Think Past Your Emotional Barriers
Imagine that you spend months renovating a home. You install a beautiful new kitchen with brand new appliances, upgrade all of your bathrooms, install flooring, and immaculately decorate. Then you shove a “for sale” sign on your overgrown lawn among your dilapidated fence, dirty windows, and tattered siding.
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You can spend thousands of dollars on an estate plan that fails to account for the fact that some unhappy person — possibly an emotional wreck — is going to have to execute it someday. It is like spending top dollar on a supercar but the driver doesn’t how to drive a manual shift and, worse, no one knows where it is parked. Your estate plan isn’t done until you are confident that your administrator can find and follow it.
Often family members don’t understand the law and think they are entitled to just come in and grab what they want when a family member dies. I don’t do probate law and I don’t know where you live, but I skimmed through a dozen or so answers that didn’t seem very helpful, and there are some general principles that apply.
Most importantly, the estate survives the decedent and owns all of the property that belonged to her. Anything removed from the control of the estate without permission is stolen property. It’s important to get an administrator for the estate as soon as possible after someone dies to secure all of the property so that it can be inventoried.
Assuming that your mother died without a will, someone with standing would have to go into court and initiate probate proceedings to have someone appointed to administer the estate. As the son or daughter, you would probably have standing to do this. You would need a lawyer.
Once someone is appointed administrator, that person would be responsible for securing the estate’s assets. That includes contacting all of the relatives who took things and requesting that they return them, or suing or reporting them to the police if they don’t. The administrator may also be able to sue the landlord for any items that could not be recovered or for the expense the administrator incurred retrieving all of the property that was stolen from the estate.
The administrator has a legal duty to protect the estate assets and insure that they are distributed according to the will or the law. That means the administrator needs to be someone who is tough and fair and will not be squeamish about using any legal means necessary to return the property.
What Can Frog Gigging Teach Us About Marriage and Estate Planning?
I was looking to try some new outdoor activities when I stumbled across frog gigging. Frog gigging, for those who don’t know, involves using a long pole with prongs on the end to spear frogs for food. I have never done it before – I am still waiting for an invitation, but I did watch some videos of it online and thought, Frog gigging is a great analogy for wedding vows.
Getting married is like gigging a frog. Working backward, before gigging the frog you were focusing all of your attention on it. You didn’t notice the leaves rustling, the dogs barking, or the airplane flying overhead. You only perceive the frog that is the focus of your concentration and the drifting of the boat that causes you to automatically adjust your aim. Before that, you had to get the light on the frog. To do that you had to gather your equipment, get on the boat, make sure you had a bag with you. All sorts of things lead up to that final moment.
You don’t consciously ignore all of the distractions around you. You decide to focus your attention on gigging the frog and your brain figures out what information is important to pay attention to
However, our brains have a big, powerful subconscious that we can get working for us. If you focus your concentration on “until death do us part” that will instruct your subconscious to put energy into finding things that will help make that happen and filter out distractions that will get in the way. You do this all of the time:
That’s why we call it, “Setting your mind on something.”
A good, holistic estate plan will help you focus on gigging the frog as well as gathering all of the equipment you need. I had an epiphany one day when talking to Ginger, who was seeking a divorce. All her problems could be traced back to her and her husband not being intentional about their finances. Ginger wanted to retire and her husband had expensive hobbies. They argued over money and the arguments got so vicious that she didn’t want to be married to him anymore — especially since her husband’s spending was putting her retirement at risk.
It occurred to me that most of Ginger’s problems would have never materialized if she had marital property agreements, a financial plan, and an estate plan early in her marriage.
Working backward, a holistic estate plan not only covers how your spouse will be taken care of when you die but also how your estate will be managed while you are alive. Property allocated into separate estates held in trust gives maximum control over how it is distributed on death. Moreover, with the help of financial planners, the family’s trust assets can be managed so that Fred’s expensive boat restoration hobby doesn’t put stress on Ginger’s retirement goals. A major source of discord gets intentionally managed because everyone gets his own pond to gig in.
We don’t do estate plans because you are going to die. We do estate plans because you will always be together.
Is it a good idea to put yourself on child support? Yes, if you don’t want your daughter to become a stripper.
Financial realities.
Before we get to that, there are some financial realities to consider.
It could end up costing way more to avoid support than it would to set it up voluntarily.
Relationship realities.
Next, let’s consider the less obvious impact of a support order on your child.
People have a limited field of view when it comes to support. For paying individuals, one parent is getting money taken out of his check every month and the other is buying new shoes. For the government, it’s all wrapped up in satisfying duties and obligations for the benefit of the child.
However, from a relationship standpoint, child support is more than dollars and cents. If Dad is having child support withheld from his paycheck every month, that’s going to free up Mom’s headspace from begging you for money and free yours from thinking of ways to turn her down. That freed headspace is now going to be available for your brains to use their energy in more profitable ways, including improving your relationship with the other parent and your daughter. Moreover, those financial uncertainties that were trickling down to your daughter are going to be gone, freeing up her headspace for better uses of her mental energy. In addition, she’s not going to feel like she is in the middle so much, which is going to help her self-esteem so that she doesn’t grow up to become a stripper.
Get help.
The important thing is to understand that there are resources out there today that you should be taking advantage of. Professional financial planners and career coaches can help you to make the best use of the resources you have and to advance your career in a way that will make you feel more fulfilled — whether it’s internally within your current company or externally with a new one.
Good luck!
The most vivid image I have of May in my mind is her sitting up in her hospital bed, proudly signing her will. She was smiling, proud, and regal. She was the queen, and all of us participating in her signing ceremony were her subjects.
Years later, after I became an attorney, I redesigned her estate plan based on my experience probating her will and what I knew about her, her family situation, and her values. The most important thing the experience taught me is that you are the king or queen of your estate, and your survivors are your loyal subjects. They will still look to you for guidance after you are gone and deeply want their decisions to please you.
As a good king or queen, you love your subjects and want to make it easy for them to please you. You won’t leave them with forms that you filled out and expect them to perform their duties. You will think about all of the decisions they will have to make and decide ahead of time so they don’t have to. Moreover, you will leave them with stories and share your values so that they can more easily make those decisions that you can’t make for them. Finally, you will anticipate problems they will have executing your will and give them any tools that you can to help your subjects resolve them.
Estate Planning isn’t a democracy. You want to minimize factions, fighting, and decision making by giving as many specific instructions as you can. Get the advice you need from your advisors and then go and be king or queen. It will free your loved ones’ minds to think on better things.
All marriages fail because Husband and Wife live in separate realities. They can do a lot of nasty stupid stuff as a result of that which goes in as evidence, but it all starts from two people in separate realities who don’t understand that. Even cheating comes from someone inventing a reality that justifies it who then blames the innocent person when caught.
Abusive situations and marriages where one or both spouses are sociopaths are a bigger problem. In those cases the couples have realities are too screwed up to ever make it work and the marriages need to fail. However, a lot of times just recognizing that what you are seeing or hearing in your reality is not the same thing that is happening in the other reality can make a big difference. You can learn to communicate without judging if you accept that people’s realities are different.
Contact us if you want a referral to a couple’s therapist who can help you and your spouse deal with your separate realities. 📞 214-272-0312
See also:
You can hack your divorced parents’ brains to alter their behavior. Humans are social creatures and we love to feel needed. That’s why the first thing you should do when you move somewhere is to ask your new neighbor for a favor.
So, start with the nuclear option. Use variations of, “Could you please not fuss about Dad today; I’ve had a hectic week and I just need a little peace right now.” It’s super effective because our brains are hard-wired to assist people who need help–especially kids. Since this is the nuclear option, don’t use it every time or it could lose its effectiveness.
Dad: Your mom is a shoe.
Kid: Yes, she can be hard to deal with sometimes (agreeing). She knows how to cheer me up. (Going positive.) Last week she made me a cake. (No transition words even though it feels awkward. You started out agreeing with him which flips the “agreeable” switch in his brain. Then you suddenly go positive while that switch is on and his brain is stuck in agree mode. If you use a transition word (but, however, although) then you flip the switch back to argue mode. That’s bad. Practice with a friend before trying it on a parent.)
Dad: Rabble rabble rabble.
Kid: What do you like about being a parent? (A question to get his brain to turn on the parenting mode.)
Dad: Blah blah blah.
Kid: Do you know I really love both you and Mom and it’s stressful when you guys try to hurt each other? (Appealing to nobler motives while his brain is in parenting mode.)
Dad: Rabble rabble rabble.
It’s not rocket science. It’s super easy to train your divorced parents to behave, but you have to be very patient and very consistent and trust that it will work. You want to gradually move them over to the light side by nudging them ever so slightly every day. Always stay positive and have high expectations, then go nuclear when it feels like the best option.
Good luck!
First, you should carefully read your orders. In general, you have a First Amendment right to post videos of your children. Absent special circumstances a court can’t order you not to.
The general advice I give is that a parent should give the legally required responses in a friendly way. For example, if your ex sends you an irate long-winded email asking why your son is in the hospital, you would simply respond along the lines of, “Jason sprained his ankle playing football. nothing is broken. The doctors expect him to be able to play again in 4–6 weeks.”
On the other hand, if your ex sends you an email demanding you refrain from posting pictures of your children, then no response should be sent because no response is legally required — assuming nothing in the orders or your local laws suggests it is.
Recommended reading:
See also:
Sometimes people come to me wanting to get a divorce where they think they are already agreed. Couples don’t necessarily know the consequences of their agreements and how they could affect their futures. Here are some issues you should consider when you are seeking an agreed divorce.
If there are children involved, who is going to have primary custody, what is going to be the visitation schedule, who is going to make decisions regarding the children’s physical and mental health, education, and religious upbringing? Have you truly thought through what could lead to disagreements in these areas and how they will be resolved? Once the other parent gets a boyfriend or girlfriend, attitudes in these areas are likely to change.
What is child support going to be? Do you have proof of income to determine the amount based on your state’s guidelines? Is the obligor going to pay guidelines child support? Is the reason the obligor paying under guidelines because it is honestly in the best interest of the child, or is it in the best interest of the obligor?
Have you come into an agreement on all of these issues because you are putting the convenience of an agreement above the best interest of the children? How can you be sure? Have you had a neutral third party evaluate and confirm that your decisions are in the best interest of the children?
