General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Massachusetts man buys lottery ticket.
Man wins $1 million lottery.
All is good in his universe.
Until …
Man gets charged with violating terms of his probation on bank robbery charges.
Not his first probation violation.
Then man is served with contempt of court papers for failure to pay almost $40,000 in back alimony and child support.
Man will not know his fate until next year.
Man’s story illustrates the saying: “be careful what you wish for…”.
Support recipients everywhere got what they wished for in this instance too.
A spokesman for the state lottery issued a statement that state lottery officials would comply with any court order for support.
Read more in this Cape Cod Times article: More bad news for lottery winner.
Four month old baby removed from parents’ home by social services.
Baby placed with foster family.
Biological parents’ parental rights are terminated.
Foster family wants to adopt Baby, who is a dual citizen of the USA and Mexico.
Twenty two months later, Baby’s biological grandmother in Mexico seeks to adopt him.
Trial court holds that Baby should be turned over to biological grandmother in Mexico.
Appellate court agrees.
Case draws national and international media attention.
Oregon’s child welfare services agency took something of a beating in the case, accused of misleading all concerned. Then agency arranges a mediation in Oregon - which lasts for ten hours.
As a result, everyone agrees that Baby should remain with foster parents in Oregon and that foster parents may adopt him.
They also agree that biological grandmother should have visitation and access rights and that Baby should learn to speak and write Spanish fluently.
Last, but not least, agency agrees to pay the Baby’s foster parents’ legal fees in the matter.
Read more in this Newport News-times article: Foster child to remain in Oregon.
Immigrant woman marries American from Wisconsin.
Due to birth defects, for most of the American’s life, this individual could have been denominated either a male or a female. But the original birth certificate designated this individual a male.
Prior to the marriage, this individual had surgical removal of male genitalia, reportedly solely for health reasons. The individual’s birth certificate was subsequently amended and her gender was re-designated as female.
The month after the marriage, the American went to court to amend the birth certificate to again designate him as male. The American argued that the original amendment was an error.
But the trial court and, later, an appellate court, refused, holding that the American was time-barred from challenging the original amendment of the birth certificate.
The couple’s marriage license was revoked and the marriage annulled, because same sex marriage is not legal in Wisconsin.
As a result, the New Zealand woman was denied a visa to remain in the US.
The American is quite distressed over the woman’s loss of legal status in the US and plans to appeal to the highest court available.
Read more in this Fairfax New Zealand Limited article: Marriage struck down as husband fails to change gender.
The holidays aren’t over yet.
And during the time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, one largely hidden statistic on the rise is: child abuse.
Throughout the season of good cheer, parents are under much more stress than usual. And that stress leads to abuse of children.
Not just more abuse, but more severe abuse.
Often by parents who, afterwards, can’t believe they did it.
Yet recognizing the stress and the risk, coupled with simple techniques, such as having a friend watch the kids or deep breathing, can buy the time necessary for parents to calm down and avoid abusive acts.
Read more in this KTTC TV [Rochester, MN] article: Holiday Stress Can Lead to Child Abuse.
Montgomery County, Maryland has been conducting a pilot program that has been providing in home services to high risk, first time parents and families.
After ten years in operation, the family services agency there concludes that the program has reduced both child abuse and neglect dramatically, nearly to nonexistence.
Outcomes are actually superior to those in the general population.
The pilot program fosters self-sufficiency among mothers, which heads off development of risk factors for abuse.
Targeted risk factors include “limited education, maternal depression, insufficient knowledge of normal child development, poverty, substance abuse issues, limited self-sufficiency, or [having] experienced abuse or neglect as a child”.
The results of the study appear to be empowering - and repeatable anywhere.
Read more in this Reuters article: County-Wide Home Visiting Program Found to Reduce Child Abuse and Neglect.
A Washington state mother lost primary residential custody of her children to her husband in their divorce.
He had an attorney. She didn’t - because she couldn’t afford one.
On appeal, the mother argued that the state should have provided her with a lawyer, just as it provides lawyers to indigent criminal defendants. Her rationale was that the state requires people to go through complex public court proceedings to obtain a divorce, and ordinary people cannot be expected to participate in them effectively without counsel.
The Washington Supreme Court affirmed, finding no obligation by the state to furnish counsel in a divorce. The court contrasted couples’ divorces with cases initiated by the state which threaten fundamental constitutional rights, such as termination of parental rights cases.
Interestingly, the Court noted that the legislature may wish to consider enacting enabling legislation for the state to make counsel available to divorcing indigents.
Both the dissenting opinion and the Washington state bar association echoed the mother’s sentiments.
Read more in this KOMO TV article: State Supreme Court: No right to lawyers in divorce cases.
