New York Family Law Blog

Published on: September 4, 2012

Court Discusses Social Services Law

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

The subject child was born on 30 October 2000 and was placed in the care and custody of the Administration for Children’s Services (hereinafter ACS) in February 2002 as a result of neglect allegations against her mother, the appellant (hereinafter the mother). Sometime in June 2002, the mother also gave birth to a son who is not the subject of this proceeding but was also placed in a separate foster care home soon after his birth.

A New York Family Lawyer said after the commencement of the aforesaid neglect proceeding, ACS placed the subject child with New Alternatives for Children, Inc. (hereinafter NAC), a New York-authorized foster care agency. NAC placed the child in the non-kinship foster home of a foster mother (hereinafter the foster mother).

Published on: September 3, 2012

Plaintiff Petitions Court for Divorce on the Grounds of Abandonment

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

On 16 January 1981, plaintiff and defendant were married in New York. On 10 September 1983, their daughter was born.

A New York Family Lawyer said the defendant claims that she, plaintiff, and their daughter moved to Israel in about 1987, with the intention of living there permanently. On the other hand, although they purchased an apartment in Israel, plaintiff claims that he had no intention of permanently relocating there and had applied for permanent residency in that country only to obtain government benefits for defendant and their daughter.

Published on: September 2, 2012

Court Decides Jurisdiction in Custody Battle

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

The parties were married in 1966 and lived together with the children in Schenectady until they physically separated in 1973. Sometime in January 1974, they entered into a formal separation agreement and the mother was given custody. A New York Family Lawyer said sometime in March of 1974, the agreement was incorporated but not merged in the divorce decree dissolving the marriage granted in the Supreme Court, Schenectady County. The separation agreement contained a provision under which the mother agreed not to remove the children from Schenectady without the consent of the father. The mother soon remarried a man who was then in the military service. Sometime in August of 1974, she sought and received permission to leave Schenectady with the children to accompany her husband to Texas where he was stationed. That marriage was dissolved in 1975 or 1976 and she then moved to the State of Florida. While there, she met and married again. Sometime in January of 1977, she, her new husband and the children moved to Mississippi, where he was attending college. The father resumed contact with the children in Florida in January of 1976 and had them for mutually agreed upon periods of visitation in Schenectady during the summers of 1976 and 1977.

Sometime in the spring of 1978, serious marital difficulties arose between the mother and her husband, leading to the initiation of a divorce action by her in May of 1978. Apparently in an effort to avoid exposure of the children to the domestic turmoil and particularly to alleged harassing conduct of the new husband toward the mother, the parties agreed that the children would start their visitation earlier than usual, after the school year ended in Oxford in May. Thereafter, a New York Criminal Lawyer said the father retained the children and then commenced the instant proceeding to change legal custody.

Published on: September 1, 2012

Court Rules on Petition to Relocate Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This is a case where the court granted defendant mother’s motion for relocation to North Carolina with her ten year old daughter alleging that the circumstances have changed.

Because her parents’ marriage had failed even before she was conceived, the subject child has been raised by her mother since birth. The defendant is and has always been a good and devoted mother to the child.

A New York Family Lawyer said the child’s mother had struggled to make ends meet in New York, taking on as many as three jobs at once while attempting to make a home for her child. For most of her life in New York, the child lived in a home consisted of a shared room with her mother in a house owned and occupied by another family. Due to the damage to the house, mother and child were forced to move into a home with the child’s maternal aunt where living conditions were cramped and crowded.

Published on: August 31, 2012

Parent Seeks to Relocate Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This case arose from a divorce proceeding which was commenced in Massachusetts. Respondent’s physical custody of the two minor children was initially pursuant to the parties’ May 21, 1993 separation agreement. A New York Family Lawyer said that agreement provided for joint custody, with primary physical residence with respondent and liberal visitation with petitioner. It further provided that petitioner would pay child support to respondent in accordance with the Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines, and that “[t]his Agreement shall be construed and governed according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

A judgment of divorce incorporating the separation agreement was entered in Massachusetts on April 13, 1994.

In 1995, Respondent relocated to Buffalo, New York with the parties’ two children in accordance with an agreement entered in by the parties in a Massachusetts Proceeding which sought the court’s authorization to relocate the children to Buffalo, New York. The said agreement further provided that “Massachusetts will retain jurisdiction over the children and the parties to the extent otherwise consistent with law and for so long as petitioner remains a resident in the Commonwealth.”

Published on: August 30, 2012

Mother Wants to Relocate with Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This involves an appeal pertaining to the custodial parent’s request to relocate with the parties’ child. The appellate division granted the child’s custody in favor of the mother.

Petitioner mother and defendant father married in January 2004. A New York Family Lawyer said they were divorced a year and a half later. During their marriage, they had a child whose custody is the subject of this petition. The stipulation settling the divorce case granted the mother legal and physical custody of the child. The defendant father has had a history of irregular employment and is currently not employed.

