General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Nineteen year old woman (Mother) and a fifteen year old boy (Boy) have sex, and a Baby is conceived.
The Mother is under a grand jury indictment for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, which could lead to incarceration for a year and one-half as well as having to register as a sex offender.
Mother got acquainted with Boy and moved in with the Boy’s family after complaining of abuse by her stepfather.
Mother’s stepfather was allegedly convicted of domestic violence against Mother’s minor sister, specifically, striking, choking and pointing a gun at her.
For now, Mother and Baby are living with the Mother’s family, including the stepfather.
The Boy’s parents are seeking to obtain custody of the Baby due to the asserted unfitness of Mother and reported abusiveness of Mother’s stepfather.
In the meantime, an Ohio Family Court has ordered the Boy-victim to pay Mother $50 per month in child support.
It is unknown whether the amount of child support was based on an afterschool job or on the Boy’s allowance from his parents.
The Boy was also awarded seven hours per week of visitation with the Baby.
Read more in this Columbus Dispatch article: Boy’s Parents Sue to Get His Baby From Mom, 21.
Japan may be a modern country technologically. But not legally, according to reports.
In approximately 80% of divorce and paternity cases in Japan, the father loses all parental rights, excluding the “right” to pay child support. In the remainder of cases, it is the mother who is stripped of her parental rights.
Visitation? That’s not a concept that is part of Japanese family law.
When parents break up, the “other parent” fades out of their children’s lives. Another family member may even adopt their children without their consent.
How does a parent win custody in Japan?
One alleged way to get a leg up on a custody award in Japan is to abscond with the child, even across international boundaries.
Statistics suggest that some 10,000 children in Japan have no access to their foreign parent.
Japan is a not yet a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Although there are rumors that it will adopt the convention in a couple of more years, one has to wonder whether it will really matter.
Japanese family law is in need of a paradigm shift. Without that, change may be a pipe dream.
Japan did sign the Convention of New York, the purpose of which was to assure children access to both parents. It didn’t.
Family law activists in Japan are lobbying for a long overdue overhaul of the Japanese family law.
Read more in this Singapore Straits Times article: Over 160,000 Japanese children split from one parents every year.
Seven year old Florida girl. Father and Mother were never married, didn’t even date.
Since girl’s birth, Father and Mother have taken turns reporting one another to social services and seeking restraining orders against each other.
Each parent has refused to return the child after timesharing with her.
Both parents have tried to inject others into the middle of their battle, including the girl’s preschool.
The Court file was stuffed with hundreds of pages. Then things really got going.
The Mother reportedly withheld visitation one time too many - and was threatened by a judge with incarceration if she pulled that one more time.
And then the girl turned up for visitation with her Father with bruises on her face.
One of the Mother’s boyfriends subsequently pleaded no contest to the charge of battery on the girl. He was sentenced only to probation, but was ordered not to have any further contact with the girl.
Yet the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) kept returning the girl from her Father to her Mother. Despite cases like this until that point, Florida’s custody laws are gender-neutral; the law does not favor either parent based solely on their sex.
Then things really escalated in the case. The Mother reportedly accused the Father of sexually abusing the girl.
At which point DCF instituted dependency proceedings, to terminate the Father’s parental rights permanently.
The Court appointed a guardian ad litem (lay advocate)(“GAL”) for the girl in the case. Interestingly, the GAL did not buy the Mother’s version of events.
But still DCF and the Mother proceeded to trial. But the Mother changed her testimony mid-stream.
In the end, the Court did not terminate the Father’s parental rights. Probably not so surprising.
But what happened next was …
In a hearing on whether to terminate the Father’s parental rights, the Court swapped the stakes and awarded the Father primary residential custody of the girl! Over DCF’s objections.
Further, the Court ordered the Mother to undergo counseling and awarded her only supervised visitation with the girl.
It turns out that the abuse allegations were inspired by the Father’s application of medicine for the girl’s recurring urinary tract infections.
The Father’s attorney criticized DCF for not doing a thorough investigation into the allegations in the first place. According to him, the girl was coached, later recanted and was then scolded for recanting.
The girl has been living with her Father and his wife over a year now. She is reportedly thriving there.
The Mother has not seen the girl since the Court’s ruling - although Father has reportedly tried to facilitate same.
