Determining Parentage and Jurisdiction in Surrogacy and International Business Disputes, Exams of Law

Download Determining Parentage and Jurisdiction in Surrogacy and International Business Disputes and more Exams Law in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Law 244: Conflict of Laws Fall 2010 Final Exam UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA COURSE EXAMINATION SCHOOL OF LAW Fall 2010 LAW 244: CONFLICT OF LAWS INSTRUCTOR: HERMA HILL KAY TIME ALLOWED: 32 HOURS OPEN BOOK EXAMINATION NUMBERS: Please be sure to put your correct Fall exam number on each page of the exam (if typed) or on each blue book. COMPLETION: DO NOT CONTINUE WRITING AFTER TIME HAS BEEN CALLED. Please do NOT leave your bluebook or typed answers on the desk. Exams MUST be turned in to the person in charge. If you finish early, you must turn your exam in to the Examination Headquarters in Room 111 Boalt Hall. There are no space limits. QUESTION I—(60%) Alex and Denise Dalton live in Arlington, Virginia. Both are partners at law firms in the District of Columbia, earning large salaries but working long hours and traveling frequently. After trying to conceive a baby for several years without success, the Daltons decided to hire a Asurrogate mother@ to be artificially inseminated with Alex=s sperm and carry the fetus to term. They placed an advertisement in the Arlington Monitor. The Daltons were not aware of it, but the Monitor was sold in Maryland and the District of Columbia as well as in Virginia. Betty Palmer lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. A full-time housewife and mother of four, married to the same man (a housepainter) for 16 years, she saw the Daltons= advertisement and contacted them to offer her help. She and the Daltons spent some time together and decided to enter into a surrogacy agreement. Most of the terms were negotiated over the telephone, and eventually a contract was drawn up. Among other things, the contract provided that Athe 2 Law 244: Conflict of Laws Fall 2010 Final Exam rights and liabilities of all parties to this agreement shall be governed by the law of Virginia.@ Palmer and the Daltons signed the agreement at a restaurant in D.C. Palmer was inseminated with Alex’s sperm and became pregnant. The child was born on June 23, 2010, at a hospital in Maryland. Immediately after the birth, Palmer realized that she wanted to raise the child herself, and a week later she sued for a declaration of legal parentage and custody in the District of Columbia. The Daltons moved to dismiss Palmer=s suit on the ground that she had surrendered her maternal rights in the contract; they asserted a counterclaim asking the court to enforce the agreement by awarding them full custody. Palmer responded that the contract was unenforceable. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS AND DISCUSS FULLY: 1) Assume that the following laws are in force in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia: a) Virginia follows the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws. It enacted a statute known as the Reproductive Freedom Act of 1989 (“RFA”) which provides that Aa woman=s freedom of choice with respect to any aspect of the reproductive process, including the right to become pregnant or to terminate a pregnancy, shall not be limited or interfered with.” It also has an 1866 law stating that Ano contract to buy or sell any person shall be enforceable.@ In a case deciding the respective rights of a single woman who was mistakenly artificially inseminated with the sperm of a man which he intended to be used to inseminate his wife, the Virginia Supreme Court followed the biological approach to determining parentage by holding that the single woman was the mother of the child and the married man was the father of the child. There are no Virginia cases on point concerning surrogacy contracts. b) Maryland follows the First Restatement of Conflict of Laws. Surrogacy contracts have been held unenforceable in Maryland, although the Maryland court=s opinion simply stated that contracts to buy or sell a child are prohibited. c) The District of Columbia follows Currie’s Governmental Interest Analysis. A recent opinion by the D.C. Court of Appeals (the court of last resort in the District) stated that surrogacy contracts are void as against public policy Page 5 of 6 Law 244: Conflict of Laws Fall 2010 Final Exam D contends that Delaware’s application of this statute to this case violates the Constitutional “minimum contacts” standard for personal jurisdiction established by International Shoe because Gidget did not register with the Delaware Secretary of State; has no facilities in Delaware and has never done business in Delaware; both Gidget and D are headquartered in the Minneapolis area, and D has never done business in Delaware. 1) What is the relevance, if any, of the choice of law provision to the issue of Delaware’s personal jurisdiction over D in this Case? 2) Is the Delaware default judgment entitled to Full Faith and Credit in the Minnesota court? 3) If the Minnesota court refuses to give full faith and credit to the Delaware judgment, and proceeds with the suit filed by D against P in Minnesota, may it apply forum law to determine the rights of the parties? QUESTION III—(15%) Devlin Banks is a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in New York. Devlin owns and runs depository institutions throughout the United States and in 17 European nations. Banque de Pieton is a French competitor of Devlin that does business in Europe and New York. Pieton sues Devlin in the New York federal district court, alleging violations of federal antitrust laws. During discovery, Pieton seeks documents and electronic databases identifying depositors in Devlin=s branch offices that are highly relevant to the litigation. For the past ten years, Devlin has stored its business records at a central facility located in Switzerland, where Devlin maintains a large branch and employs an additional seventy people to handle the company=s recordkeeping. An affidavit submitted by Devlin=s CEO explains that Devlin chose to centralize its information systems for purposes of efficiency and that considerations of cost and location led it to select Switzerland. The documents in question are discoverable under both New York and Delaware law. A Swiss statute makes it unlawful to disclose bank records and imposes substantial civil fines on anyone who does so. Devlin refused to comply with a subpoena to turn the records over, and Pieton has asked the New York court to issue an order compelling Devlin to comply with the subpoena or suffer discovery sanctions. Devlin argues that the records are protected from disclosure by Swiss law. Page 6 of 6 Law 244: Conflict of Laws Fall 2010 Final Exam ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION AND DISCUSS FULLY: You are clerking for the judge to whom the case has been assigned. She asks you to prepare a memorandum discussing how the case should be resolved in light of relevant decisions on the application of U.S. law involving international claims. END OF EXAMINATION