PITTSBURGH – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal filed by a surrogate mother who lost custody of triplets she delivered nearly three years ago to their biological father.
A lower court had ruled in April that Danielle Bimber had no standing to challenge the custody rights of James Flynn, 65. Since then, the boys have lived with Flynn in Kirtland, Ohio.
The decision Tuesday means Bimber must now appeal to a federal court if she wants the case to continue. She did not return a phone call to The Associated Press on Saturday and it wasn’t clear whether she plans to appeal.
“I knew there was a 95 percent chance that I wasn’t going to get them back,” Bimber told The Journal of Corry, Pa., for Friday’s editions. “Now I know it’s 100.”
Still to be decided is a suit Flynn filed that seeks $350,000, which includes legal fees, child support and the $20,000 surrogate fee he paid Bimber to bear the children.
Flynn contracted with Bimber in 2001 and agreed to pay her to carry the babies for him and his girlfriend. The three boys were born in November 2003.
Bimber took the children home eight days later and raised them with her husband because, she said, Flynn and his girlfriend didn’t name the children or visit them for several days.
Flynn and his girlfriend saw the children the day they were born and said insurance and medical issues related to the triplets’ premature births kept them from visiting in the days afterward.