Child Custody

January 30, 2018

Why Divorcing California Spouses Should Try to Play Nice During Discovery

For those who are unable to resolve the issues in their divorce outside of court, the discovery process is often important in a litigated divorce. Discovery enables spouses to request financial and other information from each other and requires them to turn that information over unless they have a good reason for not doing so. Although in mediated divorces, this information is typically provided upon request without the exorbitant fees and time it typically takes with formal discovery. As a recent case out of California’s Second District Court of Appeals shows, stonewalling during discovery usually isn’t the best idea. It could wind up costing you.

Mother and Father had at least two kids before divorcing in 2011. A court awarded Father primary physical custody of the children and ordered that Wife get one weekend of visitation per month and some holidays. The court also ordered the parents to equally split reasonable and necessary health care costs.

Mother returned to court a year later, seeking child support, a custody modification, and broader visitation rights. Father resisted, arguing that Mother was understating her income in court filings by at least $1,000. As part of the discovery process, he asked Mother to turn over certain bank and employment statements. Father also sent subpoenas to two school districts where Mother had previously worked. Mother later told the trial court that she was refusing to provide the information because the requests were an invasion of privacy. Although Mother later dropped her requests for support and to modify custody, the trial judge ordered her to pay $2,000 in sanctions for refusing to comply with the discovery requests.

October 25, 2016

Grandparent Visitation Rights in California – Stuard v. Stuard

by Lorna Jaynes

Separating and divorcing parents must always address issues regarding the custody and visitation of their minor children. And sometimes this also includes the grandparents. California law also gives grandparents the right to spend time with their grandkids under certain circumstances. As the state’s Third District Court of Appeals recently explained, courts considering a request for grandparent visitation rights focus on the grandchild’s best interests, among other factors.Father and Mother were married when Mother gave birth to Daughter in 2004. Father’s parents moved from Sacramento to a residence three blocks from the family’s home in Roseville a year later, and Grandfather became the child’s primary caregiver. When Father and Mother separated and then divorced four years later, the grandparents watched Daughter as much as 25 days per month.

Husband’s relationship with his parents started to sour, however, after Daughter and he moved in with the grandparents. They said Father’s mood changed when he started taking certain medication. Father and Daughter eventually moved out of the house, supposedly after the grandparents asked him to leave. Father then told his parents that they would never see the child again. Their time with Daughter decreased over the following months, and the grandparents eventually asked a court to award them visitation time.

October 20, 2016

There Are No Winners in Custody Battles – Judge Blasts Couple in $500,000 Custody Battle

by Lorna Jaynes

A Canadian judge recently expressed his frustration with a couple who spent over $500,000 on a bitter child custody battle.

“How did this happen?” asked exasperated Ontario Superior Court Justice Alex Pazaratz. “How does this keep happening? What will it take to convince angry parents that nasty and aggressive litigation never turns out well?”

After a 36-day trial, Judge Pazaratz awarded sole custody of the eight-year-old girl to her father, in part it appears, because he was the more reasonable of the two.

July 6, 2016

Child Related Tax Issues After Divorce

by Lorna Jaynes

Divorce can result in several tax issues, including which parent will claim the child-related tax breaks. Sometimes, but not always, it is the parent that claims the child as a dependent.

Dependency Exemption

For tax purposes, the parent who has custody for the greater part of the year, ie more than 50%, is the parent who can claim that child and is called the custodial parent. The other parent is considered the noncustodial parent.

February 11, 2016

California Child Custody and Visitation – Co-parent to Protect, Not Punish, Children

by Lorna Jaynes

Few, if any, parents would wish to punish their children for something they had nothing to do with, and would bristle at such a suggestion. And yet, so many do just that.

This frequently happens in divorces where a parent has had an affair, has spent an inordinate amount of time at work and less at home, or has ceded most of the parenting responsibilities to the other.

These parents when separating or divorcing believe they are entitled to significantly more parenting time because the other parent has squandered his or her right to that time based on these reasons. Why should he or she have the right to now spend so much time with the children they ask? And the reason is because it’s better for children to have a good and healthy relationship with that parent than not.

November 13, 2015

Conscious Uncoupling

by Lorna Jaynes

Gwyneth Paltrow’s announcement on her website Goop last year that she and husband Chris Martin were divorcing presented the views of Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami, apparently experts on what it means to divorce. Sadeghi and Sami use evolutionary biology and the structure of the human skeleton (“Life is a spiritual exercise in evolving from an exoskeleton for support and survival to an endoskeleton”) in order to explain why a divorce might happen. Good grief. One might think that a simple press release announcing the divorce would suffice, but apparently the star feels the need to use her divorce as an occasion to enlighten us all. Regardless, the impetus and intent behind so called “conscious uncoupling” is a good one.

