## Facts

- Linsay Gatsby and Kylee Gatsby married in June 2015 and decided to have a child together through artificial insemination using sperm from a mutual friend.
- Linsay and Kylee drafted and signed an artificial-insemination agreement with the donor stating the donor relinquished parental rights and that the recipient(s) intended to assume parental rights for any resulting child.
- The insemination was performed at home; Linsay inseminated Kylee. No physician was involved.
- A child was born on October 29, 2016. Kylee was the biological mother, and Linsay was present at the birth.
- Both Linsay and Kylee were listed on the child’s birth certificate.
- The child lived with both spouses, but Kylee served as the primary caregiver.
- Linsay never completed a step-parent adoption and did not establish parentage through Idaho’s voluntary acknowledgment procedures.
- About a year after the child’s birth, following a domestic-violence incident, Linsay filed for divorce.
- In the divorce case, Linsay initially received sole custody on a temporary basis, which was later changed to joint custody.
- After roughly a year of joint custody, the magistrate court awarded Kylee sole legal and physical custody and ruled that Linsay was not the child’s legal parent under either Idaho’s Artificial Insemination Act (AIA) or the marital presumption doctrines.
- The district court, acting in its appellate capacity, affirmed the magistrate court’s rulings. Linsay appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Did Linsay become a legal parent under Idaho’s Artificial Insemination Act even though the insemination occurred without physician involvement and without filing the statutory written consents?
2. Could Linsay establish parentage through the common-law marital presumption when it was undisputed she lacked a biological connection to the child and had not used other statutory mechanisms (such as voluntary acknowledgment or adoption)?
3. Do the AIA and related parentage statutes violate federal equal protection or due process when applied to same-sex spouses, given the statutes’ gendered wording?
4. If Linsay was not a legal parent, did she have standing as a third party to seek custody or visitation, and did the magistrate court abuse its discretion in awarding Kylee sole custody based on the child’s best interests?

## Decision

- The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s decision, leaving in place the magistrate court’s judgment.
- The court held Linsay did not establish parentage under the AIA because the statutory requirements were not met, including the statute’s physician-related procedures and the filing of written consents with the state registrar; the parties’ private agreement and the birth-certificate listing did not substitute for statutory compliance.
- The court rejected Linsay’s reliance on the marital presumption to obtain parentage because she was not biologically related to the child and had not taken other available legal steps to establish parent-child status (such as adoption or statutory acknowledgment).
- The court rejected Linsay’s constitutional challenges, concluding the AIA and related provisions can be construed and applied in a gender-neutral manner and, as applied here, did not deny equal protection or due process; the outcome turned on noncompliance with statutory procedures rather than sexual orientation.
- The court agreed that Linsay lacked third-party standing to pursue custody or visitation; in any event, it found no reversible error in the magistrate court’s best-interests analysis awarding Kylee sole custody.

## Legal Principles

- When conception occurs by artificial insemination, Idaho’s AIA provides the governing method for a nonbiological spouse to obtain legal parentage, and statutory prerequisites (including required written consents and required filing) must be met to create that status.
- Private insemination agreements, intent to co-parent, and placement of a spouse’s name on a birth certificate do not by themselves create legal parentage when the statutory method for establishing parentage has not been satisfied.
- Statutes using gendered terms in the parentage context may be construed and applied on a gender-neutral basis so that same-sex spouses have the same access to parentage mechanisms as similarly situated different-sex spouses.
- The marital presumption does not automatically establish parentage for a nonbiological spouse where biology is undisputed and the spouse has not used available legal methods (such as adoption or statutory acknowledgment) to establish parent-child status.
- A person who is not a legal parent must satisfy Idaho’s third-party standing requirements to seek custody or visitation; custody determinations remain driven by the child’s best interests and are reviewed for abuse of discretion.

## Conclusion

The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed an award of sole legal and physical custody to the child’s biological mother, holding the nonbiological spouse was not a legal parent because the couple’s at-home insemination did not meet the requirements of Idaho’s Artificial Insemination Act and no alternative legal steps (such as adoption or statutory acknowledgment) were taken; the court further held the relevant statutes could be applied in a gender-neutral manner consistent with constitutional protections and that the nonparent spouse lacked standing (and, in any event, the best-interests findings supported sole custody to the biological mother).


Gatsby v. Gatsby, 495 P.3d 996 (2021)