Mother filed an appeal of the ruling, but it was dismissed. Mother was not represented by counsel at the hearing, because she intended it to be “her hearing”, to terminate Father’s parental rights.
Her appeal was based on the premise that she should have been afforded the opportunity to retain counsel when the hearing morphed into Father’s modification of custody hearing.
But, when you play with fire, you have to expect that you may get burned …
Meanwhile, the Father plans to sue DCF for its negligence, impliedly arising from bias against fathers. He has since become a fathers’ rights advocate.
Dads can win custody of kids, sometimes even when they really don’t go looking for it.
Read more in this Lakeland Ledger article: Custody Case Opens a Window on Family Court.
Child support enforcement has a powerful new weapon in its arsenal: the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires travelers returning to the US from Canada, Mexico, the Carribean, Bermuda and central and South America possess passports.
The new laws require many people who did not previously have passports to obtain passports for travel outside the US.
Only they can’t if they owe more than $2,500 in child support arrearages.
So people who really want to travel outside the country must pay up - or stay home.
Connecticut, as an example, has seen support collection rise dramatically as a result of the implementation of the new rules.
And it’s not just Connecticut.
Whatever the benefit to national security, these new passport rules surely benefit someone - children owed child support.
Read more in this Government Technology article: New Passport Rules Boost Connecticut Child Support Enforcement.
A guardian ad litem appointed to advocate on behalf of a 14 month old baby has recommended to the court that his mother stop breast-feeding him.
The guardian was concerned about the child ingesting medications prescribed for his mother.
The mother maintains that she researched this issue carefully and that her baby nurse and one of her son’s doctors all encouraged her to breast-feed with full knowledge of her medication regimen. The mother also sought out the input of the author of a book on medications in mother’s milk and he too approved her choice to breast-feed.
Nonetheless, the dispute over whether the mother should breast-feed will be put before a family court judge and could influence whether he will leave the mother as the baby’s primary residential custodian.
Just in case, the mother is stocking up on formula for her son.
The unusual case raises troubling issues regarding the propriety of this intrusion into the mother’s parental rights and rights to privacy.
Read more in this Atlanta Journal Constitution article: Breast-feeding debate impacts custody battle.
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’.
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.
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.
Fifty percent of American children grow up without a father living in their household for at least part of their childhood.
Once the relationship with their mother sours, many of those dads have little to no contact with their kids.
Uninvolved dads tend not to pay child support.
Even where these dads remain connected with their children, although the kids have higher self esteem, associated with parental involvement, they still experience more adolescent difficulties.
So much for happy father’s day.
Read more in this New York City Journal article: A melancholy occasion for millions of American kids.
A Pennsylvania court has held that a sperm donor may be a “third parent” and owe a duty of support to his biological children.
The sperm donor in question had an occasional, recurring relationship with his biological offspring and voluntarily provided money to them from time to time.
The sperm donor has since passed away.
But the court nonetheless sees a continuing duty of support, which may be met from the deceased biological father’s estate.
This is an unusual fact pattern, but many anticipate action from the legislature to clarify the proposition that a child can have only two parents, who owe a duty a support.
Read more in this York Daily Record article: Pa. could add a third parent.
Father has DNA test disproving his paternity of child for whom court ordered him to pay support.
But he didn’t get it until 3 years after a Florida court entered a child support order.
For that reason, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the child support order against the Father.
The Court noted that children are not disposable, which is consistent with a long line of cases from before Florida’s new paternity fraud law.
The Court reportedly did not even mention the new paternity fraud law, under which the Father is considering pressing a new legal challenge.
Read more in this Bradenton Herald article: Man may turn to ‘paternity fraud’ law.
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently held that a child can have only one legal father. If that doesn’t sound ground-breaking, consider this.
Man and woman date. Child is conceived during relationship.
Man acknowledges paternity of child. Man and woman live together and raise child together.
Man and woman break up. Man and woman battle for custody of child in paternity case.
Woman’s former boyfriend obtains DNA test proving his biological paternity. Woman’s former boyfriend brings action to establish legal paternity of child.
What’s a court to do? Here’s what the trial court did.
On the one hand, the court refused to revoke the man’s acknowledgment of paternity and, by extension, refused to quash the man’s status as legal father.
But, on the other hand, the court also entered an order establishing the woman’s former boyfriend as the legal father of the child.
