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December
2008
Newsweek's lies about divorce
By Stephen Baskerville, © 2008
12-30-08 --
Divorce is the main cause of family destruction today, and
fatherless children are the principal source of virtually
every major social pathology. Yet divorce is ignored by the
mainstream media to the point of blackout. Now, Newsweek
magazine offers a revealing exception that proves the rule.
Newsweek's depiction of divorce
is so trite and clichéd that it seriously distorts what is
happening. . . . Most Americans would be shocked if they
knew what takes place today in the name of divorce. Indeed,
millions are appalled when they discover that they can be
forced into divorce, lose their children and even be jailed
without trial – all without having violated any law and
through procedures entirely beyond their control. Comprised
of courts, bar associations and federally funded social
services bureaucracies that wield police powers, the divorce
machinery has become the most repressive and predatory
sector of government ever created in the United States and
today's greatest threat to constitutional freedom. . . .
Yet, we hear not a word of this from Newsweek. As is de
rigueur in journalism today, reporter Susanna Schrobsdorff
begins not with objective facts or disinterested analysis
but by publicly displaying her own divorce. And what a
joyous occasion it was. Despite pretentious pathos (also
obligatory in today's media), it is clear that no one forced
her into this.
WISCONSIN
Court upholds conviction for videotaping nude girlfriend
By Ed Treleven
12-30-08 -- In a
decision that will have an impact on a similar Dane County
case, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday that it was
illegal for a former
Waunakee High School teacher to
secretly videotape his then-girlfriend in the nude, even
though she was willingly nude in front of him. . . . The 4th
District Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, said Mark T.
Jahnke's girlfriend had a reasonable expectation of privacy
not to be videotaped by a camera that Jahnke had hidden
under a pile of clothing in her bedroom in April 2006. . . .
Jahnke, 45, of Waunakee, was convicted in Portage County
under a state law that makes it illegal to videotape or
photograph someone in the nude without their knowledge and
consent. He was sentenced to three years of probation.
CALIFORNIA
Brown first in decades to go against voters
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
12-24-08 -- Attorney
General Jerry Brown's legal challenge to California's
constitutional ban on same-sex marriage marks the first time
that the state's top lawyer has refused to defend a newly
enacted ballot measure since 1964 - another epic
discrimination case that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme
Court. . . . In November 1964, an overwhelming 65 percent
majority of the state's voters approved Proposition 14, a
constitutional amendment that overturned a fair-housing law
and allowed racial discrimination in property sales and
rentals. . . . Attorney General Thomas Lynch - newly
appointed to succeed Stanley Mosk, a Prop. 14 opponent who
had just been named to the state Supreme Court - concluded
the initiative violated U.S. constitutional standards and
left private lawyers representing sponsors as its sole
defenders in court. . . . The state Supreme Court - minus
Mosk, who removed himself from the case - overturned Prop.
14 in 1966, and the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit in
1967. Lynch filed written arguments urging the nation's high
court to rule the measure unconstitutional. . . . Brown
personally opposed Proposition 8, the initiative restoring
the ban on gay and lesbian marriages that the state Supreme
Court had struck down in May, but said the day after the
Nov. 4 election that he planned to defend it in court.
CONNECTICUT
Divorce Case Pits Countess Against Former United
Technologies CEO
Case may set a state record
in Connecticut
Thomas B. Scheffey, The Connecticut Law Tribune
12-24-08 -- If George
A. L. David thought a postnuptial agreement would simplify
his marriage -- or divorce -- that has not been the case so
far. . . . David, who stepped down as CEO of
United Technologies Corp.
eight months ago, spent last week in a Hartford, Conn.,
divorce court trying to stop his former wife, a 36-year-old
unemployed Swedish countess, from getting any pendente lite
alimony to tide her over until the scheduled March divorce
trial. . . . David didn't have to write a new check.
Instead, Superior Court Judge Stephen Frazzini approved the
parties' compromise, in which Marie Douglas-David borrows
$968,000 from existing prenuptial funds. . . . During
arguments, it became apparent why Marie Douglas-David wanted
the money. Her lawyers disclosed papers showing she was
spending $53,000 a week in
New York, Connecticut and Sweden, and had
debts of $5.6 million -- $2.8 million of which was notes to
husband George -- and assets of only $4.4 million.
