Julianna and Catherine Sheridan smiled more on Monday than they have in a long time.

They were “flying high,” Julianna said, after learning the Minnesota Court of Appeals sided with them in a legal dispute involving their 6-year-old daughter’s sperm donor, who brought paternity action against the married lesbian couple last year.

In its opinion issued Monday, the appellate concluded the Ramsey County District Court wrongly denied the Sheridans’ motion to dismiss and that the sperm donor was precluded from bringing paternity action for their child under Minnesota law.

The Sheridans, of St. Paul, spent Monday at Valleyfair with their two children to celebrate the win and have a good time.

“It truly feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off of our shoulders right now,” Julianna said Tuesday, adding the past year and a half has been a “roller coaster of emotions.”

Verbal agreement with a close friend

The Sheridans bought a house on the West Side and got married in August 2017, with their close mutual friend Chris Edrington officiating the ceremony. They wanted to start a family and Edrington “just kept coming to the top of our list of who we would ask to be our donor,” Julianna said.

The couple, over a meal at a St. Paul restaurant, asked Edrington if he would be their sperm donor. After a successful at-home insemination, Julianna Sheridan gave birth to the couple’s daughter in July 2018.

Julianna said they had a mutual agreement with Edrington prior to him donating his sperm: He would have no legal rights to any child conceived using his donated sperm. It wasn’t in writing, however.

Because the couple was married, Catherine is the child’s presumed non-gestational mother and legal parent under state law. The Sheridans are listed on the child’s birth certificate as the parents, and together they raised her in their home.

And things were going great for four years, Julianna said, adding that Edrington “babysat for us regularly.”

The couple then found out that Edrington had been referring to himself as their daughter’s dad “behind our backs,” Julianna said. “And that’s when we said, ‘Hey, hold up a second. That wasn’t the agreement.’ It’s not that it was never clear from the beginning, that Chris was not dad. We didn’t refer to him as dad. Our daughter didn’t refer to him as dad. I mean, he was never dad.”

In June 2022, the Sheridans asked Edrington not to call the child his daughter — and limited his contact with her, according to Monday’s ruling. At first, he complied, later saying in court filings that it grew difficult when she asked him whether he was her father.

In his March 2023 paternity petition, he requested joint legal and physical custody. Edrington “babysat” the child on March 28, then filed the lawsuit three days later, Julianna said.

“We were completely blindsided and shocked by the lawsuit,” she said. “Chris never spoke to us or even hinted at taking legal action against us.”

Edrington later amended the petition to request an order to compel genetic testing to establish his biological paternity.

He alleged that since her birth he had received her into his home and openly held her out as his daughter. He said he was notified when Julianna became pregnant, received phone calls concerning the pregnancy, met the girl at the hospital the day she was born and immediately notified his family and close friends that he was “the father of a healthy baby girl,” Monday’s decision said.

Edrington further argued that he purchased child-care items for his home, including diapers, bedding, toys, a crib, food and clothing. He alleged he had cared for her on a weekly and sometimes daily basis by feeding her, changing her diapers, bathing her and putting her down for naps. He said he had posted many pictures of her on his social-media accounts, and that his friends and family — some of whom have met the girl — are “aware that [he is] very proud to be [her] father.”

Appeals court rules

In April 2023, the Sheridans moved to dismiss Edrington’s paternity action.

The district court denied the motion in October, concluding that Julianna and the girl were required to submit to genetic testing to establish Edrington’s biological paternity; that Minn. Stat. § 257.62, subd. 5(c), which was drafted to prevent such actions by sperm and egg donors, did not apply; and that Edrington had standing to bring his paternity action because he had welcomed the girl into his home and referred to her as his daughter.

“Contrary to assertions made in this case, allowing this paternity action to proceed is not an attack on the sanctity of marriage or dismantling years of progress made for and by same-sex couples,” read the district court’s order, which was recommended by Referee Jenese Larmouth and approved by Judge Thomas Gilligan. “District and appellate courts have allowed paternity actions against heterosexual married couples when the circumstances warranted it.”

It was a crushing blow, Juliana said, that “added so much more fear than we already had. It really doubled down on all of the fears of what could possibly happen.”

The Sheridans filed a case with the state Court of Appeals in November.

In its opinion, the appeals panel — made up of Judges Elise Larson, Francis Connelly and John Smith — ruled the district court erred when it ordered Julianna and the girl to submit to genetic testing, concluding that state law prohibits sperm donors in assisted reproduction from using genetic testing to claim to be the biological or legal parent of a resulting child.

The appellate court also concluded that the nature of Edrington’s relationship and time spent with the Sheridans’ daughter did not give him standing to assert paternity rights.

The panel reversed the district court’s decision and ordered Edrington’s petition be dismissed with prejudice.

Erica Holzer, of Maslon LLP and the lead appellate counsel on behalf of the Sheridans, said in a statement the decision “strengthens the fabric of every family that has chosen to conceive a child through assisted reproduction. No parent who has taken the courageous step to use a sperm donor should ever have to fight for the legitimacy of their family.”

The decision “is precedential in that it clarifies statutes impacting parents who use sperm and egg donors to create their families,” added Mary Pat Byrn of Viitala Byrn & Ives, who represented the Sheridans in the underlying litigation.

Second child

Edrington did not return a call Tuesday for comment on the ruling. His attorney, Susan Gallagher, said he is disappointed “as you can imagine. He is considering his options at this time.”

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Edrington has 30 days to petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to hear his case.

Juliana, meanwhile, said the decision “felt like a vindication of what we’ve been through.”

In May 2021, the Sheridans welcomed their second child, a boy. The sperm donor is a close friend of the couple, Juliana said.

“He’s been what we asked him to be — a donor,” she said, “someone that our children know and care about. And he and his wife care about both of our children, and we get to see them, we get to spend time with them. When our son is old enough, we will explain our donor’s involvement. And it’s just been exactly what we wanted.”