Fathers often “advise” how difficult it would be for them to obtain custody of their children in family court in the US.
Men’s News Daily reports that, in France and Germany, twenty (20%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.
And, in the US, it is reported that thirty-five (35%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.
But, in Israel, it is contended that only two point three (2.3%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.
Quite a sharp contrast.
An Israeli parliamentary subcommittee is holding hearings to investigate the basis for Israel’s very low statistic.
Men’s News Daily also reports that tools for protection from domestic violence are widely used fraudulently, arguably contributing to the skewing of custody in favor of mothers.
Read more in this Men’s News Daily article: Only 2.3% of Israeli Divorced Dads Have Custody?!
Statutes and cases set out the factors that should determine child welfare adjudications by courts.
But there are often other factors, just as influential, that are not set out in the law - and not known or anticipated by the lawmakers.
Such as the broken-down elevators in the Bronx Family Court.
Although there are four elevators in the building, only one or two are typically in service in a courthouse that serves 3,000 people a day.
Lines to get on an elevator to a courtroom for a hearing can stretch two city blocks and take hours to progess through.
At best, it leads to postponements of hearings - for example, for return of child custody - sometimes for months.
At worst, it leads to people missing their hearings - sometimes with huge penalties - for example, defaults leading to loss of child custody.
Read more in this New York Times article: At Bronx Court, Elevator Woes Slow Justice - and be glad if you don’t have a case pending in the Bronx Family Court.
An undoubtedly controversial Australian husband and wife urge couples whose relationships are afflicted by domestic violence to stay together and work through their issues. They say it worked for them.
They believe that domestic violence issues tend to travel with each partner to their next relationship -and expose their children to greater risk of abuse.
They also recognize that sometimes there is no place for the parties to go away to anyway.
The couple, who are not mental health professionals, report that many abusers suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. They claim that many professionals now classify narcissistic personality disorder as a “developmental gap”, rather than as a mental illness or true personality disorder.
But healing the relationship takes work, the couple admit.
Read more in this PRWeb press release: Don’t Say, ‘Just Leave him’ - There are Better Solutions to Domestic Violence.
Every divorce is different. But few participants escape unscathed emotionally.
An English professor and poet has published a prize-winning collection of poems including “What to Wear for Divorce”.
The author felt that the grim reality of divorce should be depicted through “nonsense” and emotion-charged imagery.
Writing about her divorce was cathartic for the poet.
Perhaps reading it would be cathartic to other people going through divorce.
Read more in this South Mississippi Sun Herald article: A poet walks us through her divorce.
A multimillionaire and his wife are going through a hotly contested, expensive divorce in which the parties are disputing property division and support issues. Hardly surprising or unusual.
The couple currently live in the UK, although they reportedly manage, quite legally, not to pay any taxes on their wealth. Much of the Husband’s wealth is tied up in trusts.
The couple have two children who have financial interests and needs. But how to protect them from their parents battle?
The British court awarded the children UK 30,000 pounds to retain legal counsel to protect their interests - at taxpayer expense.
A British judge commented that it is “exquisitely ironical”. Those probably aren’t the words British taxpayers would use.
Except for the attorney for the children, which is not so common in conventional family cases, the case is not that different from many cases where the parties have far more modest means.
For example, one spouse is paying a fortune to its lawyers to avoid paying anything to the other spouse - and succeeding too well so far.
Read more in this UK Guardian article: Children of multimillionaire given legal aid in divorce battle.
A Utah mother deployed to Iraq gave legal custody of her 5 year old quadriplegic daughter to her boyfriend, who had previously served in Iraq.
Boyfriend reportedly suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems.
Boyfriend allegedly neglected child to the extent that her weight dropped from 35 pounds to 13 pounds.
The girl had a grandfather who succeeded in obtaining a child custody protective order and rescuing her.
The child rebounded dramatically within 3 months in her grandfather’s care.
The boyfriend was sentenced to one to 15 years’ incarceration.
The criminal court judge thought the boyfriend was “salvageable” despite his alleged squandering of the child’s disability checks and her mother’s military payments while neglecting the girl.
Particularly considering the child’s special needs, one can’t help but wonder what the child’s mother was thinking when she transferred legal custody of her child to this man.
The mother does appear, however, to have gotten custody back upon the end of the mother’s deployment.
Read more in this Salt Lake Tribune article: Man gets prison for nearly starving quadriplegic child to death.
In matters of child custody and welfare, children of native American Indian heritage have a unique status under federal law, entitling American Indian tribes to intervene on the children’s behalf in family and juvenile court.
The threshold question then is: who is an American Indian child for child custody and welfare purposes?
