Separated, unmarried Russian couple owe debts.

Couple has, among other children, a one and one-half year old Son.

Couple has a history of “mistreating” their children.

Father needs to travel to obtain funds to help pay off debts.

To secure performance of Father’s promise to pay, Father deposits with creditor as collateral … Son.

Authorities forcibly rescue Son.

Couple may face action to terminate their parental rights to Son.

Son will go into child protective custody.

Read more in this Russia Today article: Father hands his baby son over for debts.

Pennsylvania Mother has primary physical custody of her three children.

Mother moves to another county for employment.

Mother claims she did not know that she wasn’t at liberty to move.

Court orders Mother to move back to original county – and modifies physical custody to shared.

A retired Pennsylvania judge suggests that the only problem here was that Mother just moved, without first seeking permission of the Court. Which might not have been difficult to obtain.

Technically, this type of relocation may constitute a kidnapping under the custody order.

Mother reportedly racked up substantial legal fees as a result of her relocation.

With unemployment at its height for many years, many custodial parents may be tempted to relocate for a better job, or any job.

But it may be imprudent – and costly, in more ways than one – to simply move.

It is always prudent to ask the court’s permission before relocating, no matter how good a reason there is for the relocation.

Read more in this [Pittsburgh] WPXI TV news article: Poor Economy Affecting Child Custody Cases.

In Texas, a lot of parents evidently can’t understand their court-ordered visitation.

Actually, that’s not just true in Texas.

Floridians also find errors – and omissions – in their visitation orders all the time, as well as totally incomprehensible provisions.

A lot of it stems from use of uniform forms, whose primary virtue is, well, uniformity.

Unfortunately, they often lack clarity and comprehensiveness, while containing contradictions and ambiguity.

So what’s a parent to do, if they each interpret the darn thing differently?

The State of Texas is trying to rise to that occasion.

The state’s Attorney General’s office and the Access to Justice Foundation are jointly offering free monthly legal clinics to help parents figure out their visitation orders.

The State also offers a visitation phone hotline manned by attorneys. The hotline serves 1,500 callers per month.

Another strategy for addressing this problem might be to have better model forms for visitation orders.

Read more in this Liberty [TX] Vindicator article: New OAG Service Helps Parents Address Visitation Concerns.

Hard times are pushing many into mental illness, reports an article in the Buffalo [NY] News.

The article talks about widespread stressors these days, such as: recession, the mortgage crisis, foreclosures, layoffs, business closings, credit crunch, gas prices and inflation, Ponzi schemes, devalued retirement savings, and snow and cold (well, at least that one doesn’t apply here in South Florida).

Of one couple’s three adult children, two are laid off and one is unemployed.

Anxiety is commonplace and – some people are slipping over the edge. Sometimes with killing sprees and suicides.

Experts recommend reaching out to others, trying to avoid the barrage of gloom and doom from media and others, and staying focused and anchored in the here and now.

The article barely mentions family law matters. Just one casual reference to a “recently divorced” man who was racking up debt after losing his job and was saddled with an alimony obligation on top of that.

But all of these stressors on individuals also affect their families and exes.

At best, they can inspire more frequent and heated arguments and disharmony into the family. At worst, they can incite domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency and more.

Read more in Hard times are pushing many into mental illness.

In California (although not exclusively), there is widespread dissatisfaction with the workings of the family courts.

Numerous legislators have and continue to propose legislation to address the problems and improve their performance.

Several legislators are also seeking audits of several counties’ family courts, in an effort to account for inconsistent outcomes and difficulties in access for unrepresented and lower income parties.

Special attention has been drawn to cases involving custody disputes. There are dramatic differences across the state in the costs of custody evaluators, which are beyond the means of many, many parties – who nonetheless need their services.

There are many reports of custody being awarded to accused sexual or violent abusers, sometimes due to the use, or abuse, of claims parental alienation syndrome (PAS).

PAS is an increasingly controversial theory that one parent sometimes turns children against the other parent. PAS is not recognized by the legitimate, organized psychological or psychiatric community and some legislators propose barring its use in family court.

Other legislators propose allowing children to testify themselves in family court cases, having the courts absorb the costs of custody evaluations rather than parents, and requiring custody evaluators to have specific training in child sexual abuse.

