General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Indian Mother and Father live in UK with their four and six year old Children.
Children go back to India to live with Father’s parents, Grandparents.
Mother says Father sent them there. Grandparents say Mother brought them there.
Mother files in both India and UK to get the Children back with her. She maintains she has “full rights over them”.
Nonetheless, Children reportedly want to stay in India with Grandparents.
India is not currently a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. But lawyers in India are starting to press for adopting the Convention.
Of course in this case, depending how long the Children have been with the Grandparents and the circumstances of their return to India, the Convention might require that custody be determined in the UK. It appears that, at least as far as habitual residence is concerned, the Children are NRI, nonresident Indian children.
Read more in this IBN article: Punjab’s NRI British kids caught in custody battle.
Georgia couple split up.
Older Son goes to live with Husband. Younger Daughter goes to live with Wife.
Couple agrees on child support amount of about $275 per month. Husband pays.
Husband loses job of twelve years when employer downsizes.
Husband vigorously seeks new job. Husband has difficulty finding new job.
Husband struggles to pay agreed support on unemployment compensation.
At a hearing on child support, court establishes support amount at about $660 - based on Husband’s previous salary.
(In Florida, that’s called imputing income to Husband. Income is imputed to the spouse required to pay when that spouse voluntarily becomes unemployed or underemployed.)
The Georgia Child Support Office reports that a Georgia judge can order any amount of support that he or she wants.
Husband has sold most of his furniture and appliances. He hopes he can stay out of jail.
Forty-two percent of parents required to pay child support are delinquent in their payments.
Read more in this WMAZ 13 TV article: GET ANSWERS: The Economy and Child Support.
Couples who go through in vitro fertilization typically have unused embryos left after achieving a successful pregnancy.
Unused embryos may be frozen, destroyed, donated for research or … “put up for adoption”.
Meaning, they can be donated to other couples who are infertile, thawed out and implanted in a would-be mother’s womb.
Purists are quick to point out that it is not truly “adoption”, because the embryos are not the same as a living, breathing baby.
But they do offer another option for infertile couples who want to have a child.
Read more in this Seattle Times article: “Embryo adoption” gives new life to some couples’ hopes for a child.
Husband and Wife decide to marry.
Husband insists on prenup - or else.
Confusing prenup is quickly patched together with three different lawyers.
Under prenup, Wife waives everything. No property division in event of divorce. No alimony in event of divorce. No nothing in event of divorce.
Wife requests a valuation of Husband’s assets. Husband refuses - on the basis that it would be too expensive to obtain one.
Couple marry.
Turns out Husband is a multimillionaire.
Seven years later, couple splits up.
Wife asks for property division and alimony.
Trial court awards it, voiding prenup over Husband’s failure to disclose the value of his assets.
Canada’s Supreme Court refuses to hear Husband’s appeal, leaving the holding stand.
Some commentators vigorously condemn the trial court’s ruling. They criticize the court for requiring expensive asset valuations to validate prenups.
This attitude may be premature overreaction.
Several US states require asset disclosures in prenups. A precise formal valuation is not typically required though.
Just a disclosure of the rough nature and approximate value of the assets. Closer to $1 million or $10 million? $8 million or $12 million?
Is an “expensive, formal valuation” really required to give “fair notice” of the approximate value of what the spouse would be waiving?
Read more in this Canadian National Post article: Karen Selick: Court ruling means marrying for love is not an option.
Florida Husband marries his first wife in 1960.
In the 1980s, Husband marries his second wife.
In 2000, Husband divorces his second wife.
And marries his third wife, the lawyer who represented him in his divorce from his second wife.
Husband pleads guilty to federal bank fraud charges and is sentenced to twenty-seven months’ incarceration.
Then it is learned that Husband never divorced his first wife.
Husband pleads no contest to bigamy charges.
Husband’s sentence for the bigamy charges?
In a sense, nothing.
His sentence for bigamy will run concurrently with his bank fraud sentence.
One principle of our legal system is that the punishment should fit the crime …
Read more in this Times of the Internet article: Con man pleads no contest to bigamy.