Will the parties sell the home or let one keep it? If one party is going to keep it, are both going to stay on the mortgage and title? How are you going to ensure that the party out of possession’s credit and interest in avoiding waste are protected? Have you talked to a divorce lender about an equity buy-out? For example, you should know how to pre-qualify and what language needs to go into the divorce decree to protect everyone’s interests.
Do you have any other assets? Do you have bank accounts, brokerage accounts, bonds, life insurance, or any other financial assets? Are you sure know about all of the financial assets of both spouses? What if you find out later divorce that an asset has not been disclosed?
Do you have any retirement accounts? Have you accounted for the value of your retirement assets? Is there enough other property to divide with enough value to avoid splitting the retirement accounts? If not, do you have language for the decree and QDROs to ensure that the division complies with ERISA and the specific requirements of the plan administrators?
Have you created sworn inventories of all of the property and how much it is worth? Are you in agreement over how much everything is worth? Have divided the property evenly and added up all of the agreed values to determine if it is a fair division. Are you sure all property has been accounted for?
Is there any separate property? Has one party used community funds to improve or maintain separate property? Are there community assets that one party has used separate property funds towards the purchase, improvement or maintenance of? Does it matter?
Does either party have any debts that the other will still be liable for after the divorce is finalized? Have you talked to a credit management expert to make sure your credit is protected during and after your divorce?
What are you going to do about tax liability? Who was responsible for filing tax returns during the marriage? What if they were under or over-paid? Will the IRS be coming after you if your spouse took deductions that are later disqualified?
Have you talked to a financial planner to determine how to reach your financial goals after divorce? Is it better to take a big cash payout, an interest in the retirement account, or spousal maintenance secured with a lien? Do you want to go back to school, save for your children’s college, or retire? Do you know how exactly how you can accomplish any of the things you want?
Agreement doesn’t make the divorce less traumatic, it just reallocates the trauma–either in a way that either one party bears the brunt of it or in a way that is fair. Getting an agreed divorce that works best for you and your goals is extremely difficult unless you have no children and no community property.
You are getting a divorce for some reason. You are going to have competing interests with the person you are divorcing. It can be extremely easy for one side in an agreed divorce if the other side rolls over. That doesn’t reduce the difficulty it only pushes it all onto the loser. A fair divorce is hard, but very doable by agreement.
If you get along well enough to work out an agreed divorce, consider deciding not to get divorced. Sometimes you can’t avoid it because of abuse, infidelity, or other serious issues. However, if it’s a difficult decision, decide not to. Once you make a decision, your subconscious can start working on ways to make things work.
See also:
First, you must decide whether you need a divorce. This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. You think that a divorce will solve some problem that you have. If your spouse is abusive or cheating on you, then divorce is likely to be the better option in dealing with it. But if the problems are financial, emotional, or something else, you may have better ways to solve your problem. Even if you think you have “tried everything,” chances are you haven’t tried anything half as emotionally and financially draining as a divorce.
How are you going to survive for the first seven years after your divorce? You may not have thought that far ahead. Do you have a budget and a plan for how you are going to meet your needs post-divorce? How are you going to pay child support, rent, insurance, and all the other expenses in a divided household? Do you want to try Collaborative Law? Who are you going to hire to be your attorney? How are you going to pay attorney fees? Where will you live while the divorce is pending?
The first legal step in a divorce is to file the Original Petition for Divorce and paying the filing fee. The petition states the grounds for the divorce and the relief that the petitioner is requesting from the court.
After the petition is filed, it along with a citation must be served on the respondent. The citation is a document prepared by the clerk under the seal of the court that has information that the respondent needs to know in order to respond to the divorce suit. The citation and petition must be served on the respondent by a sheriff, constable, or licensed process server. The respondent can sign a waiver of service of the citation to avoid this expense.
The respondent has until the Monday following twenty days of receipt of citation to file an answer. The answer can contain a general denial, denials of specific allegations, and counterclaims. A typical answer contains a general denial and a request for attorney fees.
Counter-petitions are optional. A counter-petition is a petition filed by the respondent of the original petition. Counter-petitions are filed when the respondent has claims to make against the petitioner. They can also be filed to keep the suit alive in case the petitioner dismisses his own case.
Temporary orders are also optional. Parties request them to preserve assets while the divorce is pending, or to make orders regarding the children until the divorce is final. They may include a temporary restraining order or temporary injunction to make sure the parties behave themselves during the divorce process and may include an order to mediate. Temporary orders can be agreed, or a judge can decide on temporary orders after a hearing.
The discovery process is where the parties exchange information necessary to determine what will go into the final order. Discovery can start as soon as the divorce is filed and can be informal or formal. Informal discovery consists of requests between the parties or between their attorneys for information that they think they will need to finalize the divorce. It is usually cheaper than formal discovery. In formal discovery, the parties serve each other requests to produce documents, disclose certain information about the lawsuit, answer interrogatories, answer depositions, and make admissions or denials. Third parties can also be subpoenaed and deposed during the discovery process.
Almost every divorce ends in a final trial. If the divorce is agreed, only the petitioner typically shows up for the trial, gives evidence, and asks the judge to sign the order. Some courts allow the petitioner to file an affidavit with the final order so that no one must go to court and there is no trial. If the parties can’t agree on the terms for the final order, then either the judge or a jury will decide after a contested hearing.
Unfortunately, even after the final trial is held and the judge or jury rules, sometimes parties still can’t agree on language for the final order. When that happens, the parties must appear before the judge at least one more time to have the judge rule on the language and sign the order.
See also:
As a family law attorney, I am in a unique position to give you the correct answer.
Before paying the bill:
After receiving change when you forgot to ask for small bills:
What does this have to do with Family Law?
Much of the reality that we “know” is built on deeply held beliefs, past experiences, and our own emotional quirks both filling in information gaps and hiding information from us. In this case, you have one piece of information that you are aware of – that you only received one large bill as change. You also have another piece of information that your brain hid from you – that you did not ask for smaller bills.
If you have had past bad experiences, such as being tricked out of money or your ex cheating on you, then your brain will filter your reality to match. In other words, your brain creates an information gap by making you ignore the fact that you didn’t ask for smaller bills. Then it fills the gap with made up stories about how the waiter wants to cheat you, is lazy, stupid, or has whatever other imagined flaws that you could not possibly know exist.
For example, if your child falls into the pool while your mom is watching him, it’s a typical childhood accident. If he falls in the pool while your ex’s girlfriend is watching him, “Holy Moses, that witch trying to murder my baby!” That’s not an exaggeration. Our emotions can make us a lot crazier. That doesn’t mean that your ex’s girlfriend isn’t trying to murder your baby. It just means the evidence you have isn’t going to get anyone else excited no matter how hard you try.
The solution is simple. Have your own set of rules that you decide on ahead of time and just live how you think you should without worrying about what is in somebody else’s head. Have a rule that you will always ask for smaller bills when paying your bill, and another that you will always apologize and ask for smaller bills when you forget.
Those rules will work in every situation whether the waiter is a scumbag or a hero, and they save you the trouble of having to pass judgment.
Good luck!
See also, What do I do when I go to pick up my child and my child isn’t there?
First, there is no need to get emotional. Missing a scheduled visitation can be very frustrating, especially given the inconvenience of travelling to the pickup location and waiting. Set aside your need to react emotionally and focus on what you need to do. Use a visitation procedure or checklist ahead of time so you don’t even have to think about anything. Follow your procedure every time whether something goes wrong or not.
Remember, possession schedules can be confusing! She could be mistaken about who is supposed to have the child or you could have misread something that was written in a confusing way. Sometimes an order on one page changes something in the possession schedule five pages away.
Some of my old clients call me with questions about what they are supposed to do and I always try to take those calls because I don’t want them getting into trouble either. Don’t feel bad if you make a mistake, and try to be understanding when the other parent does. That doesn’t mean give up your time, you should still ask for make-up time if you are sure you are right.
You should always keep a visitation diary. It should be a separate calendar, notebook, or planning book that is only used to document visitation. When you arrive at the location designated for the exchange at the designated time, write down the exact time you arrived and how long you waited. See this Sample Visitation Procedure.
Always go to the location for the exchange to pick up your children, even if the other parent tells you that you won’t be getting visitation unless you agreed to reschedule. If your child is not there, take a selfie at the time the exchange is ordered and wait at least twenty minutes. During that time you can attempt to call or text the mother to find out what is going on. You should also re-read your order to make sure it really is your time. Make a note in your diary of what you did to solve the problem. Make sure your photo is backed up to the cloud with the embedded time and location data.
If you do not get your scheduled visitation, try to ascertain why in writing either through text or email messages depending on how you normally communicate. Script your communications ahead of time as much as possible so that you don’t have to think about it and you don’t put emotions into your messages that could get you into trouble. You should also attempt to schedule an extra visitation period to make up for the time that you missed. Again, note in your diary what you did to try and solve the problem.
Whether or not you should attempt legal action against the mother after missing a single visit depends on the specific facts of your case, the evidence you have, the jurisdiction where you live, and your specific judge. Only a local attorney can properly advise you of your options. See Child Custody Enforcement Mistakes.
Good luck!
Why does it matter to you for the judge to see your ex as a narcissist? What do you think the judge will do if he sees your ex as a narcissist? What do you want him to do? How will it impact your children if the judge sees your ex as a narcissist? How will it affect your goals for your children? What are your goals for your children?
The judge is never going to feel the way you do about your ex. This is because there isn’t much of a legal reason to care whether your ex is a narcissist or not. The court wants to make orders that are in the best interest of the children.
Unfortunately, hurt feelings, distrust, and fear of the future create emotional blinders that make us see things and react in ways that are unhelpful to our children and us. That is why we need to repair our mindsets first so that we can see a path to a better future before finalizing a divorce or child custody case.
The problem is, we see what we see and our perceptions are our perceptions. We can’t tell when our emotions are getting in the way of what we need to see. That is why even lawyers hire lawyers to help with their own cases. The fact that you need the judge to see the way you see is a hint that the emotional part of your brain might be interfering with the thinking part.
The right question to ask is, “What parenting plan would give my children the best possible future?” You then want to know, “How can I help the judge decide this is the best parenting plan?” I highly recommend that you find a licensed professional counselor who can help you think past the emotional barriers created by the conflict with your ex. That way you can better identify and articulate a plan to achieve your true goals.