NEW JERSEY
Give him back his right to bear arms, highest court rules
By Rudy Larini, Star-Ledger Staff
12-24-08 -- When
Matthew Sweetwood agreed to surrender his handguns and
purchaser identification card 11 years ago after he and his
wife filed domestic violence complaints and sought
restraining orders against each other, the Millburn resident
never thought it would take more than a decade to get them
back. . . . Yesterday, the state Supreme Court granted him
the opportunity to regain his right to own a gun. . . . The
court said a 2004 law that prevents someone from buying or
possessing a firearm if other weapons were seized or
surrendered under a domestic violence prevention act would
not necessarily bar Sweetwood from purchasing or owning a
handgun. . . . In the unanimous ruling, the court said
Sweetwood is entitled to a hearing if the Essex County
Prosecutor's Office denies him the ID card or ownership of a
weapon. . . . A spokesman for the prosecutor said a decision
on such a hearing is under review. The office has 30 days to
decide.
PENNSYLVANIA
Another jail Christmas for Chadwick
By Joelle Farrell, Inquirer Staff Writer
12-24-08 -- For the
14th Christmas morning in a row, H. Beatty Chadwick will
wake up behind bars on Thursday. . . . The former Main Line lawyer has spent nearly 14 years in the
Delaware County jail for
contempt of court - a U.S. record for time served on that
charge. . . . Neither the passage of time nor a battle with
cancer has won sympathy for Chadwick from judges who believe
he hid $2.5 million after his wife began divorce proceedings
against him. . . . After a hearing yesterday, Delaware
County Court President Judge Joseph P. Cronin Jr. turned
down Chadwick's latest request for Christmas furlough,
declaring him "a significant risk of flight." . . . Had the
court let him out for Christmas, Chadwick could have cut off
his electronic-monitoring bracelet and used his money and
contacts to fly off in a helicopter, his ex-wife's attorney,
Albert Momjian, said. . . . "He is a devious person,"
Momjian contended. . . . Chadwick's lawyer, Michael J.
Malloy, who said he had worked for Chadwick free of charge
for the last few years, said the idea of a helicopter's
waiting to whisk his client off was ludicrous. . . . "At
this point, everything about this case is irrational,"
Malloy said in an interview. . . . "We're one step away from
The X-Files at this point. . . . He's going to beam himself
to another dimension."
IOWA
Supreme Court says husband must pay for bedroom spying
By Grant Schulte
12-20-08 -- A Dubuque
man who secretly videotaped his wife in their bedroom must
pay her $22,500 for invasion of privacy, the Iowa Supreme
Court ruled Friday in the couple's divorce case. . . . The
decision upheld two lower-court rulings against Jeffrey
Tigges. He contended that his wife, Cathy, had no reasonable
expectation of privacy in their home. . . . Jeffrey Tigges
mounted cameras above a ceiling and in a bedroom alarm
clock, the ruling said. He also installed a motion-sensing
"optical eye" in a headboard over their bed. . . . Cathy
Tigges discovered one of the cameras in August 2006. . . .
The cameras did not record anything of a graphic or
demeaning nature, according to the ruling. . . . Jeffrey
Tigges argued that his former wife should be denied any
payment because the only other person who saw the tape
before the lawsuit was filed was her sister.
You can access the ruling at
this link.
NEW
JERSEY
Appellate court inherits debate about
alienation-of-affection suits
Should parents be allowed to
sue their former spouses for turning their children against
them?
by Margaret McHugh/The Star-Ledger
12-19-08 -- A judge in
Morris County said no in August. But
last month, a Hudson County judge ruled the opposite
way, saying state law does not bar a parent from making a
parental alienation claim in civil court. The two cases are
now headed to appeals court, where they will be closely
monitored by family-law attorneys who are split over the
issue. . . . "What do you do when a child is being
programmed to hate the other parent?" Woodbridge attorney
John Paone Jr. asked. "I believe you can't get justice in
these alienation cases in the family court." . . . Attorney
Cary Cheifetz, treasurer of the New Jersey chapter of the
American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, disagrees. . . .