Mother and Father live in Ireland with Son.
Mother and Father break up.
Mother allegedly abducts Son to Britain.
Father brings an application for Son’s return to Ireland under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Father seeks guardianship of Son in an Irish Court.
A British Court orders that Mother’s and Son’s passports be deposited into Court pending further order of the Court at a hearing next month.
A spokesman for the Irish Family Breakdown Support Services notes that Ireland is in need of new laws to strengthen the legal rights of unmarried fathers in Ireland.
In the last year, Ireland has seen a twenty-five percent uptake in parental abduction cases.
Read more in this Irish Independent article: Father fights for return of son (5).
How do massive child welfare agencies make decisions in children’s best interests - and keep track of them?
Like so many other people and entities, they use software to assist them.
A California “social enterprise management software” company and the California-based Children’s Research Center, a nonprofit social research organization, have announced a “partnership” with the goal of implementing the Children’s Research Center’s operating process into the software company’s software package.
It is anticipated that the software will facilitate better caseworker decision-making and lead to better outcomes for kids.
An Illinois police force reports being summoned to people’s homes on domestic disputes twice as frequently this year as last.
The prosecutor’s office there similarly reports prosecuting twice as many misdemeanor domestic violence cases (less serious assaults and violations of orders of protection) now as in the past.
The reason?
The weak economy. Loss of jobs. More time at home. More stress. Less money.
Twenty-four percent more people have been availing themselves of services from shelters, and shelters have been full every night.
Law enforcement suggests that many of the incidents occur on a Friday, because that is a common payday, the beginning of the weekend and people drink over the weeked.
Police officers try to defuse tensions, often suggesting that one of the disputants leave for the night.
Read more in this Elburn [IL] Herald article: Domestic dispute reports on the rise.
Sons live primarily with Australian Father.
Swedish Mother has two court-ordered visits with Sons per year in accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Sons advise Father that Mother does not intend to return Sons to Father in Australia.
Sons go to Sweden for their most recent visitation.
Sons do not return on schedule.
Now the Australian Family Court has prohibited any further contact between Sons and Mother.
Unfortunately, that is not very helpful at this point.
Australia issues an arrest warrant for Mother and alerts Interpol of the incident.
From January to October, 121 Australian children were abducted from Australia.
Read more in this [Australian] Age article: Missing in Sweden: Melbourne father’s dash to find sons and this [Australian] Age article: Man looks for missing sons in Sweden.
Child abuse researchers urge more study to improve diagnostic success.
Child abuse can be difficult to detect. The cost of missing it is high to the unaided child victim.
But the cost of mistaken-diagnoses is also high to those wrongly accused or jailed, and those wrongly ostracized.
Diagnostic tools for child abuse include:
Additional indicators of child abuse include:
Read more in this BrainBlogger article: Diagnosing Child Abuse.
Idaho Father and Mother get pregnant. Father and Mother get engaged.
Six months into the pregnancy, Mother calls the engagement off, breaks up with Father and cuts Father out of her life completely.
Father claims to contact state department of health and welfare to find out how to protect his rights to his child. They supposedly tell him he must wait until baby is born.
Next thing Father knows, he hears Mother’s baby has been adopted. Without a word to him.
Father took his case all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court. But he lost.
Because he didn’t timely register with Idaho’s Putative Father Registry. Because he says he didn’t know about it.
A number of states, including Florida, now have a putative father registry scheme and a requirement to timely register with it to assert parental rights and block any adoption.
Despite Father’s wishes, Mother says it was best for the baby to put it up for adoption.
Read more in this [Pocatello, ID] KPVI TV 6 news article: Man Loses Son in Adoption Without His Consent.
A Japanese man divorces his wife without warning.
The Wife is enraged - and kills him … sort of.
The marriage and divorce took place in a Korean video game which the Japanese man and woman both played in online.
The murder was virtual, of the character the man played online. The real woman, a piano teacher, logged in as the man and, using his identity, killed off his character.