Taking the two rulings together, the court, in effect, established two different legal fathers for the boy.
If that seems illogical to you, you’re in good company. The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed, reversing and remanding the case for new trial level proceedings.
The appellate court held that the court could not establish paternity of a second legal father without first revoking the acknowledgment of paternity by the first legal father.
The case may be viewed as a victory for legal fathers over biological fathers.
But it is more properly viewed as a victory for those who have already worn the uniform of dad and stepped up to the plate for their acknowledged children, over those who have not yet done so.
The New Year represents a new beginning for families that are transitioning after a divorce or separation. It can be an excellent time to make a roadmap of where the family wants to go and how it plans to get there.
A children’s advocacy group recommends goal planning at the family level and then breaking the collective family plan into individual plans for family members which support the family’s goals.
Read more in this Parents and Kids article: Divorce and new beginnings for you and your kids
and at Kids First.
The Kansas Supreme Court is about to decide that question in the following case.
A woman was artificially inseminated by an old platonic friend. She became pregnant with twins.
During the months leading up to the birth of her twins, she more or less “dropped” the old friend who had donated his sperm to her. He only found out that she had given birth because of a mutual friend.
Now the twins are 18 months old. They’ve never met their mother’s old friend who had made their birth possible.
But he alleges that the mother and he had verbally agreed that he would co-parent the twins as their father. The mother denies that.
Now, a Kansas statute states that a sperm donor has no parental rights unless the mother and the sperm donor agree otherwise in writing.
No one contends that there was an actual written contract here.
Case closed? Not so fast.
The sperm donor argues that the statute is unconstitutional and not in the best interests of the children conceived.
Meanwhile, the mother filed a petition to terminate the sperm donor’s parental rights - the rights she simultaneously denies the sperm donor had - for unfitness as a parent.
The sperm donor contends that the mother’s petition to terminate parental rights constitutes a sufficient writing under the statute - the statute he argues is unconstitutional.
The sperm donor further muddies the waters by suggesting that the mother, who happens to be an attorney, incorrectly advised him as his counsel that no written agreement was necessary to protect his rights.
At the same time, the sperm donor filed a paternity action to establish the legal father of the children.
The trial court dismissed the sperm donor’s paternity case and the mother’s petition to terminate parental rights, in both cases, because the sperm donor had no parental rights.
The sperm donor appealed.
This is yet another complex, even convoluted real life case that would make a great law school exam.
Except for the fact that only one outcome seems even remotelypracticable: a sperm donor is nothing more than … a sperm donor.
Read more in these Topeka Capital Journal articles: Dispute between friends leads to review of sperm donor rights and Court weighs parental rights.
Until recently, legal challenges to paternity which were not promptly filed were denied, in the best interests of the child in question.
A concerted hue and cry from father’s rights groups has diverted focus from the best interests of the child to the catchphrase paternity fraud.
As a result of the diversion, this year the Florida legislature passed a statute permitting alleged fathers to prove scientifically that they are not the biological fathers of their alleged children. Accordingly, they will be able to avoid any future child support legal obligations and just “drop” their alleged child.
It is projected that the statute might let about 30% of alleged fathers off the child support “hook”.
The lynchpin of establishing or disestablishing paternity is DNA testing, which is generally inexpensive and reliable.
The new statute does impose certain restrictions on its availability to support a paternity challenge, however.
Read more in this Miami Herald article: Florida men get a break on false paternity.
Parental rights of unwed fathers generally vary according to the paternity laws of the various states.
But the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law, provides additional legal protections to biological fathers and their tribes before a child of American Indian heritage may be adopted out.
In addition to any notice which may be required to be given to the biological father, notice must also be given to the official representatives of the appropriate tribe. And the tribal entity has jurisdiction over any child of American Indian heritage.
A Mormon church-affiliated adoption agency reportedly recently facilitated an adoption of a baby whose biological father turned out to have been of Navajo heritage.
The Navajo Nation claims that the agency never contacted them, although the agency allegedly was aware that the baby may have been of Navajo heritage.
When the biological father learned that he had a child who was up for adoption, he filed a petition for custody of the baby. His petition was denied, however.
Read more in this Salt Lake [UT] Tribune article: Navajo Nation disputes adoption.
I previously posted Undocumented Immigrant Mother Arrested Before Child Support and Custody Agreement Signed With Father’s Representation by Attorney for Immigration Agent.
