## Facts

- A same-sex, unmarried couple, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, jointly adopted a Louisiana-born child in New York pursuant to a 2006 adoption decree.
- They sought a revised Louisiana birth certificate replacing the biological parents’ names with both adoptive parents’ names.
- Louisiana’s vital-records statute provides for creation of a new birth record and directs issuance of a new birth certificate listing the “names of the adoptive parents” upon receipt of a certified out-of-state adoption decree.
- Louisiana’s State Registrar refused to issue a revised certificate listing both men, reasoning Louisiana permits joint adoption only by married couples; she offered to list only one adoptive parent because Louisiana permits single-parent adoption.
- The adoptive parents sued the Registrar under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and Equal Protection.

## Issues

1. Whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause required Louisiana’s Registrar to issue a revised birth certificate listing both adoptive parents named in the New York adoption decree.
2. Whether 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a cause of action to enforce the Full Faith and Credit Clause against a state official in this context.
3. Whether refusing to issue a revised certificate listing both adoptive parents violated the Equal Protection Clause.

## Decision

- The en banc Fifth Circuit reversed the district court and rendered judgment for the Registrar.
- The court held § 1983 did not supply a cause of action to enforce the Full Faith and Credit Clause as asserted against the Registrar’s birth-certificate practices.
- The court concluded Louisiana had not violated Full Faith and Credit because it was not required to modify its vital-records practices or domestic-relations policy to mirror New York’s, so long as it recognized the adoption judgment’s legal effect.
- The court declined to grant relief on equal protection, concluding the challenged policy followed Louisiana’s rule limiting joint adoption to married couples and did not create a federal entitlement to a particular form of birth certificate.

## Legal Principles

- Full Faith and Credit requires recognition of sister-state judgments as binding, but does not compel a state to substitute another state’s statutes or policy choices for its own in areas where it may legislate.
- A state may recognize an out-of-state adoption’s legal parent-child status without being constitutionally required to issue a birth certificate in the format sought by the adoptive parents.
- Structural constitutional provisions regulating interstate relations, such as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, do not necessarily create “individually enforceable rights” actionable under § 1983 in suits challenging executive implementation.
- There is no general federal constitutional right to a state-issued birth certificate reflecting specific parental listings where state law does not provide for that documentation outcome.

## Conclusion

The en banc Fifth Circuit held that the Full Faith and Credit Clause did not require Louisiana to issue a revised birth certificate listing both unmarried adoptive parents named in a New York adoption decree, and that § 1983 did not provide a vehicle to compel that result against the state registrar.


Adar v. Smith, 639 F.3d 146 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc)