# V.C. v. M.J.B.

> Supreme Court of New Jersey · April 6, 2000 · 163 N.J. 200

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7326105

## Case

- **Full name:** V.C., PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT AND v. M.J.B., AND
- **Court:** Supreme Court of New Jersey
- **Decided:** April 6, 2000
- **Citations:** 163 N.J. 200; 748 A.2d 539; 2000 N.J. LEXIS 359
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Hern
- **Judges:** Hern, Long
- **Cited by:** 146 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7326105

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that the situation in which the partner does not participate in the decision to conceive "parallel[s] the situation in which a woman, already pregnant or a mother, becomes involved with or marries a man who is not the biological or adoptive father of the child, but…
- holding that the State may intervene to grant visitation over the objections of a parent where the child's psychological parent `has stepped in to assume the role of the legal parent who has been unable or unwilling to undertake the obligations of parenthood'
- holding that "[t}hird parties who live in familial circumstances with a child and his or her legal parent may achieve, with the consent of the legal parent, a psychological parent status vis-a-vis a child" (emphasis added)
- explaining that “the ending of the relationship between the legal parent and the third party does not end the bond that the legal parent fostered and that actually developed between the child and the [de facto] parent”
- observing that a non-biological parent who has willingly, and with the consent of the biological parent, undertaken duties of a parent to a child not related by blood or adoption and has become a psychological parent, "stands in parity with legal the parent," and custody and v…

## Opinion text

O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court. I agree that the degree of intrusion on parental autonomy is properly resolved here by the standard set forth in the Court’s opinion. I adhere to the views expressed in my dissenting opinion in Watkins v. Nelson, 163 N.J. 235 , 748 A.2d 558 (2000), that the determination of custody following the death of a custodial parent requires a *231 different standard in order to protect a grieving child from being removed from her home before she may be able to bear the twin losses of a parent and the familiar presence of those family members who, until then, had provided her nurture and love.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7326105. Public record. Not legal advice.