## Facts

- Chris Titchenal and Diane Dexter were in a long-term intimate relationship beginning in 1985, sharing a home, finances, and property, and regarding each other as life partners.
- After unsuccessful attempts to conceive via sperm donor, they decided to adopt a child.
- In July 1991, Dexter legally adopted a newborn girl, Sarah Ruth Dexter-Titchenal; Titchenal did not adopt, believing the adoption statute would not permit both partners to do so.
- The parties held themselves out as the child’s parents; the child used parent identifiers for both adults.
- Until separation, Titchenal provided approximately 65% of the child’s care.
- The parties separated in November 1994, and Dexter moved out with the child.
- For roughly five months after separation, the child spent regular time with Titchenal, but by spring 1995 Dexter substantially reduced contact and declined Titchenal’s offer of financial support.
- In October 1995, Titchenal filed a superior court complaint seeking an order establishing and enforcing regular, unsupervised parent-child contact based on equitable theories.
- The superior court granted Dexter’s motion to dismiss for lack of a statutory or common-law basis to order contact.

## Issues

1. Whether a superior court may use equitable powers to adjudicate and order parent-child contact sought by a nonadoptive, nonbiological former partner when no statute, common law, or constitutional provision provides an enforceable right to visitation.
2. Whether doctrines such as in loco parentis, de facto parenthood, public policy, or the State’s parens patriae authority supply jurisdiction or a cause of action to compel visitation over a legal parent’s objection.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal.
- The court held the superior court lacked authority to order parent-child contact based solely on equitable theories where no independent legal right to visitation existed.
- The court rejected reliance on parens patriae as a substitute for statutory authorization in a private visitation dispute.
- The court declined to recognize a new common-law status (such as “equitable” or “de facto” parenthood) that would entitle a nonlegal parent to seek visitation.

## Legal Principles

- Equity requires a predicate legal right and does not create new rights; a court of equity may enforce recognized legal rights but cannot supply jurisdiction or a cause of action based only on perceived unfairness.
- Absent statutory authorization, Vermont common law did not provide a general visitation right to a nonadoptive, nonbiological third party, even one who functioned as a parent during a relationship.
- In loco parentis is typically temporary and does not confer enduring parental rights against the wishes of the child’s legal parent once the underlying custodial arrangement ends.
- Family-law statutes define who may seek custody or visitation; expanding the class of persons treated as “parents” for such claims is a matter for the Legislature, not judicial creation through equity.
- Parens patriae authority is ordinarily exercised through specific statutory proceedings and cannot be used to bypass statutory limits on jurisdiction and standing in private disputes.
- A legal parent’s prerogatives regarding the child may not be displaced by compelled third-party contact without a recognized legal basis.

## Conclusion

The court held that, despite the plaintiff’s extensive parental role, a Vermont superior court could not order parent-child contact for a nonlegal parent based only on equity, in loco parentis, de facto parenthood, public policy, or parens patriae; without statutory, common-law, or constitutional authorization, the complaint was properly dismissed.


Titchenal v. Dexter, 693 A.2d 682 (Vt. 1997)