Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boca Raton

Before leaving the month of May behind, this Salt Lake Tribune article notes the intersection of Foster Care Month and Older Americans Month in May.

And aptly acknowledges that for many children, the only route out of foster care, short of “aging out”, is permanent placement with a legal guardian – typically a grandparent.

Yet guardians currently receive far less financial support than foster parents or adoptive parents.

The article advocates better allocating financial support resources among the three channels to permanency, by supporting seniors and elders serving as legal guardians to keep their young relatives together in a familiar, loving home.

Certain large telecommunications corporations are reportedly agitating to change how the internet works, has been working, since its inception.

These media enterprises want to regulate and control who gets to publish on the internet and, by extension, what gets published on the internet.

Look back on the (d)evolution of much of the traditional print media.

The internet is the last communications medium offering equal access to free, independent speech.

If you support those core values, as this site does, please visit the homepage for the Save the Internet campaign and consider signing the non-partisan petition to preserve network neutrality, free speech on the internet and equal access to the internet’s publishing infrastructure.

If you don’t act now, many of the websites that you now visit for free, independent legal (and other) information that you can’t get anywhere else – just may get shut down or virtually crippled in the near future.

Let your voice be heard.

Please Save the Net.

Before it’s too late.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer offers a thoughtful yet action-oriented editorial aptly titled Domestic Violence: Smart Spending.

The piece points to research findings that an appalling forty-four percent of women have been victims of domestic violence of one kind or another at some time in their lives.

The research cited emphasizes the role of domestic violence on escalating health problems and costs. The impact goes well beyond immediate physical injuries resulting from the violence, to long term psychological and physical effects on the victim and other members of the victim’s family.

The key message of the editorial is that increased spending on education, counseling and prevention now will surely save a great deal of money in health, social services and law enforcement costs in the long run.

That sounds like money well spent indeed.

An Orlando man is challenging a years old paternity determination concerning a 16 year old boy shot by a police officer. The man reportedly had little contact with the dead boy during his lifetime.

Another man was present for the boy’s birth, gave the boy his last name, signed his birth certificate, paid support for the boy, raised him and has other children with the boy’s mother. He really has no interest in the DNA test results.

Normally, a Florida court’s initial determination of paternity would be the final word on paternity. In this case, the determination was entered on a default. That is, the man sued for support did not participate in the court proceeding.

Why is paternity being re-visited now? Because the boy’s father shares the legal right with his mother to prosecute a wrongful death suit against the city of Delray Beach.

Damages could run into the millions, so the stakes are very high.

Read more in this Sun Sentinel article.

It has been ordered that a five-year old boy leave his mother and sister behind in Sweden to return to New Zealand, in accordance with the terms of the Hague Convention, pending a custody determination there.

The boy’s father is reportedly subject to an order of protection, however, so the boy likely will not be able to live with his father if it is determined that he must remain in New Zealand permanently.

A Swedish newspaper reported that the boy may end up growing up in a New Zealand orphanage, but the boy’s father insists the boy could live with other relatives in New Zealand.

This case arose because the boy’s mother fled New Zealand, without the father’s permission, after securing the order of protection for herself, the boy and his sister.

The boy’s older sister was deemed mature enough to decide for herself where and with whom she wants to live. Therefore, she was permitted to remain with her mother in Sweden.

No such luck for the little boy, whose fate is now in the hands of the New Zealand courts.

The boy’s father is a political activist in New Zealand.

Read more in this New Zealand Herald article.

A Utah paralegal has reportedly been disqualified from a court internship due to the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The paralegal was on a legal team involved in an ongoing child custody case between the father and the mother of the child.

Further, testimony heard in the case suggested that the paralegal was another one of the allegedly polygamist father’s wives.

The paralegal denied that allegation though. Instead, she described the two of them as being in a “committed relationship” with common children, and described herself as being merely “one of the ladies in his family”.

Read more in this KSL (Salt Lake City) TV article.

Bedside manner of physicians may be overrated.

A new study finds that victims of domestic violence are more likely to report their abuse in a computer-based medical interview than they are talking to a real live doctor.

Interestingly, the study found that, after the “ice was broken” with a computerized questionnaire, victims were more likely to discuss the abuse, when probed by physicians tipped off by the computerized interview results.

The study suggests that widespread use of computer-based surveys of patients would allow physicians to better recognize the handiwork of domestic abusers and to refer victims to appropriate intervention services.

This somewhat surprising outcome may have far-reaching implications for emergency medicine facilities, both in terms of reducing costs of delivering services and of enhancing care.

Read more in this Forbes article.

A little boy is in search of a lasting home.

At just five years old, he is reportedly on his third change of residential placement – at least.