Here are some tricks to hack your brain to get it to help you pass the bar exam. This same technique works on other types of tests too, but this is how I studied for the bar exam several years ago and it worked very well for me. I wish I knew about these studying and test-taking techniques. before starting law school.
Take the real exam the way you learned works the best for you when taking the practice exams.
Good luck!
In Texas both parents have a right to receive information about the health, education, and welfare of their children. They both have the right to be designated on their children’s records as a person to be notified in case of emergency – unless there is some reason for the court to take away those rights. (See, Emergency Guide to a Temporary Custody or Protective Order Hearing.)
New custody orders can be particularly frustrating for parents. Parents don’t necessarily understand all of their rights and duties. It’s probably more often than not that I find that a client is violating one or more aspects of their thirty-plus page order. A letter from your attorney explaining your rights to the other parent’s attorney and the consequences of violating them may be enough to fix the problem. This is also a good opportunity to do an orders audit to see if you are out of compliance yourself.
One helpful way to think of temporary orders is as an opportunity to try out a custody arrangement and fix whatever isn’t working in the final orders. You may want to start a list of issues you are having and just make sure your attorney addresses them in the final orders. It ought to be pretty simple to have the final orders require parents to exchange information about daycare providers.
Here are a few suggestions that might help your case to go more smoothly:
Good luck!
If you want to control someone, it’s an easy process. People from earlier generations knew how to do it instinctively, but most of them were raised to be better than that. Today, I am worried that young people don’t completely understand how to manipulate others to get everything they want. Please allow me to point out ways to succeed in life at the expense of others. As long as you win, it doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else, right?
The first step is to see or hear some slight and blow it completely out of proportion. If you are a man, it might be something along the lines of screaming at the top of your lungs when your girlfriend says something critical about your mother. If you are a woman, you might try having an emotional breakdown when your husband stops to chat with an attractive female coworker. The situation should be serious enough to warrant some reaction, but innocuous enough that you have plenty of room to overreact.
Second, gauge the reaction. You want your target to apologize, attempt to console you, and try to calm you down. If instead, your target blows you off or refuses to play the game, then you need to be patient and wait until he has more time and emotion invested in you. And, be on the lookout for a bigger mistake to which you can overreact even more! It will surely come if you look hard enough. Analyze and use every situation until you break your target down
Third, give a reward. Praise your target for any signs of submission, whether it is an apology or just an acknowledgment of your feelings. If your target is a romantic partner, add a physical reward such as a favorite meal or intimacy. You want to raise serotonin levels to reinforce the behavior.
‘Girl’ marionette
Fourth, isolate your target. Isolation should be both physical and emotional. To physically isolate your target, do things like prevent him from getting a job or forbid her family from visiting. To emotionally separate someone, destroy the character of anyone you don’t want them interacting with. Constantly insult the people you don’t approve of with horrible names. Condition your target to react negatively to everything a disapproved person says and blow up every time your target communicates with the unapproved person. Reward your target for telling you about anyone who says something negative about you or your relationship. Don’t forget to overreact!
Finally, escalate and repeat. If your target is your romantic partner, never use violence more than once. That is enough to plant fear into their mind for life, but more than that can land you in jail. And after all, it is much harder to control people from jail. Make a bigger scene and react more extremely to smaller and smaller things. Embarrass him in public. Start making it harder to get a reward and increase the isolation. A fun thing to try at this stage is “gas-lighting”, where you start accusing your target of manipulating you and other ridiculous things. At some point, your target may move out. This is normal, and temporary if you did a good job with the fear and reward cycle.
Pretty soon, your target’s friends and family will no longer recognize him. No matter how hard they try, they will not be able to talk sense into him. The more logic your target hears, the more bizarre and outlandish excuses he will make for your behavior. Even better, knowing how crazy his reasons sound to everyone else, he will scream at and push away anyone who tries to help. Now you are on the right track. Complete dependence on you!
Don’t worry, this will work on anyone … housewives, engineers, and even doctors and lawyers. Intelligence does not matter. It is all brain chemistry. Try it, and let me know how it goes!
This NY Post article1 is sad, but not for the reasons the NY Post thinks. Fathers matter, and mothers matter. Having a destructive attitude that you alone are raising your children is bad for you, it is bad for the kids, and it is expensive.
I won’t analyze the article in detail, but I will leave a few takeaways here:
I don’t know the specifics of Kripke’s case, so I am speaking in general terms. Non-primary parents are Mothers and Fathers, not visiting relatives. The default is Joint Managing Conservatorship, which means that the children still have two parents. The parent who designates the primary residence often thinks that they are the boss of both households, which is not the case.
The problem is that parents with this wrong attitude often poison their children’s minds against the other parent. In the short term, this leads to expensive litigation, enforcements, parenting coordinators, psychological evaluations, etc. In the long term, it leads to the children having unhealthy relationships of their own.3
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This is not great co-parenting
Unhealthy attitudes are common whether the primary parent is the mother or father. If you think you are the exception and the other parent in your case really is a spare, seek counseling for yourself and your children. Even if you are right, a professional family counselor can provide invaluable expert advice to give your children the best shot at growing up emotionally healthy. Your kids will love you all the more for it.
1 Archive: “I was forced to raise my kids in Texas for 14 years,” NY Post (archived 24 Dec 2017 11:14:29 UTC)
2 See: “How to File an Enforcement by Contempt”
3 See: Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing by Dr. Richard Warshak, William Morrow Paperbacks; Revised ed. edition (July 12, 2011), https://smile.amazon.com/Divorce-Poison-New-Updated-Bad-mouthing-ebook/dp/B00526ZLMY
Before he died, a distant relative sat down with me and humbly told the story of how he gave his wife a black eye. He did this with all the boys in our extended family at a time when we were old enough to understand but young enough to shape our belief system. He wanted us to grow up with a deeply held belief that it is never okay to strike a woman.
Belief systems define who we are and are difficult to change. I could post a hundred scenarios where you think a woman deserved to be hit, but my subconscious completely rejects the input as absurd or rationalizes why it does not matter. Belief systems are powerful, and when shared by a population, they build civilizations up or burn them to the ground.
Recently, I was at a domestic violence conference where a speaker asserted that “domestic violence is a men’s problem.” He went on to say something about not caring if it offended people, that it should offend people, and his belief was backed by statistics saying women are overwhelmingly the victims. In other words, that is his belief system, and he will rationalize why any contrary information does not matter. So, let me give you that contrary information, and then tell you why it does not matter
First, let me tell you a little bit about my experience with domestic violence. Not only have I seen it in my professional practice, but I’ve witnessed it with family and friends.
Arnold and Ann have a child together. Both parents have drinking problems. When Ann gets drunk and upset, she throws things at Arnold. One day, Ann became especially angry and started throwing items at Arnold and punching his head and body while he was holding their baby. Arnold kicked Ann out, and she called the police and had Arnold arrested. Ann, it turns out, has done this with at least two other boyfriends. The truth was only revealed later when she attacked the wrong person.
Previously, Ben was arrested for beating his wife, Betty. The attack was so severe that she required hospitalization. But he used the kids as leverage to get his wife to come back, and she never prosecuted him. One day when they were both drunk, they had an argument, and Betty locked Ben out of the bedroom and passed out. Ben decided to retaliate for his prior arrest by filing a false report that Betty pointed a gun at him. Police records showed multiple inconsistent statements on Ben’s part, including bizarre claims that Betty’s prior injuries were due to her own clumsiness. And yet, because Betty doesn’t remember anything, she is labeled a perpetrator and indicted for family violence assault with a deadly weapon. “She pointed a gun at me” almost always wins over “I don’t remember what happened.”
How do you tell who is the victim and who is the abuser? The victim is probably the one you don’t like. Think about it. Is it the popular kid being beaten up at school, or is it the popular one doing the beating? Abusers are masters at manipulating other people’s belief systems – not just their victims’. It is downright creepy hearing the support an abuser receives from family, friends, and fellow church members against the victim. I wish I could repeat some of the things they say.
These examples may not matter to you because they are anecdotal evidence, which refers to evidence derived from individual stories and experiences. It is often dismissed as immaterial because it is considered less reliable than large scientific studies. This, however, is another belief system that you should challenge.
While statistical evidence is more reliable, it is only as reliable as what it measures. For example, if I go to the courthouse and count the number of men and women in suits, I should get a good indication of how many lawyers are there. Why do it that way? Because it is more efficient than asking everyone to show a bar card. It’s important to remember, though, I am not measuring lawyers, I am counting people in suits and assuming that is a good proxy. My assumption sounds reasonable, but it could be way off. Domestic abusers do not carry around domestic abuser cards. We can only count arrests, admissions, complaints, or some other proxy. Nobody can go back in time to see what really happened.
In my anecdotal experience, the number of male and female victims are about even, and the number of wrongful arrests and incorrect findings of domestic violence is frustratingly high. In the two examples above, a study counting arrests would find three female victims and one male victim. Case 1 revealed one female victim when it was actually one male victim. Case 2 showed one male victim when in reality the female was a victim twice. So, the study is flawed.
Maybe my anecdotal data is completely unreliable, and I am an outlier in the statistics. Or, it could be that studies matching my experiences better reflect reality. Your belief system may prevent you from considering this latter possibility and questioning the validity of your assumptions. See, for example, this story: “Women more likely to be perpetrators of abuse as well as victims“. University of Florida News (last visited October 30, 2017).
At this point, it may help to talk about why victims return to their abusers. As I said before, abusers are masters at manipulating people’s belief systems. An idea that they instill in women is that if they leave, they will lose their children forever. For men, the notion is that if they leave, they will be arrested, ruining their lives and reputations. Thanks to the belief system that domestic violence is a men’s problem, this is sadly a very real risk.
How do men become victims in the first place? Like me, many men are instilled with the belief system that it is never okay to strike a woman. They live in fear that if they lift a finger in their own defense, they will be prosecuted. Women have fingernails, hands, feet, and whatever weapons are handy that are capable of inflicting damage and pain. Imagine you are that guy in school who was beaten up all the time. Now, you are being hit by your wife, and your self-esteem is entirely wrecked. If you call the police, you risk being arrested. If you leave, you also risk being arrested. In either case, do you really have any options?
