The new mom, who asked that she and her family be identified only by their first names out of fear they could be targeted for the unconventional way they’re raising their daughter, said her doctors had known for weeks that she would probably end up with a surgical birth.

Yet because of their uncommon family structure, it wasn’t until just minutes before the obstetrician cut into her belly that the father of her child got permission to go with her into the operating room.

“They were changing shifts so we couldn’t get the right doctor,” Chloe said. “They said it was up to the anesthesiologist on the day of the surgery to agree to having two people there.”

Chloe is polyamorous. By the time of her delivery last year, she and her partners Silvia and Fausto had already endured a medical and legal odyssey in their quest to expand their family.

Polyamory is nothing new in California, and certainly not in Oakland, which in 2024 became the first city in the state to outlaw discrimination based on family structure — a move meant in part to protect multiple partners’ rights to manage a medical emergency in the hospital.

Last month, West Hollywood passed an ordinance seeking to become the first city in California and one of just a handful across the country to offer domestic partnerships to poly groups. But for now, many families still face legal hurdles even in places where polyamory is becoming widely accepted.

In Chloe’s case, she began the pregnancy process by contracting with a fertility clinic to implant an embryo conceived with Silvia’s egg and Fausto’s sperm. When it came time to give birth, the throuple had to get special dispensation to visit their daughter in the NICU.

“You can only get two parents on the birth certificate at the time of the birth, so they have to think about who is going to be the one giving the child health insurance,” said the family’s attorney, Amira Hasenbush, a partner at the boutique Glendale firm All Family Legal.

For Chloe, Silvia and Fausto, that decision also meant weighing which of them would get access to paid family leave — something California law guarantees only to workers with documented proof of parentage.

Experts say multi-partner families are increasingly common in the Bay Area — Chloe noted they were recently outbid for a house by another triad with a child. Yet without laws allowing for domestic partnerships of three or more people, they are left spending thousands of dollars on attorney’s fees to craft a patchwork of legal agreements that afford just small fraction of the contractual protection conferred to married couples by default.

“Families are becoming more and more complex,” said Alana Chazan, Hasenbush’s partner at All Family Legal. “There are polyamorous families that will essentially form an LLC in order to protect their rights, because corporations have more rights under these laws than people do.”

Poly households who end up hiring lawyers are most often throuples or foursomes seeking to protect jointly held assets, parent children in common and ensure they can care for one another in life-or-death crises.

Some, like Chloe’s triad, are all lovers. In many others, two may share a partner in common but aren’t directly involved with each other.

“Having multiple partners is a more difficult legal administrative problem to solve than just making marriage gender neutral and plugging two people in there,” said Kaiponanea Matsumura, a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on the legal regulation of families. “That is truly easier, legally.”

Math alone makes opening domestic partnership to polyamorous relationships challenging. But the law itself is also a hurdle, he and other experts said.

“Domestic partnership was added to the bigamy law in California, the criminal statute, so there’s currently no way to extend California registered domestic partnership to more than two people,” said Toby Adams a polyamory legal expert who is currently seeking a parentage judgment for her first foursome of clients.

The state bigamy law won’t necessarily bar West Hollywood from registering relationships inside its two-mile-square borders. But it does sharply limit that registry’s power, experts said.

“Many of the valuable rights and benefits that accompany marriage or domestic partnership are state law-created,” Matsumura explained. “Municipalities can’t create that, because it’s a creature of state law.”

Other marriage rights flow from the federal government, leaving little hope they could be expanded soon.

“Marriage conveys over a thousand different rights and responsibilities under federal law, and you can’t get yourself into that with a city ordinance,” said attorney Diane Adams , whose nonprofit Chosen Family Law Center has helped author poly ordinances around the country. “I call this the social welfare state of two. We’ve privatized dependency within marriage.”

But expanding rights piecemeal creates a nightmare for divorce lawyers, who found themselves building the plane in midair with gay breakups in the aughts and early 2010s.

“People don’t live their lives in contemplation of their divorce,” said Steven J. Mandel, a New York City divorce attorney and legal pioneer in same-sex splits. “One hundred percent of the people who get married think they’re gonna be married forever, and 50% of people are wrong.”

California’s first-in-the-nation multi-parentage law arose from exactly the sort of lesbian breakup Mandel made his name litigating.

In June of 2008, an Inland Empire woman named Melissa began a tempestuous relationship with a woman named Irene, according to state appellate court records. The two registered almost immediately as domestic partners despite fighting constantly, the court heard, and during one of their breakups Melissa started hooking up with Jesus, a man with whom she became pregnant.

Their love didn’t last. Melissa got back with her ex, marrying Irene just weeks before Proposition 8 made such unions illegal. The two women were together in the delivery room when the baby was born the following spring.

That union dissolved a few months later and then, in September of 2009, according to the appellate court record, Melissa’s new boyfriend stabbed Irene in the neck while they were drinking beer in a park, landing the baby in state custody.

Melissa, Jesus and Irene sought to each have visitation with their daughter and reunification services to help them figure out a way to co-parent. But the law would recognize only two of them as parents.

