Elisa B. v. Superior Court
Supreme Court of California
117 P.3d 660 (2005)
Elisa B. (defendant) and her domestic partner Emily each bore children using the same anonymous sperm donor, and though Elisa never adopted Emily's twins, the couple lived and held themselves out as a family of five, with Elisa breastfeeding all three children, giving them a hyphenated surname, and claiming all three as tax dependents while financially supporting the family; after the couple split and Elisa stopped supporting Emily and the twins, the district attorney sued Elisa for child support, and the Court of Appeals held she wasn't a "natural parent" under the state's Uniform Parentage Act.
Whether, where a woman agrees to help raise and support the children of her lesbian partner as though her own without formally adopting them and actually does so for a time, she can be obligated to pay child support under California law.