So, how can we determine whether domestic violence is a men’s problem? In my opinion, that’s the wrong question. The question should be, “What use is a belief system that says domestic violence is a men’s problem?” All around us, there are victim monsters in pretty floral dresses with bright eyes smiling at you, and victim monsters wearing dashing suits giving you friendly handshakes and pats on the back. Does it matter if 4 or 40 percent of victims are men? The children in their homes see horrible treatment and abuse of their mothers or fathers. What belief systems are being wired permanently into their little brains? Let’s focus on that.
If you are not willing to have your belief system challenged and instead want to silence or shut out contradicting information, then you are part of the problem. You may see yourself dedicating your life to standing up for what you believe in, but you aren’t. The more important the problem is, the more ideas and perspectives are necessary to solve it. And yet, today we do the opposite
Aren’t some things worth a broken ego? How about we don’t shut out ideas we don’t want to hear? Why not put the problem of domestic violence above our belief systems and listen? Are ideas that challenge our deeply held beliefs scarier than the monsters they might be creating?
If you must represent yourself at a temporary hearing, use this guide as a starting point – not as an exhaustive guide. The proof required to get what you want in a Temporary Hearing depends on the nature of the pending suit, the local rules of the court (see links at bottom), and the judge. This guide may not be helpful for your case.
Study the local rules for the court where the hearing will be. Watch a hearing or two before yours to see how the judge conducts business. Read the TEXAS RULES OF EVIDENCE before observing one. See also Child Custody Laws in Texas.
You need a basic theme for what you are trying to prove. It is a very short paragraph, perhaps only a sentence, that explains what you want to accomplish and why. All of your evidence and arguments should relate to this theme.
For example:
My husband has been violent toward me, and he has a drug problem. I see how it affects the children, so I need to get away from him. He needs to get help, and I need protection so that he is not violent with me again. I also need fees for my own attorney.
This may not be everything you need to prove in your case, but rather key things to think about.
Protective order: Violence has occurred. Violence is likely to occur in the future.
Custody: Best interest of the children.
Supervised Visitation: He is a danger to the kids’ physical or emotional health. Best interest of the children.
Attorney Fees example: He has complete control of the community funds. He hired an attorney using these funds. It’s not fair for him to have an attorney paid for and not me.
All of your evidence needs to support your theme or specific proof. Remove anything not relevant to those. You can add a little character evidence like “He is violent.”
Objections are counted against your time so be careful about how much you use them.
1. Objection, non-responsive
2. Objection, hearsay
3. Objection, settlement offer
4. Objection, relevance
Non-responsive means “shut up” if the witness is talking too much or “answer me” if the witness refuses to answer or evades. Non-responsive is usually a time-saving objection.
Hearsay is an out-of-court statement made to prove what the statement asserts. Object to any “He said/she said” statements. Object to any offer of documents into evidence as hearsay unless you want them in evidence. Avoid objecting to Business records that opposing counsel has proved up. See, “How to admit business and medical records with a witness” below. If opposing counsel offers many documents into evidence and you are overruled often, then you may want to stop objecting. Follow the judge’s lead by looking at the facial expression and tone of voice. Be respectful.
You will get overruled a lot because temporary hearings have a lower standard for admittance. I rarely object to anything, but an attorney is more likely to offer inadmissible evidence with an unrepresented party. Documents are a major source of evidence attorneys will try to sneak past you and the most common objection to documents is hearsay.
1. Statement of a party. You can testify about anything you heard the other party say.
2. Offer to explain the reasoning not the truth of the statement. Often what someone says is a lie, or it does not matter whether it was true because you only care about the effect on the person who heard it.
3. Excited utterance. Someone said something in an exclamation soon after it happened.
Judges usually allow hearsay statements with the explanation that it’s not used for the truth but to explain the reasoning or reaction. Use this only for important things that really do explain your reasoning or reaction. For example, if CPS said, “Keep him away from the kids,” that is hearsay, but it can be used to explain your reasoning. “I’m not keeping the kids away to be mean. I’m keeping them away because CPS told me to.” It doesn’t matter if CPS was wrong.
If you are in negotiations to reach an agreement before trial, don’t let them talk about anything you said or offered. For example, “Didn’t you tell me yesterday that the baby does better with Mom?” If that was said while trying to reach an agreement, then object with settlement offer.
If the other side objects to relevance, say that along with other evidence it shows the parts of the theme. For example, “This, along with other evidence I will present, will show why I should get fees for my own attorney.” Relevance objections get overruled a lot.
Attorneys have answers to objections ready for things they know are going to be objected to. For example, you know there will be a hearsay objection if you talk about what CPS told you. Be ready to say that the statement is offered to explain your reasoning, not for the truth of the matter. If the judge overrules you before you can answer, say, “Your honor, may I respond?”
If all else fails and you have no idea what the response to an objection should be, just state what you are trying to prove. For example, “Objection: Hearsay.” “Your honor, I’m just trying to show I was not trying to be unreasonable.”
Always have three copies of everything you want to introduce. Label them before the hearing “Mom-1,” “Mom-2,” etc. The order doesn’t matter. The exhibits must be labeled, and each copy of the same exhibit should have the same label. For example, phone records labeled: “Mom-1,” “Mom-1,” and “Mom-1,” Medical records labeled: “Mom-2,” “Mom-2,” and “Mom-2.”
Generally, the judge won’t ask questions, but there are things you must say before exhibits are admitted into evidence.
1. Where they came from: I printed these marked as Exhibit Mom-1 directly from my phone.
2. How they are identified: The telephone number at the top of the page is my Ex’s phone number.
3. How they are authentic: I can tell he wrote the message because it references a school play we talked about, and I recognize how he writes.
4. Offer Exhibit Mom-1 into evidence.
5. If the evidence is admitted, ask permission to hand a copy to the judge.
Possible objection: Insufficient foundation. These messages could have been written by anyone!
Response: I’ve met the threshold for admissibility. They can offer evidence against the messages when it’s their turn.
1. Where it came from: I took this picture marked as Exhibit Mom-2.
2. What it is: It is a picture of my face.
3. Accuracy: It fairly and accurately represents the scene at the time it was taken.
4. Note any discrepancies: The actual bruise was slightly redder.
5. Offer Exhibit Mom-2 into evidence.
6. If the evidence is admitted, ask permission to hand a copy to the judge.
Possible objection: Some attorneys object to any description of the photo before it is admitted.
Response: If sustained, just move on to the next step.
1. What is your full name?
2. Whom do you work for?
3. Did you bring the records with you? Optional: Ask how many pages.
4. Are these records marked as exhibit Mom-3 the records you brought? Ask the judge’s permission to approach the witness.
4. Are you familiar with how these records are made and maintained?
5. Were the records made at or near the time of the event they record?
6. Are the records kept in the regular course of activity?
7. Offer Exhibit Mom-3.
8. If the evidence is admitted, ask permission to hand a copy to the judge.
Possible objection: Hearsay within the document.
Response: Ask the judge to ignore the hearsay or deal with it like any other objection. Be prepared to mark out excluded text with a Sharpie if necessary.
1. What is your full name?
2. Whom do you work for?
3. Where do you live?
4. Are you familiar with [person, place, or thing]?
5. How do you know (about) [person, place, or thing]?
6. Specific questions about the person, place, or thing that go along with your theme.
In cross-examination, you want to ask a witness things you think they will admit to. Or, you want them to give information that you need. Be aware that they may lie, so make sure the information won’t hurt too badly.
It’s best not to ask questions in cross examination unless you
• Know the answer,
• Don’t care what the answer is, or
• Have proof of the answer and can demonstrate dishonesty.
Admissions: The witness may lie, but you can probably prove it. The reason for asking these types of questions is because you cannot testify to them yourself. You testifying, “My wife was fired” could be objected to as hearsay. Asking your wife, “You were fired, weren’t you?” could not.
Examples:
Don’t care: It doesn’t matter how the witness answers these questions. You’re making a point.
Examples:
Information: The witness may lie, but you’re just trying to get as much information as you can. Be careful. Hostile witnesses can drag out answers and waste your time.
Subpoena any witnesses you want to testify. Be aware of time limits and make sure the witnesses you call have something to say that goes along with your theme. Ask witnesses to bring three copies of employee records, CPS, medical, or other records as appropriate.
It is always best to have an attorney present. But when that is not possible, use these tips and strategies as a first step in preparing for your day in court. Do additional research, study the Texas Rules of Evidence, visit the judge’s court room, and have your evidence and witnesses in order.
Call an attorney for assistance or see TexasLawHelp.org for self-help materials and help in locating free legal services.
Links to local rules for Collin, Dallas, Denton, McLennan, and Tarrant Counties.
Today I will talk about Google’s brand of diversity and how it can harm you. In a previous post, I discussed how politicization of colleges can affect your rights. In this post, I will discuss how politicization of your access to information can affect your rights in as neutral of a way as I can.
In case you are unaware, Google recently fired an engineer for writing a paper. The paper questioned whether more freedom to speak freely and exchange ideas could help Google achieve diversity goals. The theme of the paper does not seem to be controversial and it was quite well researched. The engineer claims he offered it to begin a discussion. You can read the paper for yourself and come to your own conclusions about it.
Google showed much hostility toward information on topics that some people find uncomfortable. It is important to consider what will happen when this hostility seeps into search results. We already know Google has initiatives on YouTube to flag what it deems objectionable content. Many users are having their content blocked or demonetized for what the users claim are political reasons.
If I only watch videos of cats, how does this affect my rights? Let’s start with the example of a Suit to Adjudicate Paternity which is a fairly common type of lawsuit in Texas. Generally, the best way to answer this type of suit is with a General Denial (maybe not in your case, but generally). You should get a paternity test even if you are sure the child is yours. Before that you have no guarantees unless you had a camera on the egg to witness the conception. You don’t want to pay twenty percent of your income for someone elses child for eighteen years. Moreover, the child’s real father could return to the child’s life leaving you left out of everything except the child support obligation. These things happen. A general denial is your ticket to a paternity test.
However, the decision to get a paternity test is often controversial to people who do not know the law or who have a political agenda. Some may even find it “triggering”. The type of advice above gets flagged as inappropriate. In fact, I picked this particular scenario because I have seen the correct advice deleted from a social media website after people complained.