So, it was all just a game … or was it?
Japanese authorities have arrested the woman - for illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
A sobering reality.
Read more in this BBC [UK] news article: Woman in jail over virtual murder and this San Diego Tribune article: ‘Virtual murder’ in online game lands Japanese woman in jail.
Today is National Adoption Day. In fact, the entire month of November is National Adoption Month.
As part of his legacy, an adoptee’s foundation offers a Foster Care Adoption Awareness Toolkit to agencies, civic and religous groups, corporations, teachers and others.
The kit promotes adoption of children in foster care and publicizes the need for adoptive families for well over 100,000 abandoned, abused or neglected children. The kit also addresses myths about adopting kids out of foster care.
The adoptee behind the Foundation is the late Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s restaurants. And the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is the only foundation dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption.
Police showed up at a home where a Mother and Father were engaged in a physical fight over a custody dispute.
The police informed both parents that their disagreement would have to be resolved in court, which is another way of saying that law enforcement personnel can’t settle things between them.
But the pair were intent on their own alternative means of resolving their dispute.
Just minutes later, the police were summoned to a scene on the road where the same couple were now duking it out in the outdoors.
Both exhibited fresh injuries.
Police arrested both parents and charged them both with assault.
Mother had to post bail to get out of jail but not Father.
The whereabouts and care of the children over whom all this fighting was taking place did not come up at all.
Read more in this [Delmarva, MD] WBOC 16 TV News article: Pair Arrested for Fighting in Road.
Couple meet when woman works as picker on man’s potato farm. They marry.
Nineteen years later, when Wife is sixty years old, Wife accuses her wealthy husband of cheating on her.
Husband is apparently offended. Husband asks for divorce - at ninety-one years old.
Wife asks the court for alimony and possession of the marital home.
Read more in this [Macedonia] Makfax article: 91-year-old Italian seeks divorce from 60-year-old wife.
Two years ago, a noncustodial Michigan parent snatched a child from school.
Now, would-be visitors trying to gain entrance into at least one Michigan school find it nearly as difficult as getting into a courthouse.
School visitors are “managed” by a dedicated computerized terminal running “visitor management” software.
Visitors must be processed through the terminal, which scans the guests’ driver’s licenses and compares the identities of the licensees against a national database of sex offenders. If the visitors are not in the sex offender database, the terminal prints visitor passes with photo identifications.
That’s the easy part.
The “intelligent” software terminal also maintains child custody and timesharing information, to “manage” child pickup disputes between parents (and potentially others) as well. That sounds as though it must require interpreting as well as enforcing parental timesharing legal rights.
All done by software … in the name of school safety … and if the terminal gets it wrong? ….
Read more about this brave new world in this Muskegon [MI] Chronicle article: Securing our schools.
It began as an ordinary family outing in the car.
Aunt was driving the car. Mother was a passenger.
An off-duty police officer appeared out of the blue and found eight year old Boy on the hood of Aunt’s car … while the vehicle was moving.
According to Aunt, Boy was stubborn and would not climb down from the hood - after jumping on while the vehicle was already moving.
According to Aunt, law enforcement arrived just as she was going to stop and physically remove the Boy from the hood.
Next thing she knew, the police charged her with criminal recklessness and Mother with neglect of a dependent.
And Child Protective Services was there to take Boy and his cousin.
Although Aunt concedes Boy may have been in danger, Aunt believes police overreacted.
Aunt and Mother each face criminal hearings and child custody hearings soon.
Read more in this [Indianapolis] WTHR 13 TV News article: Mother, aunt arrested after boy rides on car hood.
Mother and Father divorce. Each remarries.
But they are both still jockeying for custody of their two kids.
Follow closely.
E-mails sent from Mother’s new husband’s e-mail account contain religious slurs and threats against Mother … and the kids. One message, sent to one of their children, intimidates, if not threatens, their kids.
Who sent the messages? One might be tempted to say Mother … or her new husband.
But Mother alleges that Father … and his new wife …, using information gleaned from “keylogging” software, hacked into an e-mail account of Mother’s new husband’s, and sent the messages from her new husband’s e-mail account.
