General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Under the law of California, Florida and many states, the obligation to pay alimony ends when the receiving spouse remarries, among other possibilities.
A divorcing California man agreed to pay his wife a certain sum of money each month as alimony.
After their divorce, his ex-wife registered her domestic partnership with another woman.
Believing the registered domestic partnership to be equivalent to marriage, the man thought he was released from the obligation to pay alimony.
But a California judge disagreed, ruling that the domestic partnership is mere cohabitation and not a marriage.
The man plans to appeal the court’s order that he continue to pay alimony.
The ruling highlights one of the less publicized impacts of the difference between marriage and civil unions or domestic partnerships.
Read more in this San Francisco Chronicle article: Man ordered to pay ex-wife alimony, despite domestic partnership.
Are divorce rates a function of nature or nurture?
According to studies, nurture. In fact, children of divorce are nearly twice as likely to divorce themselves.
But genetic predispositions or other inherited factors are not believed to be as significant as the social and emotional impacts of their parents’ divorce.
The study was conducted in Australia and followed twins and their families. For both reasons, conclusions may or may not hold up in the general global population.
Read more in this Forbes article: Family, More Than Genes, Helps Drive Divorce.
If you’ve ever wondered how to lose your rights to visit with your child, it’s really not that easy to do - in the US.
And it’s not necessarily any easier to do in Spain.
But it’s happened to a Spanish father there.
The father of a 10 year old boy took his son along to participate in the famous “running of the bulls” festivities.
The child was photographed and filmed with the bulls running just behind him.
The rules require that runners be 18 years of age.
Upon learning what had happened, the mother went straight to the police.
And in the end, a Spanish judge simply revoked the father’s rights of visitation.
Didn’t order supervised visitation, didn’t impose restrictions as to time and place and activities. Just out and out revoked them.
The father was also fined.
Read more in these articles:
Kansas, which reportedly has a large and growing number of grandparents raising their grandchildren, passed a law intended to provide financial assistance to those grandparents.
But it turns out that the statute is only aiding a tiny fraction of these grandparents (and only a tiny bit at that). The reason: as in other states, aid is limited to grandparents with formal legal custody of their grandchildren.
Yet many of these grandparents, de facto parents, don’t - and couldn’t - get formal legal custody of their grandchildren.
Ironically, the legal trend in most states makes it harder and harder for grandparents to obtain full legal custody of their grandchildren.
Read more in this Kansas Morning Sun editorial: We must find a way to help all custodial grandparents.
It has been almost fashionable for the last year or two to rail against “rampant paternity fraud” in the US. See my previous post, Paternity Fraud: How Much of It Is There Really?
So-called “rampant paternity fraud” may not be universal, however.
In Barbados, ninety-nine (99%) percent of unmarried fathers who challenge paternity reportedly are in fact the biological fathers! It is alleged that these fathers mount their challenges in bad faith, to delay the inevitable support obligation as long as possible.
Try reconciling these two extremely different portraits of the world of paternity cases …
Read more in this Barbados NationNews.com article: Fathers ‘using DNA testing as delay tactic’.
A woman fled with her son from state to state and, ultimately, to Canada to escape domestic violence by the father, according to her.
For that, she has been convicted of kidnapping, and faces a sentence of up to three more years in prison.
She has already served eighteen months for refusing to disclose where the boy is safely hidden.
The boy’s father has denied any abuse. He claimed he had been denied access to his son and that the mother was merely trying to alienate the boy from him.
But the child’s school teacher, a presumably neutral third party, testified that the boy would sometimes start crying at school and ask her to call his mother to make sure she was OK.
Yet it is the mother who is incarcerated.
Read more in this [Montreal] Westmount Examiner article: Woman convicted of kidnapping in cross-border custody dispute.
After shelling out $110,000 in child support, a man discovered after some thirty years that he was not his son’s biological father.
It turns out the boy was reportedly the product of an affair by his mother - with a man who is now wealthy.
The de facto father, a retiree on a limited income, is now suing the former family friend and the boy’s godfather.
In an surprise ruling, the NJ Supreme Court, reversed the trial and intermediate appellate courts and, in essence, ruled that it is just too bad for the divorced father. The statute of limitations has long since expired.
Central to the state high Court’s ruling in the case is that the biological father did not actively trick or defraud the de facto father. He merely never volunteered that he thought he was the biological father.
The mother broke her apparently willful silence when her son married, to warn him that he may carry the gene for a potentially deadly disease that had taken the lives of other children of the biological father.
Otherwise, the de facto father might never have learned the truth.