Internet safety filters in schools and libraries block information flagged as inappropriate. What happens when someone who cannot afford an attorney goes to a public library to do research? Or how about when a child or teacher tries to help a parent from a school library with even stricter filters? The filter hides critical information for the party’s own “safety.” That doesn’t sound safe at all.
If you think this gives you an advantage because you are a woman, you are sadly mistaken. That flagged content – not only did it tell the man how to fight a paternity claim, it also included limitations that would torpedo his case. Paternity generally cannot be questioned after four years for example. Sorry, that important nugget is in the same content hidden behind the filter.
It’s even worse than that though. What happens when a valuable authority makes one controversial post and gets banned or blacklisted? Suddenly, access to a treasure-trove of useful knowledge is lost to everyone who might benefit from it. Rights you do not know about are often rights waived. As a result, whichever party can afford an attorney has an even greater advantage over a pro se (unrepresented party) who relies on a censored internet.
Censorship hurts almost everybody equally. Men, women, black, white, citizens, and immigrants all need access to all the information to defend their rights. The divide is between the rich and poor. The poor have to rely on access to information on the internet while the rich hire attorneys. The people making these decisions can afford to hire their own attorneys.
I’m not saying that search engines have gone this far yet, but they appear to be on their way. I find it terrifying and so should you.
In this post I will explain why a Houston man really went to jail for failing to obey possession and child support orders and what it means to you.
News stories are often a source of misinformation. Misinformation from news sources can feed our perceptions of unfairness. Our perceptions of unfairness can get us into trouble. It is not that journalists want to deceive you, but sometimes we all hear the story we want to hear and get stuck in a cycle of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to disregard evidence that contradicts truths we firmly believe or want to believe.
Watch the video below from Fox News Houston. It purports to tell the tale of a father sent to jail for the crimes of paying too much child support and visiting his son too much.
It is an error for you to be jailed for overpaying child support. Fox News Houston left out that the father owed $2,743.09 in back child support arrears when the mother filed her enforcement. While the case was reset at least once and the father did make his child support current, that was not enough to correct the contempt.
As of June 14, 2013 you can no longer avoid jail simply by showing your child support is up to date at the enforcement hearing.1 The original hearing was set for June 10, 2013, before the repeal went into effect; however, it was reset by agreement to give the father time to pay. Unfortunately, the father had erroneously believed he was up to date before the June 10 hearing and needed time to make one more payment. By the time of the new hearing, the repealed law could no longer help him escape jail.
The father also tried to argue that the missing child support was the fault of his employer. He claimed that an employee incorrectly entered the withholding amounts from his paycheck. The problem with that argument is that you, not your employer, are responsible for ensuring child support is paid correctly. Your order probably even says this. You do not get to enjoy the benefits of your employer’s mistakes at the expense of your children.
In fairness to Fox News Houston, Snopes also got this story wrong. The Houston Court of Appeals did overturn one violation where the trial court found the father guilty of paying too much child support.2 Unfortunately for the father, the appeals court was able to overturn only this part of the order and leave the remaining violations and the father’s sentence intact.
Visiting your child too much is probably a violation of your order. It is another way of saying you have your child when the other parent has the right of possession. A court ordered parenting plan is written to give children fair access to both parents. Either parent deciding that he should have more time with the children without the other’s permission is deciding that the Court was wrong. Judge’s don’t like that. They also don’t like it if you disrespect the Court by disobeying the Court’s order. If one parent can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the other is visiting his children against orders without permission, a Judge can and often will put him in jail.
In my previous post, “When Cultures Clash”, I explain a little bit about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in the context of mixed-culture divorce and remarriage. Briefly, our cultures largely define our belief systems. When someone acts outside of our belief system we often see that as bad. Once we define a person as bad, we start to discount everything positive we hear about them and emphasize the negative. Because of this confirmation bias feedback loop, the bad person keeps looking worse and worse in our minds until he becomes the worst thing since Prince Humperdinck.
There is already a perception that fathers do not get a fair shake in courts overall. The thing to remember is that no matter how true this might be, it says absolutely nothing about your individual case. At least in Texas, the law is that mothers and fathers are treated equally. There is a standard parenting plan. There are guidelines for child support. There is a presumption against spousal support. Texas’ public policy is to maximize the time children spend with both parents, and judges generally follow the law.
If you go to court believing stories like this, and believing you are not going to get a fair hearing, you won’t–at least not in your mind. You will already be emotional because of whatever brought you into court. Because of confirmation bias, every ruling against you is going to feel unfair. The Judge will see your attitude and probably won’t like it. The judge’s attitude might show through, further feeding into your confirmation bias. A bad attitude feedback loop can adversely affect how the Court rules for you, but it probably won’t! Once you ratchet up that attitude, though, it is going to be harder to follow the final orders.
Always go into Court in professional attire with a professional attitude. Maintain that professional attitude no matter what. Pre-trial, you are auditioning for the trial court. In trial, you are auditioning for the appeals court. Expect the Judge to be fair. A judge can be fair but wrong. Sometimes the judge is wrong because of a mistake that can be appealed, but most of the time it is because your evidence did not support the “correct” ruling. However, because of cognitive dissonance, the losing parent often rationalizes the judge’s decision by believing he is corrupt or has a bias against one sex. This is usually counter-productive.
If you are ordered to appear for an enforcement, get an attorney. The judge should give you the option to reset so you can find one at the first hearing but don’t count on it. Get an attorney even if you think you can work out an agreement with the other side. Once you are in front of a judge and facing large fines and a jail sentence, the other side has a huge amount of leverage to get a very unfavorable settlement from you.
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Divorce Poison by Dr. Richard A. Warshak |
BIFF by Bill Eddy, Annette Burns, et al. |
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki |
1See Act of May 23,2007, 80th Leg., R.S., ch. 1189, § 1, 2007 Tex. Gen. Laws 4054, 4054, repealed by Act of May 22, 2013, 83d Leg., R.S., ch. 649, § 2, 2013 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. 1735, 1735 (West) (effective date June 14, 2013)
2In re Hall, 433 S.W.3d 203, 208, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 5704, *8, 2014 WL 2420972
When a parent remarries, the new spouse is often the source of alienation between the children and one of the parents. This is especially true when there is a clash of cultures. Mixing cultures can be a recipe for disaster between divorced parents and their children. Watch this one hour video by Stefan Molyneux for an example of the problems it can cause.
The first thing we need to cover is “cognitive dissonance”. Cognitive dissonance happens when new information clashes with our own realities. If you see a flying pig your mind will rationalize that it must have been shot out of a cannon or launched from a trebuchet. Your mind has to come up with something to rationalize the absurdity of the situation because in your reality pigs cannot fly.
Everyone wants to marry a soul mate. We want, and hopefully think we have found the most wonderful perfect person to share our lives with. In our reality, this new wonderful person could not possibly be the cause of a child hating us or hating the other parent. In order to deal with this absurdity, our minds will rationalize that either the other parent is causing the alienation or the child is the problem. In the video you can hear at about the 60 minute mark where the father says he respects and admires Stefan Molyneux. He deals with the absurdity of disregarding the opinion of someone he highly respects by hallucinating that the reality is more nuanced than even Mr. Molyneux can understand.
Unfortunately, you cannot know when you are experiencing cognitive dissonance. Everyone else seems just as wrong either way.
Mixing cultures is also a recipe for cognitive dissonance. Culture and values are intimately tied up with who we are. By the time you marry someone, you’ve negotiated those differences. You look past them to see the person you love and rationalize and adjust to the differences. This is all well and good, but your ex spouse and children are not going through the same process in the same way. It’s like you’ve gone to the personality tailor and swapped out a chunk of who you are. To you, you are the same person, but to those closest to you, you are not. Moreover, anything your ex or your children do not like, they are going to blame on the new spouse. And because some of those changes involve new culture and values, you can bet there are going to be some things they do not like.
If you divorce from a conservative culture and marry into one that is more permissive, your ex may see you as becoming immoral and teaching the children bad values. If you go the other way, your ex will see you as becoming oppressive and authoritarian.
In either case, the children are likely to be caught up in the middle of the culture war and be forced to choose sides. Both parents are going to want to teach their values to their children. When they were married, the parents had already worked through those issues, so in divorce they likely co-parented well to start with. When the culture of one household changes, it throws everything out of balance.
Alienating a parent is never good for the child. Because of cognitive dissonance, people never think that they or their new spouses are part of the problem. It’s always going to be entirely the other parent’s fault. And remember, nobody knows when they are in cognitive dissonance. Everyone else is just being crazy and acting absurdly.
In some cases, the goal of the new spouse is alienation. Because of the cultural differences, the step-parent simply sees the other parent though the cultural lens he was born into and wants the other parent gone for the good of the children. In other cases alienation is the goal of the ex-spouse for the same reasons. Either or both of these could be the reality, or it could be completely accidental. Regardless, everyone will believe it is the other parent’s fault. Worse, everyone will have all the evidence they need to prove it is the other person’s fault because of confirmation bias (the nearly inescapable tendency to only look at evidence that supports one’s beliefs and disregard or minimize other evidence.)
The best thing you can do is focus on the children and not the fault. Understand that no matter what you think of the other parent or how much you want to think otherwise, alienation is bad for the child. If you think alienating the other parent in your special case is the right thing to do, you are experiencing cognitive dissonance.
If the relationship between either parent and the children deteriorates after a re-marriage, start family counseling before you start blaming. Don’t put your children’s emotional health at risk, even if it is not your fault.
Unfortunatly, there is a lot of bad information floating around about the new Texas sanctuary city law. It is unfortunate because when politicians and advocacy groups dispense misinformation about immigration law to scare people, they actually empower abusers who commit family and sexual violence. That is because abusers can control their victims by giving them false information about what will happen to them if they report.
This post tries to dispell some of the worst of the fake news.
No. The new law does not grant police officers any new powers to ask for identification. The law prohibits officers from asking victims or witnesses of crimes about their immigration status with a few exceptions.
If any other law or local policy prohibits officers from talking to you about your immigration status, that will not change. In other words, the law adds prohibitions, it does not take any away or grant police officers any new rights.
