Ex-partners Julie Smith, 44, and Julie Rowell, 42, are taking their custody fight over their daughter Madison Smith, 6, to the Ohio Supreme Court after Smith filed action to invalidate a shared-custody agreement drafted by Judge Elizabeth Gill in Franklin County, the Columbus Dispatch is reporting.
Smith, Deputy Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, was inseminated and gave birth to Madison in 2003. The couple split in 2008.
The basis for Smith's argument is that she contends that Gill overstepped her authority by temporarily granting partial custody to Rowell without finding that Smith had been an unsuitable parent.
Rowell's attorneys are arguing that doesn't matter, when Smith relinquished some of her parental responsibilities to Rowell, Smith made her a co-parent in the eyes of the law. Rowell would pick Smith up from school and would assume various day-to-day responsibilities of their daughter while Smith was at work. Smith is claiming that they were "just two women living in a house with a child present, they did not live as a family."
The Dispatch is reporting that Smith is being represented by David Langdon, a lawyer best known for his work in conservative causes, including a draft of the 2004 Defense of Marriage Act. The Act stipulated that gay couples do not have the right to marry in Ohio.
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