After the appellate court’s decision, then-state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation to expand California’s definition of parentage to include more than two adults where excluding a third would be “detrimental” to the well-being of the child.

“Gay rights were advanced through a lot of breakups,” said Matthew Goodwin, a family lawyer in West Hollywood. “That’s how so much legislation gets drafted, because unique questions were litigated.”

The current state law allows parents like Chloe, Silvia and Fausto to petition for parentage with relative ease. A registry like the one proposed in West Hollywood would confer further recognition, even if it didn’t ultimately earn them more rights.

“It was almost unthinkable in the 1980s that two men or two women could legally marry under California law,” said Matsumura, the Loyola professor. “What [early domestic partnership] ordinances did, it institutionalized this idea, it made it not inconceivable that a government would recognize a type of relationship and say it has value.”

It would also almost certainly extend access to health benefits — a quirk of American marriage that experts said lies at the heart of the legal fight over poly partnerships.

“If tax benefits, if health insurance, if parental rights were not all based upon marital status, we wouldn’t have the issues that we do,” said Chazan, the Glendale lawyer. “Pass universal healthcare, then we wouldn’t have to marry each other for health benefits.”

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CALIC is a resource designed to benefit communities of color in the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Lawyers and other professionals will present on subjects including subjects including employment, criminal law, and public health in light of COVID. In addition, the presented information will include the identification of existing community resources and guidance for related follow-up. Speakers will include Joseph Richardson, Lead Attorney of MWA’s Racial and Economic Justice Practice; Kymberly Lewis, Supervising Paralegal for ProSe Legal, Inc.; Derrick Smith, Supervising Deputy Public Defender in San Bernardino County; and Dora Barilla, Community Health Executive at MWA.

Additionally, the free forum will cover legal issues of importance to the local community, including the accessibility of legal information, preparation and filing of legal paperwork, as well as an up-to-date discussion of COVID-19 guidelines, vaccinations, and the pandemic’s impact on access to legal services, especially with regards to language and technology barriers.

Whether meeting in person or via webinar, those interested are encouraged to RSVP online and have the option of submitting their questions for speakers to address at the conclusion of their segments. Consistent with its desire for community outreach, the ProSe mobile office will also be on-site to provide attendees with helpful information.

Led by Senior Pastor Dr. Joshua Beckley, Ecclesia Christian Fellowship co-sponsors this event with deep roots to the Inland Empire community as a 501(c)(3) organization built around the pillars of character, competency, chemistry, calling, and commitment. CALIC connects with Ecclesia’s mission and service for others, and continues in a tradition of resources designed to benefit communities of color in the Inland Empire and greater Southern California area sponsored by MWA.

Joe Richardson, Esq., leads the Racial & Economic Justice Practice Group at MWA, which is built to use litigation, advocacy, and community contact to help communities of color in the Riverside and San Bernardino areas. Regular discussions between Richardson and area pastors confirmed the need for a legal clinic event to benefit community members. For more information about the free clinic and to RSVP, please click here.

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(NewsUSA) – In the U.S. alone, there are 10 million car accidents every year, and the tense moments following a car accident, even a minor one, can be scary and stressful for everyone involved.

Drivers and passengers can feel confused and unsure of what to do. Even the most experienced and seasoned drivers can make basic mistakes after they have been involved in a traumatic event. Simple, avoidable mistakes could cost you time and money, or lead to personal, medical and legal issues.

Here are some of the most common mistakes to avoid after a collision:

* Fleeing the scene: Leaving the scene of an accident could land you in serious legal trouble. You may be in shock, but the most important thing to do is stay where you are.

Check on your passengers, and once you exit your vehicle, check with the other driver involved in the accident.

Try to remain calm and wait for law enforcement to arrive on the scene. If it is safe to do so, use your cell phone to take photos of your vehicle to document the damage that resulted from the accident while you wait for police.

* Not reporting the accident: Even if it’s just a minor collision, always report the accident to the police. Never let someone convince you to avoid calling the police.

If you decide to make a claim with your insurance company later on, or if you decide to pursue a legal claim, not reporting the accident could hurt your case.

* Exchanging too much information: Do not share your driver’s license or who was at fault with the other driver; however, share this information with the police along with your current insurance.
Always exchange contact information with the other driver, get contact info from any witnesses, and obtain full insurance details from other drivers involved in the accident.
Make sure accurate information is included in the police report, and ask for a copy of the report to edit any incorrect information.

* Failing to get medical advice: You may think that you were lucky enough to escape injury, but you should always get a medical checkup after a car accident, especially if you hit your head. Remember, only a medical professional can rule out possible head trauma and other serious injuries.

* Having your vehicle repaired at just any shop: You might have to make a decision on-the-spot as to where to have your vehicle repaired. Don’t make a panicked decision when it comes to your safety.

Visit www.goldclass.com to find a Gold Class shop that has collision repair professionals with up-to-date training contributing to complete, safe and quality repairs.

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