Yes. The new law requires government officers to comply with Immigratios and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This includes prohibiting agencies from enacting policies designed to thwart ICE officers from performing their duties. For example, an agency cannot have a policy to deny entry of immigration officers into jails. The new law also requires government officers to honor detainer requests unless the person detained has proof of citizenship – such as a Texas driver’s license.
Yes. The new law specifically authorizes agencies to have written community outreach policies. These policies can, among other things, inform immigrants that a police officer is not allowed to ask them about their immigration status when they are victims or witnesses of crimes. Specifically, the statute requires community outreach policies to include outreach to domestic violence and sexual violence victims. This is important because victims of domestic and sexual violence are often misled by perpetrators into believing they will be deported if they report their abusers.
You should contact an immigration attorney to determine whether you are eligible to change your status. Otherwise, just don’t break the law. The current government’s main priority for immigration enforcement is still against those who have committed crimes.
First, get a certified copy of the order granting you possession or access. Read it carefully. Make sure that you are in compliance. Is your child support up to date? Have you notified the court, the child support disbursement unit, and the other parent of any changes to your address, employer, etc.? If you are behind on child support, you can still inforce possession and access, but be prepared for the other parent to file an enforcement against you. An enforcement for child support is a lot easier to prove since the state keeps track of payments.
Next, review the evidence. Do you have the evidence you need to prove you were denied access beyond a reasonable doubt? How do you intend to prove that you were at the pickup location at the appointed time? Do you have receipts? Pictures? Make sure you have what you need before you file. If not, gather more evidence. See Custody Enforcement Mistakes
You may need to do a little research to determine the correct county in which to file. If you file in the wrong county, there may be additional costs to transfer your case.
Read the local rules in the court where the order is filed or registered. You can usually find them by searching “[County Name] Local Rules” on the web. It is always good to familiarize yourself with the local rules, and there may be some information you want to know before you file.
There are form motions at TexasLawHelp.org that you can use as an example. Search for the “Visitation Enforcement Kit”. I am not endorsing this kit except as a place to get started. There are some things I do not like about motion included with this kit. For one thing, you need to have excerpts of the portions of the order that were violated before the list of violations. For possession an access, this is usually in separate parts: the part that states when visitation is to occur and the part that states where the other parent is to surrender the child. There may also be other portions that need to be quoted.
In general, the motion should state the relevant portions of the order violated. It should state who violated the order for each violation. It should also state when, where, and how the order was violated for each violation. It also needs to state the relief you are requesting and ask for clarification of the order if it is not specific enough to enforce. The order you want to enforce should be attached as an exhibit.
You will need to file the motion in accordance with the local rules, but the basic requirements are the same. You need to file the motion and order to appear and request citation. You need to ask for a hearing date at least thirty days away. The respondent has until the 10:00 AM on the first Monday following 20 days to answer. If you want to do discovery, there will need to be extra time for that.
Once that is done you need to serve the citation, motion, and order to appear. Usually this is by constable service, but check with your local courthouse. In order to enforce by contempt, the respondent has to be personally served.
Now you can move on to figuring out how to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt in court.
Good Luck!
I recently saw a sign from the “March for Science” saying, “Science doesn’t lie.” Is that true? Is it even scientific? It is an important question because every day attorneys ask jurors to evaluate scientific evidence in cases from DWIs to rape and murder.
Under the rules of evidence, an expert may testify about scientific evidence “if the expert’s scientific…knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.”1 The testimony must be “based on sufficient facts or data;…the product of reliable principles and methods;” and the expert must have applied the methods and principles reliably.2
Generally, to be admissible, scientific testimony must pass the Daubert/Robinson test. In Daubert the Supreme Court provided guidance for judges and juries to evaluate the reliability of scientific evidence.3 The Daubert case involved a drug that parents believed caused their childrens birth defects. The court upheld the dismissal because there were no peer reviewed studies to support the claim. In Robinson the Texas Supreme Court outlined some factors that could be used to evaluate scientific evidence, including:
But what happens when the scientific community is dominated with monolithic political views? What good does it do to subject your theory to peer review when all of your peers agree with you? In 2015, Behavioral and Brain Sciences published a paper arguing that academic psychology has lost nearly all of its political diversity in the last fifty years, “most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination.”5
The paper argues that bias resulting from the lack of diversity (studies suggest only 5%-8% of social science professors in the United States identify as conservatives) reduces the quality and can “undermine the validity of social psychological science.”6 Researchers can imbed their values into their theories and methods, negative attitudes can cause researchers to mischaracterize conservative values, and confirmation bias can cause them to look only at evidence that supports their assumptions. The paper cites examples of this. For instance, if you disagree that “we will soon experience a major environmental catastrophe,”then you are charactarized as in “denial of environmental realities.”7 Or, if you agree that hard work gets results, then you are engaging in “rationalization of inequality.”8
This has profound implications in law under Daubert. Take for example a child custody evaluation. Child custody evaluations are a wonderful tool and I use them. But let’s see an example of how the political environment in higher education can have implications that people don’t think about.
A psychologist evaluates a child and parents and may come up with a numerical score to make a recommendation on who should be making moral, religious, and educational decisions concerning the child. It all sounds so objective and scientific if numbers don’t lie and science doesn’t lie. Take a moment to consider how insidious this could be.
The psychologist may have no bias whatsoever. The psychologist is most likely trying to be as fair and objective as possible. The bias is imbedded in the number. The number came from a methodology which is based on research embedded with values that half the country does not share. The methodology is accepted because everyone has the same biases. Because of this, the bias is built into the rules of evidence under United States and Texas Supreme Court decisions. This probably has not happened yet, but the bias on college campuses has only been getting worse over the years. How will things look 20 years from now? 30 years?
Criminal law has more profound implications. Mental health professionals are increasingly used in criminal cases. Imagine you are the Defendant in a self-defense case. The alleged victim had a gun and you claim you were being robbed. The prosecution says no, Defendant shot the alleged victim because Defendant is a racist. He puts on an expert who testifies that you have “white supremacist” tendencies. The expert’s conclusion is based on, among other things, the fact that the Defendant thinks taxes should be lower and likes to wear red hats — two things a hypothetical future study says are associated with White Supremacists. Would you want the guy holding the “Science doesn’t lie” sign to be on the jury?
Confirmation bias affects everyone. “People tend to search for evidence that will confirm their existing beliefs while also ignoring or downplaying disconfirming evidence.”9 There are two recent cases where political confirmation bias may have influenced prosecutors. This is different than a political prosecution. When a prosecutor prosecutes someone because of his political beliefs or other invidious political reasons, then the prosecutor is engaging in political prosecution. On the other hand, when an investigator reaches a conclusion prematurely due to politics so that all of the subsequent evidence the investigator sees confirms it, then it is political confirmation bias. In other words it is unintentional.
The first case is the infamous Freddie Gray case. I won’t get into whether the officers were guilty or not guilty of anything, but there was a lot of conflicting evidence. Witnesses testified about the officers breaking bones that weren’t broken. His neck on video appeared to be broken prior to transport. The medical investigation found that Gray had sustained the injuries when he was standing in the van due to an abrupt change in direction. The prosecutor said the knife he was carrying was legal. The knife was in fact illegal under city code. The officers’ acquittals and subsequent lawsuits seem to indicate that the officers were over-charged because the prosecutor focused on evidence confirming her beliefs and ignored or minimized other evidence. The over-charging was likely due to political confirmation bias in the wake of violent protests. It may be that the officers would have been found guilty of something if they had been charged based on the evidence viewed objectively.
The second case is the case against infamous police officer, Daniel Holtzclaw. Crime Watch Daily is doing a three part series on this case and you are welcome to reach your own conclusions. For purposes of this post, I am going to assume he is not guilty. As presented by the Hortzclaw family and CRTV, Officer Holtzclaw was accused of sexual assault by a woman he stopped. Detectives in this case immediately assumed that he was guilty. During the investigation, detectives went out in search of women who would say they were victims and found some. Among the conflicting statements the alleged victims made to investigators was that the white six foot one inch former linebacker was a short black man. Detectives minimized and even failed to look for evidence favorable to Hortzclaw, including tests to exclude innocent DNA transfer. Hortzclaw was tried for 32 counts of related offenses of which he was found guilty of 18.
Unfortunately for Holtzclaw the lab found DNA on his pants. That sentence sounds pretty damning. DNA is science; there was science on his pants! Immediately your brain relaxes because it doesn’t have to make a decision. Someone else already showed he is guilty with DNA. We love DNA! The problem is, DNA is probably the biggest liar in criminal law10. It convicts where it shouldn’t and exonerates people who are guilty of horrible crimes. The truth is, if you leave the house for a normal day, there is no way you are going to make it home without getting someone’s DNA on your pants. That could be you behind bars because you shook the wrong sweaty hand one day.
These are two cases where confirmation bias likely lead to criminal charges. In the first, science may have lead to unjust acquittals. In the second, science may have lead to an unjust conviction.
“Science doesn’t lie” is a declaration that betrays the political irrationality of the declarant. What subject lies? History? Architecture? Badminton? As citizens, we need to be informed not compliant. What “Science doesn’t lie” means is that criticism of my beliefs is not allowed. That is not science. It corrupts science.
The implications are that attacks on free speech, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial cut deeply into our constitutional protections. There are consequences to firing a professor who asks a political incorrect question, and there are consequences to rioting to prevent students from hearing criticism of your ideas. These things prevent scientific discovery and advancement and lead to bad science. Bad science leads to bad evidence. Bad evidence leads to injustice.
Moreover, reverence for science is misplaced. When we are growing up our parents have all the answers. Once we are on our own it is tempting to believe that science has all the answers, so we treat it practically like a religion. We even say, “I believe in science.” But science isn’t something to believe in. It is a tool-one of many we need to build a just society11.
1 Fed. R. Evid. 702.
2 Id.
3 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993)
4 E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Robinson, 923 S.W.2d 549, 557 (Tex.1995).
5 Duarte, J.L., Crawford, J.T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L. and Tetlock, P.E. (2015) ‘Political diversity will improve social psychological science’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X14000430
6 Id.
7 Id. at 4.
8 Id. at 5.
9 Id. at 7.
10 This may be hyperbole, but it is a hypothesis worth testing.
11 For more tools we need to build a just society, see The Dreyfuss Civics Initiative.
The US government allows companies to transfer certain foreign employees to the United States under L1-B visas. These employees have specialized knowledge needed in the United States, and already work for the company that wants to transfer them. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a policy memo on April 12, 2017 concerning transferred employees. It explainined that businesses must treat transferred employees fairly under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA).