Mother also alleges that one of the sending computers was a state-owned computer … used by Father’s new wife in her government job.
As luck would have it, Father’s new wife recently quit her job with the state, under scrutiny over use of government equipment in personal matters.
It was alleged that the questionable e-mails were used in an attempt to defraud the Family Court into favoring Father for custody.
Read more in this Nashville City Paper article: Nashville at Law: Lawsuit alleges former TennCare employee under investigation.
A Chicago area child was recently abducted by her father - who allegedly planned to take her to Jordan. Had the father succeeded, the baby girl would likely not have returned home to the US - or seen her US family members again.
Jordan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction - and custody laws there favor fathers. But the pair didn’t make it there. And the child was home in about a week.
Almost 800,000 children were reported missing in the US in 1999, the time of the last major survey.
And of them, only a handful, 115, were kidnapped by a stranger, for ransom or murder, the kind of kidnapper that most people think of when they think of a “kidnapper”.
115 … out of 800,000.
In child kidnappings, the reality is that the kidnapper is 4 times more likely to be a family member than a stranger, like this baby girl’s father.
In fact, half of child kidnappers are the children’s biological fathers. One quarter, their biological mothers.
But the fact that the kidnapper is a parent or other close relative does not mean that the child victim is safe, in good hands.
Nearly half of family abductions are foiled within a week. Only one-fifth of such cases remain unsolved after a month.
But where things tend to get more complicated is where the family member abductor whisks the child out of the country, particularly to a country that is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. As the Chicago girl’s father reportedly planned to do.
It can take much longer to retrieve those children … if they can even be retrieved at all.
Read more in this Chicago Southtown Star article: Most parental kidnappings end with child back home.
Affluent suburban New York couple appear to have it all. Husband owns a high end jewelry store.
Wife is a nutritionist in suburban schools. Married 18 years, the couple have a 12 year old daughter and a 14 year old boy.
Then something changes. The couple is getting a divorce.
And then Wife disappears. Nearly a month goes by, without a word from her, yet no sign of a body or injury.
The Husband comes under immediate suspicion of police. And, before long, of neighbors.
Finally, the Husband reportedly confesses. Husband is charged with murder.
The couple’s two children have been taken into child protective custody.
Read more about this case, and the sidebar recalling several other recent domestic violence murders in the region, in this [Lower Hudson Valley, NY] Journal News article - Cops: Cortlandt husband admits killing missing wife.
Sadly, it is not unheard of for one spouse to murder (or attempt to murder) the other spouse in an effort to avoid paying spousal support or child support. I have posted on more than a few such stories.
A strange variation on that theme comes out of India.
Indian Husband files a case for theft against his Wife.
After that, Wife files for divorce.
Somehow or another, Husband’s Uncle is served with the divorce, instead of Husband.
Uncle forgets to pass the papers on to Husband.
The divorce Court enters an order for Husband to pay Wife spousal support, since Husband doesn’t show up to oppose.
Husband finds out.
Husband attends hearing in his theft case.
Before leaving the courthouse, Husband and his mother take poison … to avoid the spousal support obligation.
Husband and his mother are taken to the hospital for treatment.
Read more in this Times of India article: Mother, son attempt suicide.
Brazilian Mother and Chinese Father have Child together in Brazil. They all live in Brazil.
Until Mother dies when Child is about 4 years old. Then Father takes Child with him back to China.
Then Father dies. Child’s Chinese uncle takes him in.
A year or two later, Child’s Grandmother in Brazil sues for custody of Child. Grandmother wins.
Child goes back to Brazil with elderly Grandmother in 2004. And now Grandmother dies.
And now the Brazilian child welfare agency has placed Child into foster care, presumably because he has no other living relatives in Brazil.
But he still has living relatives in China. They are considering seeking custody of Child again.
Read more in this Tapei Times article: Iruan Ergui Wu now in foster care.
A 22 year old Minnesota man has been convicted of strangling his 19 year old ex-girlfriend … in front of their 2 year old son.