An Indian River County, Florida court has now awarded primary residential custody of the unmarried couple’s two year old girl to the father, a reportedly convicted drug offender who allegedly still abuses drugs.
The mother also alleges that the father had a history of domestic violence toward her.
Now, the mother also faces deportation following the loss of custody of the daughter she had been raising, thanks, reportedly, to the instigation of the father of the baby.
The mother will likely be allowed to exercise some visitation, in her native Uruguay.
The law requires that the ruling as to which parent will be the primary residential parent be made so as to serve the best interests of the child.
It has not been reported whether the court favored the drug-offending father because he would raise the child here in the US, while the mother, as a result of her impending deportation, would, of necessity, raise the child outside the US, probably in her native Uruguay.
Read more about this sad outcome in this TC Palm article: Judge must play King Solomon with Vero Beach child.
A while back, I posted on Paternity Challenged After Child’s Death But Before Wrongful Death Suit.
A Florida court, relying upon an old judgment of paternity, has upheld the legal paternity of the man who acted like a dead boy’s father, despite the recent DNA test that disproved his biological paternity.
Now, the man who raised the boy can press a high-ticket wrongful death lawsuit.
Read more in this Sun Sentinel article: Man responsible for PBC teen could benefit from wrongful death suit, judge rules.
An adoption agency notified a biological father that his baby was going to be adopted.
That was how the biological father allegedly first learned of the child’s existence.
By that time, the baby was two months old and had been living since he was three days old with the family that planned to adopt him.
Upon learning of the boy, the father sought custody of his son.
But the New Mexico trial court terminated his parental rights on the grounds that he had abandoned the baby and his mother, freeing the baby up to be adopted.
On appeal, the ruling was reversed and the father’s parental rights restored.
The case was remanded for a custody determination, but appeals are on the way.
Read more in this Albuquerque Journal article: Birth Dad’s Lawsuit Could Alter N.M. Adoptions; Father Is Seeking Custody of Child.
The New Mexico ruling could have a chilling effect on adoption in the state, to the detriment of would-be adoptive parents and, at least arguably, children awaiting adoption.
But what about father’s rights, especially where the father allegedly did not even know about the child?
One measure that several states, including Florida, have taken to aid fathers in protecting their parental rights is the creation of a registry in which unmarried, potential fathers may log each partner with whom they have the potential to have fathered a child.
Timely registrants have rights to notice and to consent to any adoption of their child.
Failure to register before a termination of parental rights case is filed waives any rights the father may have had.
This approach balances all of the interests involved.
According to an American Bar Association article, the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 led to many poorly educated, low income men being on the hook for supporting children who were not really theirs.
The statute paved the way for states providing public assistance to mothers and their children to recover support from non-supporting fathers.
The article concludes that most alleged fathers lose their cases by default when they don’t appear, or from ignorance when they do appear.
The authors condemn the statute and propose that the federal government act to ensure that paternity be confirmed by DNA testing before support orders are entered.
The article does not appear to address defendant / respondent fathers who completely ignore child support proceedings against them - including orders to submit to DNA testing, and actual fathers who simply resent or don’t want to pay support for their children and will not play by the rules.
Read more in this Baltimore Sun opinion piece: Changes opened a paternity-fraud trap for men.
Florida has recently joined the ranks of states which have introduced a measure permitting non-fathers to disestablish or overturn mistaken paternity judgments previously validly entered.
This is a sharp departure from all other types of legal cases, where a judgment is final (except for an appeal), so long as the defendant / respondent had proper notice of the case against him and the resulting opportunity to defend against a judgment being entered.
Relief under this new Florida law is barred, however, where the father failed to comply during the original paternity proceedings with an order to submit to DNA testing.
The NY Court of Appeals recently upheld a putative father’s child support obligation even after a DNA test disproved paternity subsequent to the father’s child support obligation being determined. The mother reportedly lied to the father about paternity in the first place.
The NY court based its decision on the doctrine of paternity by estoppel. That principle places greater weight on the social or de facto parent-child relationship that clearly already existed between the child and the putative father than on the DNA test results.
More fundamentally, the NY court found that it was in the best interests of the child to uphold paternity.
Read more in this Rochester Daily Record article: Court of Appeals rules father figure still required to pay child support.
The above NY case is perfectly consistent with the law of many states, including Florida - until recently.
