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

The opinion of the court was delivered by

LONG, J.

In this case, we are called on to determine what legal standard applies to a third party’s claim to joint custody and visitation of her former domestic partner’s biological children, with whom she lived in a familial setting and in respect of whom she claims to have functioned as a psychological parent. Although the case arises in the context of a lesbian couple, the standard we enunciate is applicable to all persons who have willingly, and with the *206approval of the legal parent, undertaken the duties of a parent to a child not related by blood…