The FSLA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers. A manufacturing company wanted to transfer one of its employees to a plant in Arizona from Malaysia. The employee contract specified wages to be paid at 43,445 Malaysian ringgits per year. When the USCIS converted the ringgits to US dollars, it found that this was less than minimum wage. It ruled that the employer must prove that it will treat transferred employees according to the FSLA standards.
Not only that, but the employer may also have to prove that it is treating foreign workers fairly compared to American workers. They should not pay foreign workers less than Americans for doing the same work, for example. In addition to salary, businesses should also look at working conditions and benefits.
USCIS under the new administration does not want businesses to replace American workers with underpaid foreign workers. Moreover, it does not want businesses using the immigration system to find workers they can treat poorly. USCIS wants businesses to find workers whose skills fill a gap. Foreign workers must be paid based on their skills, not their immigration status. Going forward, businesses will need to update their policies to make sure they are treating foreign workers as well as they treat Americans.
Do #BlackLivesMatter or do #BlueLivesMatter? They should be on the same side. Black Americans want safe neighborhoods, and they need the police for that. The police need to solve crimes, and they need cooperation for that. What is the solution? Expunctions.
Police Officers and poor – often Black – Americans are treated massively differently by the government. As an attorney, I understand and agree that government employees need certain protections from arbitrary actions by their government employers. Arbitrary or political punishment of police officers is both unfair and bad for democracy. Unions and union lawyers work on the side of (often wrongfully) accused police officers to help ensure that discipline is fair and just. Sometimes police officers are cleared of wrongdoing or face only a reprimand following a “paid vacation” after using what the public sees as unnecessary violence against unarmed Black Americans.
Meanwhile, many Black Americans are forever locked out of the workforce because they got caught with weed, got into a fight once, or committed some minor offense and could not afford high-priced attorneys to fight for their rights. How do you persuade someone without a law degree that this is fair? Maybe you could convince one after a few hours but never thousands or millions of people who are already angry at you.
First of all, one side needs to start listening to the other, and I am sorry to say that it is the Blue side that needs to do the listening. A little while ago a police officer was refused service at a restaurant. What followed was the most massively tone-deaf reaction possible involving the Police Chief, the union, a boycott, national news, and a campaign to fire two low income restaurant employees who were trying (in an inappropriate way) to make a statement. It doesn’t matter if they used poor judgment and were wrong, the perception is that of a massive jack-booted campaign against two weak and voiceless members of a community for not knowing their place and getting uppity with a cop. Imagine the difference if instead the Police Chief said, “We understand that you hate us; tell us how we can be better,” and then listened. You will never persuade a man that killing his unarmed brother was fair because you followed policies and procedures, but by listening you can persuade him that he matters.
Second, something needs to be done to address the inequalities arguably created by our government and blamed on everyone else. To find the answer to that, we need to look no further than to the protections that the police enjoy for themselves. We cannot provide a high-priced lawyer to everyone accused of a crime, but we can give people their lives back after they have done their time. A program to remove criminal records from public view should be done now but temporarily at the Federal level under the Fourteenth Amendment. After a short time, the decision to continue the program and how to manage it should be left to the states.
Of course there are both advantages and disadvantages to a federal expunction program. The main advantage is that thousands of people in crumbling Black communities could suddenly find themselves employable, reducing their burden on limited government resources and even adding their income to the tax base. In addition, more defendants would be willing to plea bargain since a criminal conviction would no longer be a death sentence for their careers and job prospects – potentially reducing both prosecution costs and incarceration costs. Finally, it will help to heal the Black Lives/Blue Lives divide because it returns some of the dignity the government has taken away from defendants for their crimes and returns it to the people, giving them hope and prospects they did not have before.
The biggest disadvantage is the costs of implementing and managing of a federal expunction program. Participants would need to participate in services and petition the courts for admission into the programs, both of which will cost money. The costs could not be placed solely on the defendants because that would exclude the poorest defendants whom we most want involved. It is possible that the benefits will exceed the costs in the long run, but someone will have to figure out how to pay for it in the short term. The other problem is the loss of deterrence. One would expect to see a spike in expungable crimes, but that may also result in a reduction in non-expungable crimes which are presumably worse, and district attorneys can adjust for this with tougher plea-bargaining. At any rate, the program should be transferred to the states as soon as practicable so they can experiment and adjust for their own particular needs.
The biggest obstacle is special interests which are likely to fight for exclusion of the people the expunction program is meant to help. There seems to be a special interest group for every crime – MADD and the various domestic violence organizations to name a few. A woman should not have her life and career ruined by the scarlet letter “A” for Assault Family Violence because she threw a remote control at her husband, and a kid’s life should not be ruined by a DWI because he took the wrong cold medication. Absurdity does not mean the policy is not complicated enough, it means it is a bad policy. Non-expungable crimes need to determined rationally by how much good they can do to communities – especially poor communities, and not by special interests pushing their agendas.
Make #BlackLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter, rebuild Black communities, and bring prosperity and safety back by giving people a second chance.
2017 has been another big year for updates to the Texas Family Code. The vast majority of the updates involve child welfare and CPS. The 2017 updates provide protections to parents who homeschool and for poor parents and parents with convictions for certain nonviolent offenses. The updates also provide protections for parents who administer low-THC cannabis to their children according to a prescription, and there is a brand new chapter for Temporary Authorization for Care of a Minor Child. Now that parents and non-parent caregivers of children have new rights and protections, be sure to talk to a Family Law Attorney who can tell you how the law applies to you. Some of these laws may not be in effect yet.
There are a few dozen rights and duties of conservators of children specified in the family code. A conservatorship (child custody) order can allocate these rights any number of ways. This article will focus on five rights of parent conservators: Child support; possession and access; consent to treatment; making important decisions; and being informed about the child’s health and welfare. It is important to remember that no right or duty depends on any other. For example, if you are denied possession you still have to pay child support, and if you did not receive child support, you still cannot deny possession.
If you are a parent, you generally have a right to:
The other parent cannot deny you any of these rights without a court order. If you feel like your custody rights are being denied by the other parent, call an attorney for a consultation. Your kids only grow up once.
Child support is a major source of conflict when parents are separated. If you pay child support, think of it as paying taxes. When you pay taxes, the government takes money from you, you have no say in how it is spent, and it will be spent stupidly if for no other reason than to annoy you – just like child support. If you value your sanity, you will not look into any detail on how your tax dollars are spent, neither should you you pay attention to how your child support money is spent. Cover your ears, close your eyes, and sing a happy song to yourself if you have to, without a change in conservatorship, there is not much you can do about how that money is spent.
What if I can’t pay your child support? First of all, not paying your child support can cause you a lot of problems, but seeing your kids is not one of them. Make sure you do what you need to do to enforce your visitation above all. If your ex says you cannot see your kids until you pay up, go to pick them up anyway; but document, don’t argue. You can come back later to try and get the time you missed through an enforcement.
Second, don’t just skip payments. If your circumstances have materially and substantially changed — you have had other children, you have gone on active duty, you were injured, etc., then your support order can be modified. If you have lost your job, it is going to be harder to get a reduction but it may be worth a try. The important thing is to do everything you can to support your child and to be able to show that you have been doing everything you can to support your child.
_ Open a rainy day account and deposit 25% of your child support payment amount every month for the first year, 15% the second, and 10% after that until you have a year’s worth of payments saved up.
_Be polite to your Ex. It’s good for your kids, and your blood pressure.
_ Save your performance reviews.
_Review and update your résumé every six months.
_If you lose your job, get a haircut and start mailing your résumé that day. Keep a diary of everything you are doing to find another job. Imagine what someone could criticize you for not doing enough in your search. Immediately seek a child support reduction.
What if I am not getting my child support, or it is consistently late? In that case you have a couple of options: the Attorney General’s Office or a private attorney. A private attorney is going to represent you, while the Attorney General’s Office represents the State of Texas. If your ex has money and you can come up with an initial retainer, then a private attorney is probably your best bet. A private attorney can move fairly quickly according to your direction and should be able to collect attorney fees from your ex. Attorney fees earned to collect child support can usually be enforced with jail just like child support.
If you have an ex that habitually and intentionally avoids paying child support and goes into hiding every time he gets out of jail, then you will probably be better off letting the Attorney General enforce it; otherwise, you might end up out the attorney fees as well as the child support owed.
You have a right to possession of your kids if it is in the order. You have a right to see them on the dates and times indicated in your order. So why does it get complicated? Sometimes it is innocent – the kids have some activities they want to do; sometimes it is not – the other parent schedules the kids for something during your time. Sometimes a parent has the child call to ask the other parent for permission to attend an activity instead of visitation. These are tricky situations to deal with and you should discuss them with an attorney or family counselor to get specific advice, but, generally, schedule makeup time in writing or go to court and enforce the order. Judges have seen the games parents play in these situations so try to be calm and smart and do all of the right things.
These decisions could be allocated differently in your order so it is best to check or seek legal advice. In general, both possessory and managing conservators can usually make their own decisions concerning moral and religious training, non-invasive or emergency medical treatment, decisions about education health and welfare, and how to discipline the child. Often there are strong disagreements about how the other parent makes these decisions, but unless it is having a significant impact on the child’s health and welfare, you may need to learn to live with it.
If the other parent is not keeping you informed about your children’s health and welfare, go to their doctor’s office and get a copy of their complete medical records. If the other parent won’t tell you who the children’s doctor is, then file an enforcement if you are entitled to medical information in your order. Hiding information about children’s health is a big red flag. Maybe it is being done out of spite, but often information is withheld because someone has something to hide. Parents can see things that absolutely shock them when they look at a full set of medical records for the first time.
Many schools have student records online and you should certainly look at those, but it doesn’t hurt to get first hand information from students and counselors. Being the possessory conservator does not make you a second-class parent. Even if communication with your ex is good, a different set of ears listening to school officials can be helpful, and your order should say that you have a right to consult with school officials.