Such lawsuits "would cause more damage than good to society,
families and children," he said. "The proper remedy is to
fix the issue and undo the alienation by restoring the
relationship." . . . If such litigation were allowed, he
said, children would have to give depositions and testify in
front of a jury. . . . In the Morris County case, Superior Court
Judge David Rand dismissed a complaint by retired
multimillionaire developer Moses Segal against his former
Canadian common-law wife. "New Jersey law simply does not
allow recovery for the causes of action Segal asserts," the
judge said. . . . Rand cited the 1935 Heart Balm Act, which
abolished alienation of affection as grounds for a lawsuit.
Ritchie's Divorce Settlement From Madonna: $75 Million
Claire Ruckin, Legal Week
12-17-08 -- Guy
Ritchie has been awarded a divorce settlement reportedly
worth at least $75 million (49 million pounds) from Madonna
-- in a decision thought to make it one of the biggest
divorce agreements in
U.K. history. . . . The divorce saw Ritchie turn to Manches' highly regarded
family law partner Helen Ward for advice on his split from
the pop icon after eight years of marriage. . . . It marks
the latest high-profile divorce case for Ward, who last year
secured a $74 million (48 million pounds) payout for client
Beverley Charman -- the estranged wife of insurance magnate
John Charman. Madonna's
U.K. counsel has not been
confirmed, but she has been connected with Payne Hicks
Beach's much-feted divorce specialist Fiona Shackleton.
PENNSYLVANIA
Federal Judge Critical of Firm's Fee Petition in Custody
Case
Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer
12-15-08 --
A federal judge has sharply rebuked a team of lawyers from
Fox Rothschild for filing an "excessive" fee petition after
winning an international custody case, saying their bill of
more than $163,000 in fees and expenses was simply too large
for a "garden variety" custody battle. . . . "I simply
cannot accept or justify an attorneys’ fee award of this
size in a case of this nature," U.S. District Judge Lawrence
F. Stengel wrote in his
11-page opinion in Clarke v. Clarke.
. . . Stengel said the fee petition from Fox Rothschild
"provides no real discussion of why five attorneys were
necessary to present this case." . . . Although the firm
argued that each of the five lawyers handled "an integral
and necessary part" of the case, Stengel was unimpressed,
saying: "We might add 'excessive and overwrought' to
'integral and necessary' as adjectives used to describe the
'management' of this case."
CALIFORNIA
Anti-marriage bullying = 'epitome of intolerance'
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow
12-12-08 --
Pacific Justice Institute (PJI)
is vowing to support anyone intimidated for their support of
Proposition 8, California's recently approved constitutional
amendment protecting traditional marriage. . . . The
Institute is offering the assistance in the wake of threats
to the safety and livelihoods of people and groups that
voted for the amendment or contributed to it. Founder Brad
Dacus cites a San Francisco client's case. . . . "She was
fired from her job simply and solely because it was
disclosed that she gave a financial contribution to support
Proposition 8," Dacus states. . . . Several other cases have
come to his firm's attention involving the same
circumstance, details of which cannot be discussed pending
confidential settlement negotiations. But according to the
attorney, "tactics of fear and intimidation" have been
employed against individuals, businesses, and churches that
supported the ballot measure -- and he finds that completely
unacceptable.
NEW
JERSEY
Gay marriage could become a big campaign issue next year
By Claire Heininger, Star-Ledger Staff
12-11-08 -- New
Jersey's civil unions law "hasn't done enough to narrow the
gap" and same-sex marriage should be established in New
Jersey "sooner rather than later," Gov. Jon Corzine said
yesterday. . . . The Democratic governor urged the
Legislature to "seriously review" a report released
yesterday by the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission
that said civil unions have failed to grant full rights to
same-sex couples and that urged the state to quickly enact
same-sex marriage. . . . The report, the major conclu sions
of which were reported in The Star-Ledger yesterday, likened
denying same-sex couples the right to marry to racial
segregation laws imposed against African-Americans. . . .
"Indeed, the commission found the opposite -- that civil
unions may have widened that gap and fostered inequity by
creating a separate class of relationships," Cor zine said
in a statement. "While this administration is focused
squarely on the economic crisis for the foreseeable future,
it's clear that this issue of civil rights must be addressed
sooner rather than later."
FLORIDA
Ex-wife's alimony cut off because she has cellmate
By Susan Spencer-Wendel, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
12-10-08 -- The bitter
world of divorce and alimony took a novel twist Wednesday. .