Born to unmarried parents, the boy’s biological mother (presumably) had physical custody of him after his birth.

Later, for reasons not reported, he was placed with a Florida couple for several years.

Thereafter, also for reasons not reported, the boy was returned to his mother’s custody.

After the mother remarried, allegations surfaced that the mother’s new husband abused the boy. Then the boy was placed with his biological father – on a temporary basis.

Will this boy get a place to call home for good?

Maybe. A guardian ad litem reportedly favors making the placement with his biological father permanent.

The mother’s position on this was not reported.

Read more in this First Coast News article.

A Texas woman allegedly surfed the internet to connect with prospective adoptive parents for her expected baby and to solicit financial assistance for her specially prescribed diet and medications.

There’s just one catch. The woman isn’t pregnant.

The woman reportedly defrauded half a dozen couples (including one or more couples here in Florida) and netted thousands of dollars.

According to media reports, the woman has been charged with mail fraud and wire fraud, both federal charges carrying hefty penalties.

Read more in this Houston EyeWitness News article and this Corpus Christi KRIS TV article.

Can you get a divorce after you die?

Or, more specifically, can final judgment of divorce be entered after a spouse’s death, where the divorce action was started while both spouses were alive?

That is the question a Pennsylvania judge is reportedly grappling with.

In the case she is presiding over, a dentist was allegedly murdered the day before he was expected to sign a settlement agreement, following years of hostile litigation. His wife had already signed the agreement.

Interestingly, the judge apparently adopted the only partially-executed settlement agreement.

But the judge is waiting for the parties’ attorneys to furnish applicable legal precedents before deciding whether to grant the divorce.

Read more in this Pittsburgh Post Gazette article.

A Boston couple has won a $400,000 judgment because adoption agencies failed to disclose medical information about the health and delivery of their adopted twin sons’ birth mother. The boys were born here in West Palm Beach fourteen years ago.

The concealed medical information placed the children at risk of various disabilities, and the boys do in fact suffer from a number of disabilities, including cerebral palsy and Tourette’s Syndrome.

The judge barred the jury from awarding emotional damages, constraining the judgment. The boys’ adoptive father doubts the boys will ever become self-supporting, and may appeal that ruling.

The jury also found the adoptive parents partially negligent.

Read more in this Sun Sentinel article and in this Bradenton Herald article.

The US Supreme Court has passed on reviewing a Washington state supreme court ruling permitting a lesbian to seek parental rights to the child she raised for five years together with her former partner.

The theory advanced by the gay woman is that she was a de facto parent (that is, in actual fact, acting as a parent).

The high Court’s non-action leaves gay parental rights up to the individual states – and up in the air – at least for now.

Political / activist groups on both sides of the issue were disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to stay “hands-off” this question rather than provide legal guidance – especially since the issue is cropping up in more and more cases.

Read more in:

• Court turns away gay custody dispute and
• Court: Lesbian can pursue custody

A pregnant woman is allegedly being held in a Canadian jail on charges of abducting her children to France, in direct violation of a Canadian court order prohibiting taking the children to visit maternal relatives in France.

The woman was apparently arrested when she returned to Canada to complete her academic doctoral program requirements, leaving the children behind in France with her mother.

The father has reportedly exhaustively litigated his application for return of the children to Canada under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and the French courts have reportedly consistently ruled that the children must be returned to Canada as requested by the father.

The father contends that the mother has agitated in France to stir up popular sentiment against him on religious grounds.

Read more in this article.

According to an Associated Press article published in the Duluth [MN] News Tribune, two Wisconsin babies were placed in foster care near the time their mother began basic military training.

It is not entirely clear from the article why the boys were placed with strangers, when it appears that both their father and their great-grandmother were willing to take them in.

While the baby boys were in foster care, they were allegedly abused and neglected and, as a result, the older boy died.

After the 3 year old’s death, one relative, his great-grandmother, was reconsidered and then deemed suitable, so the younger baby was placed with her.

The child’s father reasonably questions whether the great-grandmother will be able to keep up with the baby – and why she should have to, when his father wants to care for him.

The father reportedly plans to comply with the social services agency’s requirements for his surviving son to be placed with him. The requirements may include parenting classes and a psychological assessment.

The article does not report whether the foster parents were required to take parenting classes and undergo psychological assessments. Or whether those measures would have made a difference in the older baby’s fate.

Divorce Online has published this handy article containing tips on finding Unreported Income and Hidden Assets.

A couple of highlights:

Divorce makes for many changes in the lives of all concerned.

But, according to psychologist and KidTips columnist Tom McMahon, one thing doesn’t change: kids still need discipline after divorce.

Yet some divorced parents relax (or completely eliminate) the rules after divorce – out of misguided parental guilt.

