Skip to main content
Jordan Schnitzer, one of Oregon's wealthiest men, is suing his former girlfriend and the genetic mother of his infant son for $277,000 in legal fees.
Schnitzer, 65, whose wealth comes by dint of the more than 22 million feet of commercial real estate his company owns, sought the money in a new lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Court on Sept. 26.
Back in March, WW first reported that Schnitzer (the owner of Harsch Investment Properties, one of the Northwest's largest real estate firms) and Sause (whose family owns a Coos Bay tug boat company) had combined their genetic material to create surrogate son. Things went awry from there.
The romantic relationship between Schnitzer and Sause cooled and when the baby was born to a surrogate mother in December 2015, Schnitzer filed legal papers in Multnomah County Circuit Court establishing his sole parentage.
In March, Sause went to court to challenge a judge's order declaring Schnitzer the infant's only parent, an order which gave her no standing or legal rights of any kind in the boy's life.
A Multnomah County judge rejected Sause's challenge in August. But that did not end the matter.
On Sept. 13, as The Oregonian first reported, Sause, 37, filed a new lawsuit seeking to be named the boy's mother on his birth certificate and seeking parenting time. The earlier court decision appeared to leave open the possibility for such a request.
While that lawsuit works its way through the court, Schnitzer is seeking to make Sause pay his legal costs for the first proceeding.
Willamette Week