14 May 2013

A Difference of Opinion: Are Universal Life Church Weddings Valid in New York?

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the validity, in New York, of marriages performed by the Universal Life Church, which ordains its ministers via the click of an online button, and subsequent online approval. New York courts are split on the matter, and as Grossman notes, a recent annulment filing has brought the issue up once again. Her column brings up interesting questions such as, “Who is a minister?” and “What is a Church?” Continue reading →

Posted In: Family Law

More Analysis and Commentary by Joanna L. Grossman

30 Apr 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

Victor/Victoria: Michigan Court Says Marriage Still Valid Despite Husband’s Sexual Reassignment Surgery

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on how the legal status of the spouses in a marriage may change if one of them has sex-reassignment surgery—either before or after the marriage, or whether their legal sex must always be the one they had at birth. Grossman covers cases on this topic in Kansas, Texas, Florida and New Jersey, and their outcomes. Continue reading →

Posted In: Family Law

16 Apr 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

Parenthood by Contract: The Kansas Supreme Court Enforces a Lesbian Co-Parenting Agreement

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the recurring legal issue of whether a lesbian co-parent—one who functions as a second parent for her partner’s biological child—can acquire parental or quasi-parental rights that allow her to still enjoy a parent-child relationship after the adults’ relationship ends. Grossman discusses state Supreme Court cases from Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio that take on this very question. She also discusses the question whether a child can have three legal parents (one of whom is a sperm donor and the other two, lesbian co-parents) and notes that no court, so far, has allowed that. Continue reading →

Posted In: Family Law

2 Apr 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

What’s the Matter with North Dakota and Arkansas? Two State Legislatures Pass Highly Restrictive and Unconstitutional Abortion Laws

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on two states’ decisions to pass abortion laws despite the fact that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, it is very clear that these new laws are unconstitutional. Grossman explains the relevant tenets of constitutional law regarding abortion, and details exactly why both North Dakota’s and Arkansas’s laws flout the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents. Grossman also covers other abortion laws that have been passed by state legislatures despite their very clear unconstitutionality, and notes that the new laws do not gibe with public opinion regarding abortion rights. Continue reading →

Posted In: Constitutional Law, Reproductive Law

18 Mar 2013 Joanna L. Grossman and Leon Friedman

A Lawyer for All: The 50th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright

Justia columnist Joanna Grossman and Justia guest columnist Leon Friedman, both Hofstra law professors, comment on the landmark Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainright, which established the right to an attorney for those who are facing felony charges, and who would not otherwise be able to afford a lawyer. The column is timely, as the Gideon precedent is now fifty years old. In their column, Grossman and Friedman describe the state of the law before the ruling in Gideon, note the arguments that persuaded the Court to declare a right of appointed counsel for those who could not afford counsel, and explain the meaning of the ruling. Continue reading →

Posted In: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

5 Mar 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

A Step in the Right Direction: The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 at 20

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman discusses the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on its twentieth anniversary. Grossman notes that after an eight-year fight over its provisions, the FMLA was left somewhat anemic when it was finally enacted into law. Grossman also explains specifically why the FMLA is disappointing to many workers: For instance, many U.S. workers are not eligible for FMLA leave; many of the eligible cannot afford to take leave; and the FMLA has done little to alter the disproportionate burden of caretaking that falls on women in most families. In addition, Grossman points out, the FMLA did not alter the U.S.’s disappointingly low ranking among industrialized countries when it comes to medical and caretaking leave benefits for workers. Grossman urges some much-needed fixes to the FMLA, advocating that the law should be changed to solve some serious problems with, and close some worrisome gaps in, leave benefits, which she details. Continue reading →

Posted In: Employment Law

19 Feb 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

In Utero: The New Jersey Supreme Court Says Prenatal Drug Exposure Is Not Sufficient Evidence of Child Abuse

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman discusses a New Jersey case in which the state’s high court held unanimously—and perhaps surprisingly, to some—that the state may not find a newborn to be abused or neglected based solely on evidence of prenatal drug exposure, without evidence of actual harm to the child. Grossman covers the problem of drug use among pregnant women; states’ various approaches to that problem; and the question of when pre-natal drug use should be deemed child abuse under the law. Continue reading →

Posted In: Family Law

5 Feb 2013 Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

“Mama’s in the Graveyard, Papa’s in the Pen”: Why the Children of a Slaying Spouse Cannot Inherit

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman, and Justia guest columnist and Stanford law professor Lawrence Friedman explain the rule that one who slays his or her spouse cannot then inherit from that spouse. To illustrate the doctrine, Grossman and Friedman focus on a case involving a murder in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), and raise the interesting question of who determines, in this context, if a suspect was actually the slayer. They also explain why not only the slayer, but also the slayer’s children, are barred from inheriting from the murder victim. In addition to the BVI case, Grossman and Friedman cover a long-ago New York case that they deem the grandfather of all slayer cases, as well as a few other, more recent slayer cases. Continue reading →

Posted In: Family Law

29 Jan 2013 Joanna L. Grossman

Battle of the Sexes: The Department of Defense Lifts the Restriction on Women in Combat

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on DoD’s recent decision to remove the ban on women in combat. After providing a brief history of women in the military, Grossman characterizes the ban as having been a stubborn form of sex discrimination, and notes that the ban had been honored in the breach, as military women were increasingly participating in combat roles that put them in harm’s way, as a number of their deaths have sadly proven. Thus, Grossman calls on the military to recognize the reality that women already occupied what are in effect combat roles, even before the DoD restrictions were lifted, and to ensure military women’s equality by addressing the high level of sexual abuse in the military. Continue reading →

Posted In: Civil Rights, Military Law

22 Jan 2013 Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

Labor of Love: Sex, Jobs, and Workers' Compensation

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professsor Joanna Grossman, and Justia guest columnist and Stanford law professor Lawrence Friedman comment on a case that raised the issue whether workers’ compensation covered an injury that was incurred during sex on a business trip, with the injury at issue involving a broken and dangerous light fixture. Grossman and Friedman explain why, though the Australian woman who suffered the light-fixture injury prevailed on her workers’ compensation claim, and most American claimants injured during sex on a business trip likely would, too, other would-be claimants with sex-on-a-business-trip injuries have been left without any remedy from workers’ compensation. Continue reading →

Posted In: Employment Law, International Law

Joanna L. Grossman

Joanna L. Grossman is the Sidney and Walter Siben Distinguished Professor of Family Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She is an expert in family law, especially on state regulation of marriage and divorce. She is the co-author of Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America (Princeton University Press 2011), a comprehensive social history of family law. She has also written extensively about sex discrimination, with particular focus on issues of workplace equality such as sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. She is the coeditor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women’s Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009), an interdisciplinary collection that explores the gaps between formal commitments to gender equality and the reality of women’s lives. Grossman has a B.A. in economics from Amherst College. She graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she was elected to Order of the Coif and served as the articles development editor of the Stanford Law Review. Prior to becoming a law professor, she served as a law clerk to Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., as recipient of the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She practiced law from 1996 to 1998 at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly. She has also taught law at Vanderbilt, UNC-Chapel Hill, Cardozo, and Tulane.

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