The mother met her future husband on Match.com. The husband was retired from the Air Force, lived in North Carolina and was then involved in a nation-wide job search. Ultimately, Bonnar took a job with Northrop Grumman in San Diego. He had requested to work at Northrop Grumman’s Long Island branch, but the company could not accommodate his request. The mother and the future husband became engaged in May 2008.

Published on: August 29, 2012

Court Hears Case Regarding Child Neglect

by Stephen Bilkis

In a contested child protective and child custody proceeding, the administration for children’s services sought an order directing the removal of the child from the home of the paternal grandmother who resides in Virginia. The motion is supported by the law guardian and opposed by the parents of the child.

The administration for children’s services filed a neglect petitions against the parents of the child alleging that they neglected the child by inflicting excessive corporal punishment causing numerous marks and bruises on the child’s body. A New York Family Lawyer said the petitions allege that the child was beaten by the mother with an extension cord and punched by both parents. In addition, the petitions allege that the father is a person legally responsible for the child because of the fact that he is married to the child’s mother. Lastly, the petitions allege that the other two children of the parents are derivatively neglected children.

On the day the petitions were filed, a hearing was conducted and granted the application for the remand, directing that the child will be placed with the maternal great-grandfather and that the two younger children be placed together with kinship resources. During the months that followed the initial removal, the two younger children were moved several times and are currently in their second non-kinship foster home.

Published on: August 28, 2012

Non-biological Father Seeks Custody

by Stephen Bilkis

Respondent is the biological mother of the subject child, a six-year-old boy conceived through artificial insemination and born in December 2003. Respondent and petitioner met in 2002 and entered into a civil union in the State of Vermont in November 2003, the month before the child’s birth. Respondent repeatedly refused petitioner’s requests to become the child’s second parent by means of adoption. A New York Family Lawyer said after the relationship between the petitioner and respondent soured and they separated, respondent allowed petitioner to have supervised visits with the child each week on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday for specified periods of time, as well as daily contact by telephone. In the spring of 2008, however, respondent began scaling back the visits. By early May 2008, she had cut off all communication between petitioner and the child.

Petitioner brought the proceeding against the respondent in Supreme Court by order to show cause. She sought joint legal and physical custody of the child, restoration of access and decision making authority with respect to his upbringing, and appointment of an attorney for the child.

At the hearing, the petitioner acknowledged the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Matter of Alison D., which held that only a child’s biological or adoptive parent has standing to seek visitation against the wishes of a fit custodial parent, but contended that another landmark case, which endorsed a nonbiological or nonadoptive parent’s right to invoke equitable estoppel to secure visitation or custody notwithstanding Alison D.

Published on: August 27, 2012

Mother Seeks Modification of Visitation Arrangement

by Stephen Bilkis

On a motion for a change of child custody by a father whose former wife has breached the restrictive residence provision of a non-merged separation agreement by surreptitiously removing the children of the marriage to California, two equally strong policies are contra posed to each other. A New York Family Lawyer said the policy of courts to jealously protect the visitation rights of a non-custodial parent, and on the other, the policy of deferring jurisdiction of custody disputes to that jurisdiction best able to hear all relevant evidence concerning the children’s past, present and future circumstances.

The court determines that it is in the children’s best interests that the matter be heard in California, where nearly all the relevant evidence can be found. The case involves neither child snatching nor forum shopping. Moreover, the papers before the court strongly suggest that the father is not, at present, a fit custodian of the children whereas the mother has made a strong showing that the children’s welfare has substantially improved in California. A Nassau County Family Lawyer said that since the court is confident that the California courts will be sensitive to the father’s visitation rights, the court declines to exercise its jurisdiction on the condition that appropriate proceedings should be promptly commenced in the California courts.

In a separation agreement dated June 22, 1982, the complainant mother and the father agreed that the mother would have the child custody and the father would have reasonable rights of visitation upon 48 hours notice. It was further agreed that the mother would not remove with the children more than 200 miles from New York without the father’s consent.

Published on: August 26, 2012

Mother Seeks to Relocate Child

by Stephen Bilkis

An appeal involves a custodial action with the request of the mother to relocate her child with her. The parties were married but separated about a year and a half. Consequently, they filed a divorce and it was granted. The provision settling the case granted the mother legal and physical custody of the child. Moreover, the father had a visitation rights every week from Monday at 8:00 p.m. until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. The provision allowed relocation within 25-miles from the father’s house in Bronx.

Based on records, the father had a history of irregular employment and is currently not employed. At the time of trial, the mother, who is remarried, cared for her younger child from her second marriage, full time.

After the parties separated, the mother remained in the marital apartment in the Bronx with the child for two years. Consequently, a New York Family Lawyer said she began working as a project administrator in the construction field. She moved with the child and her boyfriend to Connecticut. The mother testified that she always wanted her son to be in a suburban environment. She stated that she was trying to mirror her own childhood and further stated that she had a wonderful suburban upbringing. The mother’s relationship in Connecticut ended when her boyfriend returned to his country. The mother returned to New York with the child and moved into an apartment in Harlem.