## Facts

- Jerry L. Berwick and Richard T. Wagner were in a relationship from the mid-1990s until 2008 and lived together in Houston.
- The men married in Canada in 2003 and later registered as domestic partners in California in 2005, even though they continued living in Texas.
- In California, they entered a gestational surrogacy agreement with a married woman; embryos were created using Berwick’s sperm and donated ova, and the surrogate carried the pregnancy.
- Before the child’s birth, a California court signed an order titled “Judgment of Paternity” that:
  - declared both Berwick and Wagner to be the child’s legal parents,
  - declared the surrogate and her husband not to be the child’s legal parents, and
  - directed the hospital to list Berwick in the “father” space and Wagner in the “mother” space on the original birth certificate.
- After the child (C.B.W.) was born, Berwick and Wagner brought him to Houston and lived together as a family for several years.
- In 2008, Berwick ended the relationship. A dispute followed over conservatorship and possession of the child.
- Wagner filed a Texas Suit Affecting the Parent–Child Relationship (SAPCR), seeking conservatorship orders and relying on the California Judgment of Paternity to establish his parental status.
- Berwick counterclaimed for sole managing conservatorship and argued Wagner lacked standing because Wagner had no genetic relationship to the child and because, in Berwick’s view, enforcing the California judgment would violate Texas public policy.
- Wagner separately sought to register the California judgment in Texas under the UCCJEA provisions in the Texas Family Code; the registration dispute and the SAPCR were consolidated.
- A prior appeal (Berwick I) affirmed registration and treated the California judgment as a final, enforceable determination.
- After remand, a jury trial occurred in the SAPCR. The trial court ultimately appointed Wagner sole managing conservator and Berwick possessory conservator, excluded certain evidence aimed at emphasizing biological paternity, and declined to submit a requested child-name-change question.
- Berwick appealed from the final SAPCR judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas courts were required to recognize and give effect to the California “Judgment of Paternity” declaring both Berwick and Wagner legal parents, despite Berwick’s public-policy objections.
2. Whether Wagner had standing in the SAPCR as a “parent” under Texas law based on the California parentage judgment.
3. Whether the evidence and the best-interest standard supported appointing Wagner sole managing conservator and Berwick possessory conservator.
4. Whether the trial court properly excluded evidence offered to emphasize Berwick’s biological paternity where legal parentage had already been adjudicated.
5. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to submit a requested name-change issue or otherwise alter the child’s name established under the California judgment.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s final SAPCR judgment.
- Texas was required to give full faith and credit to the California Judgment of Paternity, which had already been registered in Texas and upheld on the earlier appeal.
- Because the California judgment adjudicated Wagner as a legal parent, Wagner qualified as a parent for Texas standing purposes and could seek conservatorship orders in the SAPCR.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion in appointing Wagner sole managing conservator and Berwick possessory conservator; the record supported the trial court’s best-interest findings.
- The trial court acted within its discretion by excluding biological-paternity evidence offered to re-argue parentage after a binding parentage judgment.
- The trial court did not err in declining to submit the requested name-change issue and in leaving the child’s name as set by the California judgment.

## Legal Principles

- A final sister-state judgment adjudicating parentage is entitled to full faith and credit; disagreement with the rendering state’s law or with the result is not a basis to refuse enforcement.
- When a foreign parentage judgment has been registered and confirmed under the UCCJEA procedures in the Texas Family Code, Texas courts must treat it as binding in later SAPCR proceedings, and a party generally may not use the SAPCR to collaterally attack that judgment.
- Under Texas law, an adjudicated parent is a “parent” for standing purposes, even without a genetic connection, when parentage has been determined by a valid court order entitled to recognition.
- Conservatorship determinations are reviewed for abuse of discretion; the child’s best interest is the controlling standard, and the factfinder may consider each parent’s conduct affecting the child’s relationship with the other parent.
- Trial courts may exclude evidence (including biological-paternity proof) when its purpose or effect is to re-litigate a settled parentage determination or to distract from the best-interest and conservatorship questions.
- A child’s name may be changed only on a sufficient best-interest showing; a trial court may refuse to submit a name-change issue or to change a name already established by a valid, binding judgment.

## Conclusion

Berwick v. Wagner holds that Texas must recognize and enforce a California surrogacy-related Judgment of Paternity declaring both men legal parents, which gave Wagner standing as a parent in the Texas SAPCR and supported affirmance of the trial court’s conservatorship ruling, evidentiary limits on biological-paternity proof, and refusal to revisit the child’s name set by the California judgment.


Berwick v. Wagner, 509 S.W.3d 411 (2014)