According to Dr. McMahon, this can be more damaging to the children than the divorce itself.

Read more in this Inside Bay Area article.

An Illinois woman was reportedly held in contempt and incarcerated for refusing to submit her son to a court-ordered psychological evaluation by an agency that refused to disclose the therapist’s credentials to her.

The woman and her supporters contend that the incarceration was yet another instance of a penalty imposed on local women who don’t have attorneys in child custody cases. They claim that women lose overwhelmingly in contested custody cases there.

The women will be pressing their claims of discrimination and denial of due process in a separate action in federal court soon.

Read more in this Chicago News Sun article.

An Ohio man with seven children is reportedly in jail for non-compliance with his probation, as a result of his alleged non-payment of child support.

When the man was put on probation, one condition of it was that the man abstain from having more children until he was off probation.

The Ohio Supreme Court subsequently struck that probation condition, however – because there was no provision to release the condition if the man brought his obligations current.

Read more in this Akron Beacon Journal article.

A trial judge, seeing and hearing the evidence firsthand, called it harassment – and prohibited it, finding that it caused the minor child “to suffer intimidation, serious inconvenience, annoyance and alarm”.

The Maine Supreme Court, reading the sterile paper transcript of the hearing, in effect, called it exercise of parental rights of access and visitation.

Two very different perceptions of the following conduct:

1. showing up at your child’s home for visitation that your child doesn’t want
2. showing up uninvited at your child’s school events
3. making unwanted calls to your child
4. sending unwanted e-mails to your child and
5. mailing unwanted cards and notes to your child.

Apparently, Maine can be a cold place to grow up.

Read more in this Portland Press Herald article.

A Contra Costa [CA] Times article calls attention to the fact that a significant number of victims of domestic abuse are men – but community resources give almost no support or protection to men.

Now, a male victim of past spousal abuse is reportedly suing a government-funded domestic violence agency and the state of California for gender discrimination and denial of equal protection of the laws.

According to that plaintiff, male victims of domestic violence suffer the indignity of ridicule and indifference by law enforcement authorities and lack of access to affordable refuge in shelters. The plaintiff was also denied a restraining order against his wife.

A law professor finds merit in the plaintiff’s lawsuit.

Approximatley 835,000 men reportedly suffer domestic abuse each year – although men are not as likely to call the police.

A Wisconsin couple’s divorce isn’t going to be amicable or private.

The wife alleges that the husband

1. coerced her into a “six page” sex slavery agreement
2. abused her physically and mentally and
3. hid assets from her

Only the last allegation of asset hiding is routine in a case like this, in which the husband is a respected businessman.

The wife is seeking significant monetary damages, including substantial punitive damages.

Read more in The wife of a Husdon, Wis.-area businessman says she was abused and forced into a sex-slave agreement.

An unusual and sad interstate child custody jurisdiction case originates in Arkansas, where family comes from.

Mother got custody of child in the divorce. Father moved to Oklahoma to pursue a professional degree. Later, their child was diagnosed with cancer and Mother and daughter moved to Tennessee for better treatment.

For about two years, the entire family is gone from Arkansas.

Father brings motion in Arkansas for emergency visitation. Mother then requests a stay, registers the original Arkansas judgment in Tennessee, and further requests that the Arkansas court communicate with the Tennessee court.

At the time of an inital child custody proceeding, more than one state may potentially exercise child custody jurisdiction. But, typically, once one state has actually, validly exercised child custody jurisdiction, that original state which exercises jurisdiction over a child [as in a divorce], retains jurisdiction over the child until that original state says it doesn’t.

In practice, most states would likely yield (or decline to exercise) jurisdiction after both parents and the child have moved away from the state. And, according to the Arkansas appellate court, that is usually the case in Arkansas.

Clearly, Mother wanted the Tennesee courts to assume jurisdiction on that basis.

Yet the Arkansas court ruled that it retained jurisdiction. Why?

Because the Tennessee court declined to exercise jurisdiction over the child. Just because a court can do something, doesn’t mean it must – or, in certain cases, should.

In this particular case, the Arkansas court, which had had valid, original jurisdiction, merely occupied the jurisdictional vacuum left by the Tennessee court.

Read more in this Fort Smith [Arkansas] Times Record article.

Father and Mother, divorced, live in Rhode Island. Father is the primary residential parent.

Father’s parents live here in Florida. Court order reportedly bars Father from relocating daughter to Florida.

According to reports, Father tried, unsuccessfully, to modify the order so that he could relocate to Florida, to work in his parents’ business.

Father allegedly takes daughter on a car trip to Florida, during school year without advising mother. Upon investigation, Father’s landlord states that Father moved.