It is about putting the children first by minimizing conflict and supporting the child’s relationship with the other parent. A thoughtful process can help couples from regressing into immature and harmful behavior. They can be helped to understand why they chose to end the marriage and how the process can be managed without unnecessary harm to any children and without catastrophic financial consequences. Disputes about custody, visitation, and spousal support can be addressed with much less anger if the couple elects to approach the end of their marriage “consciously,” instead of trying to hurt the other person.

The term conscious uncoupling derives from psychologist Katherine Thomas Woodward and the goal is to to negotiate the end of a romantic relationship with goodwill and respect; in a way that enriches rather than wrecks lives. Katherine is a romantic and a realist; a fan of marriage and love who endeavors to explore the possibility that couples seeking her guidance in ending their relationship might actually stay together. But also, she argues that the ideal of lifelong monogamy is antiquated: researching the ‘happy-ever-after myth’, she discovered that it emerged 400 years ago and ‘had a lot to do with the life conditions of the time – many people died before the age of 40’. The Goop article also references the academic journal Evolutionary Anthropology, stating that we are living too long for marriage to one person to be a sensible choice. We are out of evolutionary synch, and shouldn’t feel wretched that we want out, it’s normal.

August 1, 2015

Child Support Woes of the 1%

by Lorna Jaynes

Child Support Woes of the 1%

There aren’t many whose earnings can make those of the Buffets, Kochs, Adelsons, Waltons and the like look paltry. But according to filings in his divorce case, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin may be one of them. Griffin’s ex-wife, Anne Dias, said his monthly gross income “approaches $100 million,” and his net monthly income after taxes “averages over $68.5 million.”

For those of us to whom such numbers do not even compute, that works out to $2.2 million a day, or upward of $90,000 per hour.

July 28, 2015

Why Must I File a Lawsuit to Obtain a Divorce in California

by Lorna Jaynes

Many divorcing couples who wish to resolve the issues in their divorce with their personal and economic dignity intact, preserve or create a positive co-parenting relationship for the benefit of their children, save money and preserve assets, or for a host of other good reasons, choose mediation or Collaborative Divorce rather than litigation and traditional attorneys. Such folks tend to see divorce as a problem to be solved rather than a battle to be won.

But whatever process is used, divorce in California requires that a Petition for Dissolution and Summons be filed by one spouse and served on the other spouse in order to commence the dissolution process and to establish the court’s jurisdiction to terminate the marriage.

The Summons, in particular, can be problematic. The first page states, “You are being sued” and “you have 30 days to respond” and the second page sets forth numerous rules called automatic restraining orders. It is not uncommon for spouses who are trying to work together in a civil and respectful process to be shocked and somewhat hurt when faced with a document telling them they are being sued by their spouse.

April 27, 2015

Alameda County Divorce Court – Why Divorcing Couples Should Stay Out of Court

by Lorna Jaynes

So, sadly I was in court recently for what I hope will be my last litigation matter ever. Both clients and attorneys waited for nearly three hours because we were called last, a process that costs most clients a great deal of money for little to no effort on the part of the attorney except that I was helping my client at no cost. One more example of how divorce litigation costs can spiral out of control.

So we sat for three hours watching the other matters. One couple and their attorneys came before the judge and said they had reached an agreement on child custody and visitation where the eldest boy would live primarily with the Dad and the two younger kids would stay with the mum, but the parents lived in different towns about 2-3 hours apart.

The mom explained cogently and with heartfelt emotion why they felt this was in the best interest of the children and their family. The dad agreed. The judge, however, had other ideas and decided that she, someone who does not know this family from a hole in the ground, would supplant their thoughtful decisions with her own and rejected their agreement.

July 7, 2014

California Court Says Child Entitled to Lawyer in Her Parents’ Custody Spat – In re Marriage of Metzger

by Lorna Jaynes

If you watch a lot of TV crime dramas, you may already be familiar with a criminal defendant’s right to an attorney, and, of course, the person’s right to be told that he or she is entitled to an attorney. In fact, the right to seek legal counsel is important in a wide variety of litigation contexts, including divorce and other related proceedings. In In re Marriage of Metzger, California’s Fourth District Court of Appeals explains that the right to counsel may also extend to a child who is the subject of a custody dispute between parents.Husband and Wife were married in November 2003 and had a daughter, M, one year later. Wife filed a petition to dissolve the marriage in June 2009. Following a number of delays, extensions, and squabbles over depositions, and autism screenings for M, the trial court granted the dissolution and scheduled a separate trial on the issue of child custody in 2012.

Over Husband’s opposition, the lower court later issued an order appointing a lawyer to represent M in the proceedings and obligating Husband to advance $100,000 for the attorney’s retainer, an amount the trial judge said should ultimately be reimbursed from the spouses’ community property. The trial court said the move was justified by Wife’s concerns about whether the child might be autistic. Husband had previously dismissed the concerns as delay tactics, while Wife argued that M showed some signs of developmental delay. The trial judge said M was caught in the middle of the debate and “needs someone to speak for her.”