A new law in Florida permits a putative father to disestablish paternity by DNA testing and to terminate child support obligations (with certain exceptions, of course).
A Scottish court has upheld a Dutch court’s ruling, under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, that a Scottish resident must return her two children to Holland, where their father lives.
The Inverness (Scotland) Courier article: Tug-of-love mother in battle with Dutch courts doesn’t specify how long the children have been living in Scotland (although the reader may infer approximately one year).
According to the article, the parents are in dispute over whether the mother ever told the father that she was permanently removing the children from Holland.
The article does report, however, that the mother moved to Holland a year or two before either child was born, and remained in Holland so that the couple’s two year old and four year old were both born in Holland - and lived only in Holland until their mother removed them.
The article doesn’t furnish any reason as to why the mother left Holland, having lived there on the apparent order of six years.
The mother plans to return to Holland with the children and pursue any legal challenges available there.
Custody of the children has not yet been determined, ony jurisdiction to decide custody.
Child brings suit to learn the identity of his biological father.
An adopted child?
No. And that’s what makes this case unusual.
After his parents’ divorce, the boy resided primarily with his legal father - the then-husband of the boy’s biological mother.
(In many states, including Florida, the man married to a birth mother is presumed to be the legal father of a baby.)
But, apparently, a recent DNA test proved that the boy’s legal father is not his biological father.
And now the boy wants his biological mother to disclose who his biological father is, supposedly out of concerns over his family health history.
And now a Michigan court must decide whether the boy has a right to compel the disclosure.
Read more in this Detroit News article: Mom, teen square off in paternity case.
An immigrant who reportedly overstayed her visa was arrested here in Florida - the day before she and the father of her baby were to finalize an agreement on paternity, custody and child support for their baby.
The woman had allegedly been working to support her baby, using someone else’s social security number.
It turns out that the father’s attorney previously represented the immigration agent, who was instrumental in the mother’s arrest, in his own divorce.
And the father reportedly went around threatening the baby’s mother with deportation if she didn’t reconcile with him. In fact, the local police cited him for trespassing at the baby’s grandmother’s home, where he allegedly made the same threats of deportation.
The father is reportedly on probation for drug charges.
The woman’s attorneys believe that the common attorney link between the immigration agent and the baby’s father is more than coincidence, and may bear on the legality of the case against her and, therefore, her defense.
The judge in the case ordered the sheriff’s office to disclose the identity of law enforcement’s informant.
But the sheriff’s office flat out refuses to comply with the court’s order - and makes no bones about it.
Perhaps there is something to the defense’s suggestions that this woman, just one of many local immigrants allegedly improperly using another’s social security number to work, was singled out for unequal treatment under the law because of the child custody and support case, and the father’s attorney’s presumed access to the immigration agent who had reportedly been his client.
Read more in this Treasure Coast Palm article: Indian River County Sheriff’s Office refuses to identify informant.
A young mother died in a motel room in nearby Hollywood (Florida). Her boyfriend was shot and wounded there. Miraculously, their four month old baby daughter was present, but not injured.
What happened?
The police concluded that the mother committed suicide. The father is reportedly blaming the mother for shooting him.
The young woman’s family insist she would not have killed herself, and characterize the couple’s relationship as very stormy.
At stake is custody of the baby.
Typically in Florida, a surviving parent would be the baby’s sole guardian and custodian. That’s what the baby’s reported father is fighting for - but it was not reported that any court order has ever legally established paternity of the baby.
Under the uncertain circumstances of the case, a Broward County court awarded temporary custody of the baby to her grandparents, pending outcome of the police and coroner’s investigation into her mother’s death.
Read more in this NBC 6 news article: Grandparents Get Temporary Custody Of Baby In Motel Incident.
A seventeen year old boy is fighting for custody of the three year old baby he reportedly fathered when he was thirteen.
Right now the baby is with her mother, a 30ish former teacher’s aide, who met the boy through her former job at a religious school.
The mother is reportedly a convicted registered sex offender who may have only supervised contact with children, including her own. In effect, the mother’s rearing of the child is supervised.
The mother’s conviction arose out of the unusual circumstances of the conception of her child.
The boy has another child with his current girlfriend. He plans to work nights to support his children while attending college in the fall.
Read more in this KPRC Local 2 news article.
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.
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.
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.
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