Read more in this Capitol Weekly article: Several bills seek to reform family courts.

So many people whose marriages fall apart very quickly after the honeymoon simply assume that the marriage can be annulled, voided, as though it had never happened.

They most often prefer that over divorce for religious or other purely personal reasons. Occasionally, for long-term or short-term financial motivations.

The financial consequences of annulment can be quite different from those of divorce.

But, under Florida law, it is the rare marriage that is eligible for annulment. There are two different types of marriages that can be annulled and they each can have different consequences.

It gets pretty technical. But, either way, only rarely does a marriage meet either set of criteria.

So it’s hardly anything but painful to ponder the difference in financial consequences.

But that’s what a recently published article set out to do, just the same.

Unfortunately, it isn’t until you get to nearly the end of the article that the author reveals that it isn’t purely a matter of free choice whether to divorce or annul a marriage.

In a nutshell, when a marriage is annulled, the court strives to put the parties back into the same financial position as they were in immediately before the marriage.

Read more in this Mainstreet.com article – Annulment vs. Divorce: The Financial Differences.

It isn’t just non-Americans who are accused of abducting their children across international borders.

The case below suggests a different scenario entirely.

American Mother and Danish Father live with their two year old baby Daughter in Denmark.

Mother and Father previously agreed in writing to joint custody of Daughter.

When Mother’s father was visiting them in Denmark from the US, he allegedly diverted Father and gave Mother opportunity to get away with Daughter and leave the country.

Father has now brought suit in a federal court in Pennsylvania to have Daughter returned to Denmark under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

A federal judge has enjoined removal of the child from Pennsylvania pending a decision on jurisdiction over Daughter.

Mother’s mother reportedly informed a reporter that Mother was prepared to explain to the judge why she left Denmark as she did.

Read more in this [Northeastern Pennsylvania] Times Leader article: Denmark man: Wife took child.

In Canada, claims of parental alienation are taken extremely seriously.

So much so, that at least one commentator has noted a judicial “fad” of ordering alleged child victims of it to a US clinic for cure.

Parental alienation remains very controversial.

Many organizations of psychologists and psychiatrists reject it, at least as a diagnosis of a disease or psychological condition.

But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t accurately describe certain very real patterns of behavior present in certain family court cases.

Recently, a Canadian judge bucked the reported trend there and overruled an arbitrator’s ruling to send a disabled teenager for treatment.

Even if accepted as applicable to a child victim, parental alienation may not be capable of a “quick fix” – and some therapists believe the very attempt may do more harm than good.

The holding in this recent Canadian case may signal emergence of a new trend in Canada, or it may be limited to the somewhat unusual facts of the particular case before the court in that case.

Only time will tell.

Read more in this Toronto Globe and Mail article: PARENTAL ALIENATION – No quick fix.

Anyone who has a pet knows that the pet is part of the family.

When couples break up, their children typically still spend time with each parent, including time on the parent’s turf.

But what about the family dog or dogs?

Believe it or not, it’s a lot more complicated with a dog.

First, if the couple can’t agree privately, the judge will decide the pet’s fate as though the dog were an item of personal property, based solely on its fair market value. The pet’s best interests will not be a consideration in most cases.

Second, unlike kids, who are pretty resilient and generally able to tolerate regularly bouncing from one parent’s home to the other’s, dogs aren’t. According to one animal consultant, dogs like “routine and predictability” and “structure”.

Read more in this Asheville [NC] Citizen Times article: Dog custody becomes an issue when relationships end.

Most of us associate Niagara Falls with honeymoons.

But that’s not what people who live there are thinking about lately.

Domestic violence is on the rise in the county, both in frequency and severity.

In one recent incident, a mother was allegedly both stabbed and shot by her ex-boyfriend – after she obtained an order of protection from him.

The ex-boyfriend also reportedly shot two police officers who came to her aid.

Ironically, the attack occurred next door to a church.

In other recent incidents, a husband shot his wife in the head.

And a teenaged boy shot and killed a teenaged girl and then himself.

Local shelters, stretched to capacity, emphasize the importance of having a safe exit plan and a support system in place before leaving a relationship with domestic violence.

Read more in this Buffalo [NY] WKBW-TV 7 news article: Spike of Domestic Violence in Niagara County.