Couple Who Used Surrogate Ruled Parents

In a ruling that redefines the legal rights and responsibilities of some California parents, a state appeals court declared Tuesday that a couple who hired a surrogate mother to bear them a child are the child’s legal parents even though they contributed neither the egg nor the sperm.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana said intent was more important than a biological relationship in declaring that 2-year-old Jaycee Louise Buzzanca is the legal daughter of John and Luanne Buzzanca, who broke up after the embryo was implanted in the surrogate.

The case is considered extraordinary by legal experts who said the ruling will strengthen the rights of infertile couples who choose to have children through surrogates.

“This case was being closely watched around the world,” said Leslie Shear, an Encino attorney with the Assn. of Certified Family Law Specialists, because it established both John Buzzanca’s responsibility for child support and Luanne Buzzanca’s right to be declared the child’s legal mother.

Before Tuesday’s decision, California law conferred motherhood only on women who had given birth to the child, had donated the ovum or had gone through adoption proceedings. Men who agree to their wives being artificially inseminated with another’s sperm have long been considered fathers, as have been those who marry a woman pregnant with another’s child and assume the role of father.

A jubilant Luanne Buzzanca, 45, flanked by her attorneys, held a news conference shortly after the opinion was made public and expressed relief that the uncertainty surrounding her claims of motherhood had finally been dispelled.

“She’s just the best thing that ever happened to me, and I want to be the best thing that’s ever happened to her,” the Santa Ana woman said of Jaycee. “I wish we could have done something in a less public and a more civil way. But I’m her mother. There’s no legal question now.”

Thomas P. Stabile, an attorney for John Buzzanca, of Costa Mesa, said he and his client were “disappointed by the ruling” and have not yet decided whether to appeal it to the state Supreme Court. He had no further comment.

The child, who has lived with Luanne Buzzanca since her birth, was conceived after the Buzzancas hired a surrogate in 1994 to bear them a child using anonymous donations of egg and sperm. When the couple began divorce proceedings one month before the baby was born, John Buzzanca wanted no responsibility for the child and asked the court to declare that neither he nor his estranged wife was a legal parent of Jaycee.

The mother suffered a significant setback in her legal odyssey last August, when Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert D. Monarch ruled that John Buzzanca, also 45, was not liable for child support and that his ex-wife was “not entitled to be declared the legal mother of . . . Jaycee at this time.”

The appeals court reacted by immediately postponing implementation of Monarch’s decision, which left Jaycee without legal parents, and completely reversed it Tuesday. The court ruled that the child’s birth certificate be amended to show Luanne as the mother and John as the father, and ordered John to continue paying child support until Jaycee is 18.

In reaching its decision, the court relied on a California law that holds that a husband who consents to the artificial insemination of his wife is responsible for that child. “The same rule which makes a husband the lawful father of a child born because of his consent to artificial insemination should be applied here . . . to both husband and wife,” the court concluded.

It rejected John Buzzanca’s argument that the law should not apply because his wife did not give birth.

“The fact that Luanne did not give birth is irrelevant,” wrote David G. Sills, the court’s presiding justice. “Luanne is situated like a husband in an artificial insemination case whose consent triggers a medical procedure which results in a pregnancy and eventual birth of a child.”

Apart from quoting California statutes and previous court rulings, the court also referred to the Bible and the dilemma King Solomon faced when two women who had just given birth laid claim to the one child that had lived.

The Santa Ana appeals court has dealt with some of the nation’s thorniest surrogate cases, including Calvert vs. Johnson, which marked the first time such a court had enforced a surrogacy contract.

In Tuesday’s 26-page ruling, the court once again beseeched the state Legislature “to sort out the parental rights and responsibilities of those involved in artificial reproduction.”

“Courts will still be called upon to decide who the lawful parents really are and who--other than taxpayers--is obligated to provide maintenance and support for the child,” Sills wrote. “These cases will not go away.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California called Tuesday’s ruling a victory for mothers and children.

“Mr. Buzzanca cannot claim that he was not responsible simply because technology made it possible for him to have a child using sperm and egg donation,” said ACLU staff attorney Taylor Flynn. “Biological ties are not the exclusive definition of a family.”

Although laws regulating surrogate parenthood have not caught up with the technology in that field, experts agree that the ruling goes a long way toward bridging the gap.

“We have been living with space-age technology and horse-and-buggy laws,” said Lori Andrews, professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. “This creates a precedent to deal with many areas of the law that the courts and the state legislatures have not addressed.

“In an age in which more and more children are brought into the world through assisted reproduction, this decision is very much welcomed,” Andrews said.

Scott A. Altman, associate dean of USC Law School, said he believes that the decision was the right one for all parties involved.

“I found it shocking that a lower court was going to allow Mr. Buzzanca to avoid child support,” said Altman, who writes and lectures on surrogacy law. “The appellate court corrected the most serious legal error made in this case.”

While Altman believes that the court’s decision was “exactly right,” he also pointed to what he termed a “strained analogy” between Luanne Buzzanca and a man who consents to have his wife artificially inseminated. That reasoning can lead to a future argument that surrogate mothers have the same rights as sperm donors.

“I find this worrisome,” Altman said. “A sperm donor invests a minimal amount of time, a minimal amount of risk. There’s little if any bond to the child. Whereas we know that pregnancy and childbirth often brings changes of the heart.”

The court’s particular reasoning in this case “is sweepingly broad and could have extraordinary and dangerous consequences,” he said.

Luanne Buzzanca, clutching a photo of her daughter, said the legal battle has been worth it.

“My worries were not about myself but about her,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure I protected my child.”

She said her former husband has seen Jaycee only once, and that was by accident at an attorney’s office.

“I feel badly for him, because he’s really missing out on a great little girl,” she said.

One of her attorneys, Jeffrey W. Doeringer, said he hopes there aren’t any more appeals.

“I’d like to see it be final, so Luanne and Jaycee can go on with their lives,” Doeringer said. “Enough is enough.”

Times staff writer Thao Hua contributed to this story.