On the specific facts of the case, financially struggling de facto father vs. wealthy bio dad, the outcome just doesn’t sit well.
But, of course, rules of law have to apply broadly to a wide spectrum of facts. Statutes of limitations are very common in our legal system and are intended to impose finality after an appropriate interval of time.
Read more in this New Jersey Star-Ledger article: Duped ‘dad’ out of luck, court says.
In a far-reaching case, the Florida Supreme Court has held that adoption agencies must notify unmarried biological fathers that their children are going to be placed for adoption and how to register in the state’s paternity registry to protect their rights. If the father still fails to register after thirty days, his parental rights may be terminated.
A statute imposing a time limit on biological fathers to assert their rights was intended to facilitate adoptions and give adoptive parents and the baby finality.
But there have nagging questions with regard to how many biological fathers are actually aware of paternity registries, both in Florida and in other states, let alone how to register with them.
In the case before the Court, the biological father promptly filed a paternity case in court, but failed to register with Florida’s paternity registry. The father maintained that he was unaware of the registry.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court for further fact-finding.
Read more in this Citrus County Chronicle article: Court rules for unmarried adoptive [sic] fathers.
A three year old New York state girl and her father are missing, following a custody ruling adverse to the father. It happened during the father’s visitation.
The father allegedly has a history of depression and suicidal thoughts. His wife reportedly fears that he is off of his medication.
Some reports indicate that the father’s car was found near an airport and that the father has taken the child out of the country.
The FBI and Interpol are apparently involved in trying to track down the missing girl and, hopefully, bring her home soon.
Read more in this America’s Most Wanted alert: Deonna Shipman Missing From Liverpool, New York and this News 10 Now article: Search goes global for kidnapped girl.
Children abandoned, abused or neglected.
State steps in to protect them, typically by removing them from the home on at least a temporary basis.
If suitable relatives are willing and available, the children will usually be temporarily placed with them over strangers.
And then begins the process of assessing the weaknesses in the parents’ parenting skills and how to support the parents in building them up - if they are willing and able.
In a recent Maryland case, the children were placed with their aunt. The children did well with her.
And their parents failed to enhance their parenting skills.
One and one-half years later, a court awarded the aunt custody and guardianship of the children.
Not an unusual outcome under the circumstances.
The parents appealed. Also not unusual.
But the rest of the story is.
Because the mother is American Indian.
Therefore, the children are subject to the Indian Child Welfare Act.
That means that the Court was required to make “active efforts” to keep the family intact because the children were American Indian.
(Not that the Court doesn’t or shouldn’t make every reasonable effort to keep every family together, but the requirement is stricter for American Indian children … )
The intermediate appellate court reversed the award of custody and guardianship to the aunt, ruling that the State had, in effect, given up on the parents prematurely, after six months.
Read more in this Baltimore Sun article: Md. court makes unique custody ruling.
A divorced New Jersey father faces eighteen months in prison and a hefty fine after pleading guilty to not paying child support or alimony since 1996 - to the tune of $650,000.
He also faces additional time in confinement for related civil issues.
The man reportedly admitted that he slipped away to Australia, where he purposefully avoided and evaded orders to pay, even though he had the money to do so.
When he returned to the US, for reasons unknown, he was promptly picked up by authorities.
His bail is a little less than the amount of support he owes.
The now-64 year old man’s children are adults in graduate school.
Read more in this North Jersey.com article: Deadbeat dad pleads guilty in Hackensack court.
Accountants offer some useful advice on how to protect yourself from financial ruin in a divorce.
Regardless of how financial accounts are titled, they may be marital assets or liabilities, subject to equitable distribution in the divorce.
But in the short term during the divorce case and before final judgment, accounts that are titled jointly pose special issues and challenges in relation to recourse options open to creditors and the other spouse.
Joint accounts also pose special issues and challenges in regard to which spouse has access to how much of the funds in the accounts and when.
How to best handle joint accounts during a divorce case really depends on the facts of the particular case.
But spouses should try to educate themselves on, among other things, how marital assets and liabilities are actually titled.
Beneficiary designations should be re-considered.
Provisions for children, especially minor children, should also be re-considered.
Read more in this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article: Protect yourself if you’re facing a divorce.
Husband dies of a gunshot wound inflicted on the side of the road. Wife is charged.
Murder trial.
First witness for prosecution: Divorce lawyer.
His testimony: Their prenup limits Wife’s take in event of a divorce to $250,000 plus half of jointly held assets, for an estimated total of approximately $1.5 million.
In event of Husband’s death, his estate would be about $6 million. Her inheritance, about $3 million.
Next key witness: Wife’s boyfriend.