Parents don’t lose the right to participate in raising their children when they break up or get a divorce. These rights can be enforced. If you feel like your custody rights are being denied by the other parent, call an attorney for a consultation. Your kids only grow up once, and they have a right to your support and guidance.
Before thinking about enforcement, you need to read up on what to do when you show up to pick up your child and you do not get your visitation.
On September 1, 2015, hundreds of changes to the family code went into effect. To enforce most provisions of a custody order by contempt, you must follow the enforcement process precisely, starting on the day the orders are signed. This article is not a comprehensive guide, but what I believe are the five biggest mistakes that can stop attempts to enforce an order by contempt. For information on filing a motion, see How to File a Motion to Enforce Possession or Access by Contempt.
Do not count on enforcing an order solely based on what the other parent does or does not do. You must do your part before filing a Motion to Enforce. If your order says “Sue Mother is ORDERED to surrender Lilly Child to Frank Father at the end of each period of possession at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave,” then you must go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to pick up your child, even if you receive a call from Sue Mother saying she is in Brazil and will not be at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. You must pick Lilly Child up at the exact time and location and wait long enough to determine that she will not be there. “Knowing” that she will not be there will not hold up in court.
Good. “I arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Arlen, TX on Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 6:00 PM – a date and time of my ordered visitation, knocked on the door, and waited 20 minutes.”
Not good. “I arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Arlen, TX on Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 6:05 PM – the time of my ordered visitation – and waited 20 seconds.”
Not good. “Sue Mother called me and said she would not be bringing Lilly Child to see me so I could not go pick her up.”
The violating parent cannot be held in contempt unless you clearly state in your Motion to Enforce the part of the order that he failed to obey. You must include, word for word, every portion of the order that he violated. This is important but tricky, so spend the time necessary to make it correct. Parenting plans usually have two provisions and both need to be in your motion:
Good. “On December 31, 2014, this Court signed an order titled Order in Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship which states in relevant part on page 9 as follows: ‘Frank Father shall have possession of the children beginning at 6:00 P.M. on the second and fourth Friday of each month and ending at 6:00 P.M. on the following Sunday,’ and on page 14, ‘Sue Mother is ORDERED to surrender Lilly Child to Frank Father at the end of each period of possession at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Arlen, Texas.’”
Good. “On December 31, 2014, this Court signed an order titled Order in Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship which states in relevant part on page 18 as follows: ‘The party who is carrying the health insurance policy covering the child is ORDERED to submit all forms required by the insurance company for payment or reimbursement of healthcare expenses incurred by either party on behalf of the child to the insurance carrier within fifteen days of that party’s receiving any form, receipt, bill, or statement reflecting the expenses.’”
Not good. “We have a standard possession order and I am supposed to have Lilly Child on the first, third, and fifth Fridays at 6:00 PM.”
Not good. “Sue Mother was supposed to submit forms to the insurance company but she didn’t.”
In addition to including the order he was supposed to obey, you must also explain exactly how he failed to obey it in your Motion to Enforce. Start by copying the part of the order violated, and then replace the relevant text with the facts you intend to prove.
Order: “Frank Father shall have possession of the children beginning at 6:00 P.M. on the second and fourth Friday of each month and ending at 6:00 P.M. on the following Sunday,” and “Sue Mother is ORDERED to surrender Lilly Child to Frank Father at the end of each period of possession at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Arlen, Texas”
Count 1: At 6:00 PM on Friday, October 9, 2015, a day of Court ordered possession, Sue Mother failed to surrender Lilly Child to Frank Father at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Arlen, Texas.
Order: “The party who is carrying the health insurance policy covering the child is ORDERED to submit all forms required by the insurance company for payment or reimbursement of healthcare expenses incurred by either party on behalf of the child to the insurance carrier within fifteen days of that party’s receiving any form, receipt, bill, or statement reflecting the expenses.”
Count 2: On October 2, 2015, Frank Father received a statement reflecting $400.00 of healthcare expenses incurred by Sue Mother. Frank Father failed to submit the statement and claim form, forms required by the insurance company for payment or reimbursement of healthcare expenses, to the insurance carrier by October 17, 2015, fifteen days after receipt of the statement.
The first two are fairly easy, but remember to identify the defendant as the person who violated the order and ask the judge to take judicial notice of the order. The last two are trickier because the defendant does not have to testify. You are on your own. If the defendant signed the order, you can testify that you are familiar with his signature, and it is his signature on the order to prove notice.
Additionally, have witnesses when you pick up your child. Buy coffee near the pickup location and save the receipt as evidence that you were there. Keep a diary of your visitations. If the part of the order violated requires documentation to prove, then have documents that are admissible as evidence in court.
Even if you do everything right, the judge may decide that the order is not specific enough to be enforced by contempt. In that case, you will need to ask the court to clarify the order, and you should always make the request in the Motion to Enforce as well as at the hearing.
Even if you do everything right, the judge may decide that the order is not specific enough to be enforced by contempt. In that case, you will need to ask the court to clarify the order, and you should always make the request in the Motion to Enforce as well as at the hearing.
Call an attorney for assistance, or see TexasLawHelp.org for self-help materials and help in locating free legal services.
2017 has been another big year for updates to the Texas Family Code. The vast majority of the updates involve child welfare and CPS. The 2017 updates provide protections to parents who homeschool and for poor parents and parents with convictions for certain nonviolent offences. The updates also provide protections for parents who administer low-THC cannabis to their children according to a prescription, and there is a brand new chapter for Temporary Authorization for Care of a Minor Child. Now that parents and non-parent caregivers of children have new rights and protections, be sure to talk to a Family Law Attorney who can tell you how the law applies to you. Some of these laws may not be in effect yet.
There are a few dozen rights and duties of conservators of children specified in the family code. A conservatorship (child custody) order can allocate these rights any number of ways. This article will focus on five rights of parent conservators: Child support; possession and access; consent to treatment; making important decisions; and being informed about the child’s health and welfare. It is important to remember that no right or duty depends on any other. For example, if you are denied possession you still have to pay child support, and if you did not receive child support, you still cannot deny possession.
If you are a parent, you generally have a right to:
The other parent cannot deny you any of these rights without a court order. If you feel like your custody rights are being denied by the other parent, call an attorney for a consultation. Your kids only grow up once.
Child support is a major source of conflict when parents are separated. If you pay child support, think of it as paying taxes. When you pay taxes, the government takes money from you, you have no say in how it is spent, and it will be spent stupidly if for no other reason than to annoy you – just like child support. If you value your sanity, you will not look into any detail on how your tax dollars are spent, neither should you you pay attention to how your child support money is spent. Cover your ears, close your eyes, and sing a happy song to yourself if you have to, without a change in conservatorship, there is not much you can do about how that money is spent.
What if I can’t pay your child support? First of all, not paying your child support can cause you a lot of problems, but seeing your kids is not one of them. Make sure you do what you need to do to enforce your visitation above all. If your ex says you cannot see your kids until you pay up, go to pick them up anyway; but document, don’t argue. You can come back later to try and get the time you missed through an enforcement.
Second, don’t just skip payments. If your circumstances have materially and substantially changed — you have had other children, you have gone on active duty, you were injured, etc., then your support order can be modified. If you have lost your job, it is going to be harder to get a reduction but it may be worth a try. The important thing is to do everything you can to support your child and to be able to show that you have been doing everything you can to support your child.
_ Open a rainy day account and deposit 25% of your child support payment amount every month for the first year, 15% the second, and 10% after that until you have a year’s worth of payments saved up.
_Be polite to your Ex. It’s good for your kids, and your blood pressure.
_ Save your performance reviews.
_Review and update your résumé every six months.
_If you lose your job, get a haircut and start mailing your résumé that day. Keep a diary of everything you are doing to find another job. Imagine what someone could criticize you for not doing enough in your search. Immediately seek a child support reduction.
What if I am not getting my child support, or it is consistently late? In that case you have a couple of options: the Attorney General’s Office or a private attorney. A private attorney is going to represent you, while the Attorney General’s Office represents the State of Texas. If your ex has money and you can come up with an initial retainer, then a private attorney is probably your best bet. A private attorney can move fairly quickly according to your direction and should be able to collect attorney fees from your ex. Attorney fees earned to collect child support can usually be enforced with jail just like child support.
If you have an ex that habitually and intentionally avoids paying child support and goes into hiding every time he gets out of jail, then you will probably be better off letting the Attorney General enforce it; otherwise, you might end up out the attorney fees as well as the child support owed.
You have a right to possession of your kids if it is in the order. You have a right to see them on the dates and times indicated in your order. So why does it get complicated? Sometimes it is innocent – the kids have some activities they want to do; sometimes it is not – the other parent schedules the kids for something during your time. Sometimes a parent has the child call to ask the other parent for permission to attend an activity instead of visitation. These are tricky situations to deal with and you should discuss them with an attorney or family counselor to get specific advice, but, generally, schedule makeup time in writing or go to court and enforce the order. Judges have seen the games parents play in these situations so try to be calm and smart and do all of the right things.
These decisions could be allocated differently in your order so it is best to check or seek legal advice. In general, both possessory and managing conservators can usually make their own decisions concerning moral and religious training, non-invasive or emergency medical treatment, decisions about education health and welfare, and how to discipline the child. Often there are strong disagreements about how the other parent makes these decisions, but unless it is having a significant impact on the child’s health and welfare, you may need to learn to live with it.
If the other parent is not keeping you informed about your children’s health and welfare, go to their doctor’s office and get a copy of their complete medical records. If the other parent won’t tell you who the children’s doctor is, then file an enforcement if you are entitled to medical information in your order. Hiding information about children’s health is a big red flag. Maybe it is being done out of spite, but often information is withheld because someone has something to hide. Parents can see things that absolutely shock them when they look at a full set of medical records for the first time.
Many schools have student records online and you should certainly look at those, but it doesn’t hurt to get first-hand information from students and counselors. Being the possessory conservator does not make you a second-class parent. Even if communication with your ex is good, a different set of ears listening to school officials can be helpful, and your order should say that you have a right to consult with school officials.
Parents don’t lose the right to participate in raising their children when they break up or get a divorce. These rights can be enforced. If you feel like your custody rights are being denied by the other parent, call an attorney for a consultation. Your kids only grow up once, and they have a right to your support and guidance.
