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Doe v. Sundquist
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
106 F.3d 702 (1997)
Facts
In 1996, the Tennessee legislature enacted a new adoption law, under which all adoption records were to be available to adopted persons of a certain age and to the legal representatives of adopted persons. The new adoption law replaced the 1951 adoption law, under which sealed adoption records were not available absent evidence that making the record available was in the adopted person’s or the public’s best interests. In response to the new adoption law, two birth mothers, Promise Doe and Jane Roe; two adoptive parents, Kimberly C. and Russ C.; and a nonprofit child-placing agency, Small World Ministries, Inc. (plaintiffs) sued Governor Donald Sundquist (defendant). The plaintiffs argued that the new adoption law violated their right to privacy guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution by infringing upon their familial privacy, reproductive privacy, and privacy against disclosure of confidential information. The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from going into effect. The district court denied the preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Engel, J.)
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