According to accounts, Father is caught with a do-it-yourself moving van, arrested for child snatching and sent back to Rhode Island.

Father contends that he and his daughter are just visiting her grandparents in Florida, that the court order doesn’t absolutely bar the daughter from leaving Rhode Island, just from moving away.

But Father also allegedly states that he has no Rhode Island address at the moment and that he is going to be living with his parents for “a while”.

Now Father is barred from any contact with his daughter at all, although Mother does not feel Father is a danger to their daughter. And Mother is seeking primary residential responsibility based on relocation / visit.

Father contends that his and his daughter’s rights were violated and that the current situation is not in his daughter’s best interests.

Among other facts that are unclear from this report, is why the primary residential parent and his daughter are deprived of any visitation (not even supervised visitation) – especially before any conviction and/or incarceration.

Read more in this Westerly [RI] Sun article.

Engaged couple contracts with surrogate to serve as surrogate mother to carry and deliver babies.

Sperm comes from future groom; eggs are donated by another woman under a separate contract.

Both contracts contemplate that custody of babies after birth will be with groom sperm donor.

After giving birth, the surrogate mother takes the triplets home with her.

Surprisingly, lower court voids the surrogacy contract on grounds that are unclear.

Reviewing court reverses, awarding custody to the biological father.

The surrogate mother plans to appeal.

But similar contractual arrangements have generally been upheld, in various states, when (occasionally) litigated.

Read more in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania) article.

Practically everyone has heard of prenups. Less well known but, ironically, far more common, are postnups or postnuptial agreements.

A postnup can be the functional equivalent of the prenup you didn’t quite get to before the wedding, and can be made the day after the wedding, the week after you return from the honeymoon, or anytime after that.

A postnup can alter a prenup.

A postnup can settle disposition on death or divorce of property you didn’t have before.

A postnup can serve as a divorce settlement agreement.

All in all, a very versatile form of agreement worth knowing about.

And Florida enforces properly made postnups.

Read more in this MS NBC article.

In the typical child custody case, both parents share parental responsibility – in Florida.

Several other states also favor shared (or joint) legal custody of children.

But the great majority of states don’t.

A New York state legislative committee just struck down the latest proposal for joint legal custody.

This Greater Binghampton Press & Sun-Bulletin article points out some of the reasons why.

Topping the list is domestic violence and abuse, including extremely controlling behavior by one parent.

Attorney / stockbroker Adriane Berg suggests 10 strategies to divide the property in divorce courtesy of MSN Money.

This article is worth reading for anyone whose divorce includes property division. Be forewarned that some of the advice is not really practicable for divorces with modest assets, or where one or both spouses is unwilling or unable to function in a reasonable and civil manner.

But, for those couples with preconceived notions about equitable distribution (”let’s split each asset and debt, one by one”) that are off-base, the article brings home the important message that there are many different strategies for property division – with, potentially, very different net outcomes. And it may stimulate more creative thinking, from a “bigger picture” perspective.

That’s a win-win for both spouses and any children they have.

A case of parental kidnapping comes out of Missouri.

The father allegedly failed to return his two children from a weekend’s visitation.

The father has been captured and sentenced to 41 years in prison for the kidnappings.

But the case can’t be closed.

The two boys are still missing and unaccounted for after two years.

The father refuses to divulge where they are – or even whether they are alive.

The father reportedly has a history of domestic abuse.

Read more in this (Eastern Jackson County Missouri) Examiner article.

USA Today recently published an insightful article about the significant role that money conflicts play in a substantial percentage of unraveling marriages.

The unspoken message in the article is that financial compatibility is as important to the success of a marriage as any other type of compatibility.

Taking that a step further, it should not be surprising that lack of (or poor) communication about money, as well as incompatible attitudes toward spending and debt, both often contribute toward failure to reach an amicable settlement of money issues in divorces triggered by financial incompatibility.

The only bright spot in the picture painted is that people often learn from this experience in a first failed marriage and tackle money compatibility head-on before tying the knot again.

One of the untouted side benefits of negotiating prenups is that they promote, even demand, forthright discussions about attitudes toward money and property and money and property goals as well as wishes in the event of death and/or divorce.

A California appellate court recently upheld termination of spousal support to a domestic abuser and harasser.

The court held that the anti-domestic violence policy behind the statute on which it based its ruling superseded the terms of the parties’ marital settlement agreement, which only allowed modification of support under specified conditions.

The receiving ex-wife was reportedly criminally convicted once of stalking her ex-husband – and subsequently charged again with the same crime. According to the account, the woman was relentless.

The court also pointed out that the alimony was, in effect, funding the ex-wife’s wrongful actions.

Read more in this [Los Angeles] Metropolitan News-Enterprise article.