Under federal law, a child must be eligible for membership under the standards of an American Indian tribe for the tribe to be able to intervene in a child custody or welfare case. Those criteria vary from tribe to tribe.
Under an Iowa statute, an American Indian child included a child with some degree of American Indian blood who was not eligible for membership in an American Indian tribe.
That statute made Iowa, along with Washington state and Oklahoma, the only states that have had more relaxed definitions of an American Indian child than under federal law.
On appeal from a ruling permitting the Winnebago tribe to intervene in a child welfare case, the Iowa Supreme Court recently struck down the Iowa statutory definition of an Indian child as overbroad, such that it violated the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.
As a result of the ruling, the child involved in the case under discussion was deemed not to be an American Indian child under federal law, and the American Indian tribe was not permitted to intervene in the case on behalf of the child.
The ruling may send shockwaves through American Indian communities and prompt native American Indian tribes to adjust their standards for membership so as to be more inclusive, so that they may intervene in more cases involving children with some American Indian blood.
Read more in this Sioux City Journal article: Iowa court rules definition of Indian child unconstitutional.
A divorced psychologist determined that something important was missing from her legal divorce, making it feel incomplete and unfinished in her mind.
Yearning for something more to help her achieve closure and move on, she researched an ancient divorce ritual in her religion.
The formal, funeral-like ceremony she participated in was both life-altering and empowering for the psychologist. It transformed her and her perception of her former husband, and revealed to her his new role in her life.
Drawing upon her own roots and experience, the psychologist has generalized and expanded the concept of the divorce ritual and now adapts it to fit any couple’s religion, ethnicity and personal experiences.
Friends, relatives and spiritual advisors may witness or even participate in the ceremony.
The psychologist feels it is a critical step to divorced people finding peace and moving on with their own lives without animosity toward their former spouse.
The psychologist is now on a kind of mission to bring the divorce ritual to those who can benefit from it.
She will even be teaching her concepts at Harvard Law School next summer.
For those who may be struggling in their efforts to start over after divorce, it may be another option for them to consider.
Like everyone else, Americans tend to see parental abduction from the American’s point of view. But parental abduction goes on everywhere.
As in the US, parental abduction is occurring more and more frequently in the UK. A ninety-three percent increase since 1995. A twenty-two percent increase in the first half of 2007 over the first half of 2006.
Cheap travel. Global economies and workforces. International “love connections”. Immigrant labor / workers.
Interestingly, the highest rate of abduction and return is reportedly between the UK country of Ireland and the US, which have their own pact together.
The UK is reputedly good about returning children to their place of habitual residence - with some noteworthy exceptions.
One interesting difference from the US experience is the increasing frequency with which UK couples both opt to relocate to other countries while the family is intact. But after the couple breaks up, one of them often wishes to return home - with their children.
(US abductions are more likely to unfold when the non-American parent takes the children on vacation to visit non-American relatives.)
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, to which both the US and the UK are parties, specifies a procedure for seeking return of children to their place of habitual residence.
But forty percent of the parental abduction cases in the UK involve countries that are not parties to the Hague Convention. But some of those nations are parties to private pacts with the UK.
The situation is reportedly generally improving in the UK, but Germany reputedly remains a country that doesn’t play by international rules. Left-behind parents in the UK band together in an organization called Parents and Children Together or PACT, which fights abduction and aids law enforcement.
A sad and unusual scenario.
New Jersey Mother and Father divorce.
Mother is awarded alimony.
Mother and son reportedly get into violent argument at home when Mother is drunk.
Son dies as a result of injuries from fight.
Father is devastated.
Mother goes to jail.
Father falls behind in his alimony payments.
Father seeks modification of alimony obligation, apparently based on the killing of their son. (Not based on substantial change in her needs or his ability to pay.)
The intermediate level appellate court ruled that the killing did not warrant an automatic termination of alimony based on the statute or any legal precedent.
The court did, however, suspend alimony payments pending a final ruling and ordered a lower court hearing on Father’s ability to pay.
It was also noted that the Mother can apply for a modification when she is released from her incarceration.
The court indicated that it is up to the legislature to amend the law if it wants the result sought by the Father.
Read more in this North Jersey Record article: Court cuts alimony to mom who killed her son and this New Jersey Star-Ledger article: Court: No alimony for mom who killed.
Husband abandons Wife and kids.
Under religious Jewish law, Wife is stuck in limbo and cannot divorce or remarry.
Wife tries but, despite best efforts, is unable to locate Husband.
Twenty years go by.
Wife learns that the Husband is incarcerated in Israel.
Rabbis intervene with the Husband on the Wife’s behalf.
And Husband agrees to sign off on papers giving the Wife a divorce.
After twenty years.