For his murder weapon, the man constructed a noose from shoelaces - and allegedly killed her because the young woman was a half an hour late picking him up for a shopping excursion.
After she was dead, he set fire to her body in her car.
At the time of the murder, the man was in the process of finishing out his probation for a previous assault on the young woman.
Under the terms of his probation, he was required to attend anger management … and avoid contact with the young woman.
It is unclear whether he attended the anger management …
The man now faces multiple life sentences.
The couple’s baby boy is now staying with his mother’s mother and her husband. The boy’s maternal grandparents are pursuing custody of the child and hope to adopt him.
The poor toddler sees a psychologist for night terrors.
Read more in this Twin Cities [MN] Pioneer Press article: Man guilty of murder for strangling ex-girlfriend with shoelace.
Oregon’s Coquille Indian Tribe’s Tribal Council, the six person governing body for the Tribe, recently passsed an Ordinance allowing domestic partnerships and same sex marriages with a member of the Tribe.
Now, one Tribe member is challenging the approved Ordinance and petitioning to have the Ordinance put to a vote by all Tribe members, numbering approximately 600.
The Ordinance could extend Tribal financial benefits to more people.
The Ordinance would first require the passing of laws to unravel such domestic partnerships and same sex marriages by divorce and to determine child custody. That is expected to take months.
The Ordinance would also recognize domestic partnerships and same sex marriages validly entered in jurisdictions that permit them.
If 200 members of the Tribe join the petition, the Ordinance will be put to a general vote.
The activist cites as his primary concerns about the Ordinance that it imposes vital statistics record-keeping chores that the Tribe does not currently have and that the Ordinance is reportedly contrary to Oregon law as well as federal law
Read more in this Coos Bay Oregon World article: Tribe’s gay marriage law faces challenge.
Ohio Husband and Wife have Daughter together. Husband and Wife are divorced.
Wife is held by a court to be legally incompetent. Husband is awarded (what sounds like sole) custody of Daughter.
Husband lists Wife as Daughter’s other parent in school records and furnishes school information regarding Wife’s status as incompetent.
Wife appears at Daughter’s school to observe Daughter’s kindergarten class. The school allows.
Wife asks to take Daughter home before school is over. Daughter’s teacher consents, but instructs Wife to stop by the “office”.
Wife leaves school without advising the “office”. Husband arrives to pick Daughter up from school, only to discover that Daughter is not in school - and school doesn’t immediately know where or with whom Daughter is.
Police are summoned and an Amber Alert is issued for Daughter. Daughter is found safe at Library shortly thereafter.
Wife is expected to be charged with interference with custody under Ohio law.
The school states that it has done nothing wrong in permitting Daughter to leave with Wife - except perhaps for not having records of Wife’s incompetency in Daughter’s school’s files, as opposed to Daughter’s school district’s files.
Read more in this Columbus [OH] Dispatch article: Custody issue led to Amber Alert.<
Husband and Wife have twins together. Couple later divorces.
Wife remarries. Wife happy.
Husband leaves job, allegedly so he can’ t pay child support.
Husband seeks order of protection against Wife, claiming she threatened him. The judge doesn’t buy it.
Husband repeatedly accuses Wife and her new husband of abusing the twins. After investigating, the state finds no evidence to support his accusations.
A doctor opines that Husband is coaching the twins to say that Wife’s new husband abuses them.
On Wife’s birthday, Wife and new husband bring the twins to Husband’s home for his timesharing.
Husband explodes and shoots Wife’s new husband - six times - in front of the twins. Wife’s new husband dies.
Husband is charged with murder, and confesses to the crime. Wife claims that Husband routinely beat and abused her during their marriage.
Wife’s attorney comments that Husband was a “ticking time bomb” against whom Wife had filed about 10 emergency motions.
Yet Husband had equal timesharing with their twins… Despite the twins having a guardian ad litem to advocate for their best interests.
Read more in this Miami Herald article: Police: Rage against ex-wife led to killing.
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