guardianship provisions in the will.
Also, assuming that there is a will, it likey holds Michael Jackson’s possibly substantial, but possibly not substantial assets in trust for the beneficiaries, reducing the incentives to act of any would be parent interested mostly in the money in the estate.
Posted by: ohwilleke | Jul 1, 2009 1:25:54 AM