Now that’s a slow divorce. Makes any American state’s family court system look fast by comparison.
Well illustrates that “things could always be worse”.
Florida is a no-fault divorce state. That means that no grounds are necessary for divorce or, more precisely, no fault-based grounds.
The technical grounds for divorce in Florida are that there has been an “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage. Other states recognize the no-fault grounds of “irreconcilable differences”.
Valid grounds vary from place to place. Take a recent case from Egypt.
A couple married after a whirlwind courtship lasting just two weeks. Later, the wife discovered that the husband hadn’t bathed once during the two month marriage.
The husband reportedly had a skin disease, which may or may not have made conventional bathing out of the question. In any event, this husband allegedly did not avail himself of any alternatives to conventional bathing.
Egyptian records reveal other unusual grounds for divorce:
This brief survey of several possible grounds for divorce serves as a reminder of the virtues of no-fault divorce.
Read more in this Fox News article: Egyptian Woman Files for Divorce Over Husband’s Refusal to Shower.
A married Brooklyn pastor has built a very successful congregation during his 30 year marriage.
His wife, who is divorcing him, contends that he runs and profits from the church just the same as though it were a business.
Hardly a first time scenario in the news.
But the wife’s contention that the husband’s church should be treated like a marital asset, subject to equitable distribution in the divorce, is a rare divorce tactic.
And, at least in New York, what is a first is the judge’s appointment of a forensic accountant to examine the church’s books and operations, with a view toward valuing and equitably distributing the church.
The wife alleges that the pastor runs a catering business out of the million dollar church building, applies collected donations to personal expenses (including a mistress), and determines his own salary at will.
In other words, her position is: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck …
The wife also claims that she provided $50,000 in “startup money” for the church business. The Husbands responds that it was a “donation”.
This case certainly opens up a can of worms that could have far-reaching ramifications for so-called nonprofits involved in divorce.
Who knows who will be following more closely, divorce attorneys or the IRS?
Read more in this New York Daily News article: Grace Christian Church backdrop for pastor’s ugly divorce and this Associated Press article: Pastor’s Wife: Church Is a Divorce Asset.
While many folks are in a festive mood at this time of year, for others, the holiday season is anything but.
More family togetherness due to time off from work and school. More drinking and drugs. More cash flow deficits and debt. More holiday “blues”.
Too often, these conditions are a recipe for abuse escalating in the following order:
These behaviors lead to incidents prompting victims of domestic abuse to seek orders of protection, called injunctions for protection against domestic violence in Florida.
These incidents also lead to more incidents prompting victims of domestic violence to call police and press criminal charges for domestic battery or domestic assault.
The holidays also give rise to false allegations of domestic abuse and violence.
Read more in
Occasionally, callers inquire about the adequacy of grounds for recusing a judge who has ruled against them.
They imagine that the judge in their case must be biased against them - because they didn’t achieve a flat-out victory across the board - no matter the pertinent facts or the applicable law.
Unfortunately for the callers, that is not anywhere near enough to have a judge recused. What is?
In a divorce case heard in London, a Saudi sheik owned the divorcing couple’s marital home. Because of disputes over the home, the sheik appeared in court as a witness.
The presiding trial judge made several inappropriate remarks targeting the sheik’s ethnicity, such as references to his “flying carpet” and “fasts”.
On appeal, the trial judge was ordered to recuse himself from hearing the rest of the case. The appellate court held that the trial judge’s attempts at “humor” were actually “thoroughly bad jokes”.
And those so-called thoroughly bad ethnic jokes demonstrated sufficient bias to furnish adequate grounds for recusal.
Read more in this International Herald Tribune article: UK judge disqualified from divorce case after ‘flying carpet’ remark about Saudi.
Dad has 4 hours of visitation every other week, supervised by the child’s grandmother.
An old Arizona statute allows judges to award visitation to grandparents.
The grandmother here was awarded visitation of her own.
Later, Mom gives notice of her intent to move out of state to care for an ailing relative.
Another, newer, Arizona statute allows a noncustodial parent to object to the custodial parent relocating their children to another state.
Dad apparently did not object to the relocation under that statute.
Instead, Grandma, in essence, did, by seeking to block the relocation, by relying on that statute.
An intermediate Arizona appeals court said the statute blocking relocation was only available to the noncustodial parent, not to grandparents.
The grandmother’s attorney intends to appeal to the state’s highest court, with the argument that this ruling allows the custodial parent to thwart grandparent visitation rights simply by relocating.
A ruling elevating grandparent visitation rights would be against the weight of federal and state court rulings entered after the passage of the grandparent visitation statute in Arizona.
Read more in this East Valley [Phoenix] Tribune article: Ruling could affect grandparents’ visitation.
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