His testimony: He shot the Husband, for which he pleaded guilty to stalking and a gun charge. Why did he do it? For half of her inheritance.
Read more in this [Cleveland] Plain Dealer Reporter article: Defense begins its case with divorce lawyer and this KDKA [Akron] CBS article: Tearful Donna Moonda Learns Jury’s Guilty Verdict.
A Wisconsin father reportedly failed to return his four children (by two different mothers) from an out-of-state trip at the end of his scheduled visitation time.
Some of the children contacted friends by phone or text message to cancel plans for the following week upon learning of the surprise trip with their father.
Both mothers filed missing persons reports immediately following the weekend. An Amber Alert was issued.
Intensifying concerns in this case were allegations that the father had just bought a gun and that he was suffering from paranoid delusions. He had allegedly been prescribed at least three medications for depression and other conditions.
He reportedly told his employers in the Fire Department that he was on a task force on identity theft, which he believed his ex-wife had committed against him. The Fire Department advised that it has no such task force.
He reportedly told the mothers that the gun he had purchased was for his task force work.
The man has been charged with three felony counts of custodial interference and faces yet a fourth charge of another count of the same crime. He will be extradited back to Wisconsin.
Read more in this [Madison, WI] Capital Times article: Warrant: Dad who took kids is prone to delusions.
An unusual child custody case. Missing: the child whose custody is in dispute.
The child is a ten month old baby. A court awarded custody to the father last month.
The mother has been in jail for contempt of court since May, for refusing to disclose the baby’s whereabouts.
Authorities have threatened to prosecute anyone involved in concealing the baby’s location.
The father is an immigrant from Africa. The mother allegedly fears he will abduct the child to Africa if the child is placed in his care.
Read more in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online article: Baby boy in custody case still missing.
An umarried Irish father has filed an application for return of his children from England under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
According to the father, the mother took the children to England without his consent.
Because the legal rights of unmarried biological fathers appear to be narrower under Irish law than than under our law, the father is reportedly arguing that the mother’s removal of the children denied him the opportunity to seek legal guardianship of their twin boys.
The case is being closely followed in Ireland in that the facts appear to support what could become a landmark ruling under Irish law.
Read more in this United Press International article: Father’s case may be landmark legal matter.
One subject that probably doesn’t get enough attention is what one article dubs “Brady Bunch families”, second marriages with kids of his, hers and, possibly, ours. Such families present unique considerations in the event of divorce or death of a spouse.
If a spouse wants to be sure that a child of a previous relationship is protected, they have to be proactive.
One vehicle is, of course, a prenup.
Another vehicle is a trust created before marriage and funded with separate, premarital property. These are sometimes called divorce protection trusts, although they can protect against more than divorce.
It is also important for a divorced spouse not to overlook the obvious. Wills and nonprobate assets, such as life insurance, pensions, and bank accounts, must be updated after divorce - or their ex may inherit from them. That is not the prudent, preferred way to provide for children with them.
Read more in this InsideBayArea.com article: ‘Brady Bunch’ families can head off money headaches.
Although the statutes set out criteria for determining residential custody of children, they are written in such a way as to allow the family court judge enormous discretion.
In close child custody cases, it may be difficult to predict what will “tip the scales” toward one parent or the other.
In one high profile Tampa divorce with custody of five children, quintuplets, in issue, one factor receiving substantial media attention is the mother’s reported commitment to raising the children on a Vegan diet prohibiting not only meat but also any foods not derived from plants.
This is an uncommon diet for children and the father is allegedly challenging it. And he’s not the first to do so.
The father also alleges that the mother has limited contact between the children and his parents because his parents have leather furniture and might feed the children non-Vegan foods.
Is the father just grasping at straws?
In a recent Atlanta criminal case, a baby on a Vegan diet died of malnutrition. The parents were found guilty.
It may be more difficult to achieve proper nutritional balance on the Vegan diet.
Is the father just grasping at straws?
According to published accounts, A UK dad was a victim of parental alienation, not only by his former spouse but also by the UK courts!
The father was reportedly denied any contact whatsoever with his three children for about six years.
Not because of allegations of violence, sexual abuse or even verbal abuse.
But because the mother allegedly contended that his visits unsettled and confused the children following the parents’ separation.
After allowing liberal access right after the separation, she reportedly methodically pursued a campaign to steadily reduce his timesharing.
It finally got to a point where the court entered an injunction prohibiting him from waving to his children when they drove by on their way to school. That was apparently deemed to be stalking his wife.
For violation of that injunction, he was thrown in jail for four months.
He was later sentenced to ten months in jail for merely driving past their house.
The worst part is probably that when he finally succeeded in getting permission for limited contact reinstated, the children didn’t seem to want to see him. After all, they knew only what their mother allegedly told them about why they hadn’t seen their father for so long.
Sadly, it took the happenstance of a bad argument between the oldest child and her mother to trigger a chain of events that led to resumption of contact.
Ironically, today, the oldest child (now a legal adult) and the youngest child live with their father by choice.
As a result of the years of no contact without explanation, the oldest recounts past feelings of confusion and abandonment and fear that her father no longer loved her. She also recounts how her mother allegedly repeatedly told the girls that their father was “bad”.
The girls were allegedly made to feel guilty if they were to tell social workers that they wanted to see their father.
In the UK, family court proceedings are closed …
Read more in this [UK] Daily Mail article: Jailed for waving at my daughter.
According to estimates, forty percent of children born to married parents will experience divorce in their families.
Extended summertime visitation can be an advantageous time to heal wounds and strengthen eroding bonds between children and the non-custodial parent.
It is important for the noncustodial parent to make their home seem like a real home to the children and to spend meaningful quality time with their children when they have the opportunity to do so.
Read more in this Yuma Sun article: Talking to kids about divorce.
In California (and a few other states), the child of an incarcerated, nonviolent, mother need not be forced into foster care. Instead, the child may be able to head to jail with his or her mother.
Except that, recently, concerns have arisen about the quality of medical care delivered in these “mom’s prisons”. There have reportedly been one questionable death, and several injuries and illnesses not caught and treated as early as they probably should have been.
Most of the moms in these facilities are drug offenders. And they represent the fastest growing segment of the population of inmates in California.
Approximately seventy-five percent of these moms have custody of their children at the time they are sentenced.
The larger question is: should inmate mothers have their young children with them in confinement? Or should the children be temporarily placed with relatives or, if necessary, into foster care?
Read more in this provocative New York Times article: California Investigates a Mother-and-Child Prison Center.
A Miami area media personality is divorcing a wealthy celebrity preacher going through an apparent identity crisis.
First, he reportedly announced in 2004 that he was Jesus Christ. Later, he reportedly announced that he was the Antichrist.
The preacher is under investigation over alleged financial improprieties with his church.
The woman believes that her divorce suit is like a wakeup call to her husband, which will ultimately benefit him. She still follows her husband’s religious teachings.
The couple lived an extravagant lifestyle, which she will be seeking to maintain.
If the case goes to trial, it should certainly be dramatic. The presiding judge will surely need to possess the wisdom of a King Solomon.
Read more in this Miami Herald article: Life with the Antichrist: Wife divorcing preacher.
I have blogged a number of times on grandparents’ rights with respect to visitation and custody of their grandchildren. In a nutshell, for better or worse, those rights have eroded over the last several years.
One of the terms that sometimes comes up in this context is de facto parent, someone who is not legally a parent but who in fact plays the role of parent.
Sometimes, this may be a grandparent. Sometimes it may be stepparent. Sometimes it may be the legal parent’s gay partner. Sometimes it is someone else.
As long as the legal parent is alive and the relationship with the de facto parent is intact, the de facto parent is for all intents and purposes, a parent.
But if the legal parent’s relationship with the de facto parent sours - or the legal parent dies - the de facto parent’s legal standing with respect to the child often is non-existent.
A recent article reveals the concerns of a grandmother who fulfills many of the duties of a mother - because her son has custody of his daughter. The grandmother believes the mother’s lifestyle is too unstable for a child - and worries what would happen to the child if something happened to her son.
Then there is the stepdad who treats his stepdaughter as his own. What if something were to happen to his wife?
Under current national trends, the law focuses on the parent’s constitutional rights.
These surrogate parents suggest that the biological or legal parents’ rights should be subordinated to the rights, needs and best interests of the child.
Just as it is when one biological or legal parent is pitted against the other biological or legal parent.
And some Utahns (and other Americans) are working for legislative reform in this area.
Read more in this Desert Morning News article: Custody laws put many in limbo.
Norwich, Connecticut is trying to help fathers be better at fathering. How?
The Madonna Place Fatherhood Initiative Program, a nonprofit organization launched in 1999.
The Madonna Place offers extended parenting classes geared toward fathers serving as primary caregivers - and co-parenting couples. Some attend under court order, some by choice.
Madonna Place also offers assistance with obtaining employment and legal resources.
And last, but certainly not least, Madonna Place offers moral support from the staff and mutual support of others in similar circumstances.
Read more in this Norwich Bulletin article: Dad learns what it takes.
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