. . Andrew Craissati of Palm Beach Gardens had challenged
paying alimony to his former wife, Patricia, arguing that
their agreement called for him to pay only until her
remarriage or if she "cohabitated" with another person for
more than three months. . . . Patricia Craissati, 48, was
later sentenced to prison. . . . The 4th District Court of
Appeal ruled Wednesday that she is indeed "cohabitating" -
with her cellmate. . . . Two members of the three-judge
panel concurred and ordered her alimony payments stopped. A
third dissented, writing Craissati's involuntary assignment
to a cellmate is not cohabitation. "I would affirm the trial
court's reasoning that this is an absurd result," wrote
Judge Larry Klein. . . . The couple divorced in 2001. In
2005, Patricia Craissati was sentenced to nine years in
prison for a DUI accident which severely injured two men.
She is at Hillsborough Correctional Institution on the west
coast. . . . Her attorney, Steven Cripps, said when he first
heard of the ex-husband's argument that she was cohabitating
with a cellmate he said: "Are you kidding me? You are going
to take advantage of this situation and do this?" . . .
Cripps says she's been receiving just over $2,000 a month in
alimony while in prison. He said he will ask for a rehearing
before the appeals court.
NEW JERSEY
98 warrants served on deadbeat parents
By Bob Jordan • Staff Writer
12-10-08 -- The
Monmouth County Sheriff's Office served 98 warrants to those
owing more than $1 million in child support during a
statewide nonsupport sweep over three days last week,
authorities said. . . . The sweep, which included the
participation of all 21 county sheriffs' offices and
concluded last Thursday, was conducted in cooperation with
the New Jersey Department of Family Development, Office of
Child Support Services and the Probation Division. . . .
Targets were noncustodial parents who failed to pay
court-ordered child support, as well as parents who missed
court hearings to establish orders for child support or
medical support, according to Monmouth County Sheriff Kim
Guadagno. . . . During the sweep, officers responded to
unrelated criminal activity that netted four arrests.
IOWA
Marriage heading to court
By Rod Boshart, The Gazette
12-8-08 -- When the
state Supreme Court convenes to hear competing sides argue a
legal case, most Iowans usually don't think party time. . .
. But the hearing Tuesday that is spurring "watch parties"
in Iowa City, Ames and Des Moines for Iowans interested in
the outcome of a challenge to the state's traditional
marriage law is hardly judicial business as usual. . . . The
75 minutes attorneys will spend presenting the legal
justifications for upholding or overturning Iowa's Defense
of Marriage Act will be witnessed by about 130 spectators
granted access to the Iowa Judicial Building and a
wide-reaching virtual audience tuning into history via live
audio-video streams.
NEW YORK
Court Refuses to Force Sale of Marital Home Where Dogs Have
'Run of the House'
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
12-8-08 --
A husband who claimed his wife deliberately thwarted the
sale of the marital residence by acquiring dogs and
"allowing them the run of the house" cannot ask a court to
intervene and force the sale, a New York state judge has
ruled. . . . In
Shammah v. Shammah,
202739-08, Supreme Court Justice Vito M. DeStefano of Nassau County also reminded the
husband's lawyer of his "ethical obligation to cite
applicable law to the court." . . . Last year, Richard and
Barbara Shammah executed a separation agreement that noted
their house had been on the market for $479,000 but agreed
to drop the price to $449,000. Under the agreement, Mr.
Shammah was responsible for all mortgage and property tax
payments on the New Hyde Park house until the property was
sold. . . . In October, Mr. Shammah sued for breach of
contract, claiming his wife "fail[ed] to cooperate with real
estate brokers ... fail[ed] to maintain the property in a
clean and neat condition, and ... refus[ed] to execute a
contract of sale with a bona fide purchaser."
NEW
JERSEY
A NJ Court Determines That A Cause Of Action For Parental
Alienation Exists
by Sandra C. Fava, NJ Family Law Blog
12-3-08 -- In a recent
trial court opinion issued by the Superior Court in Hudson County, Judge Gallipoli
recognized that parents in NJ may have a right to collect
damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress
when their relationships with their children are poisoned by
former spouses or even grandparents who partake in
alienating behaviors. . . . In a November 21, 2008 trial
court decision, the court recognized the right of one parent
to sue another, as well as grandparents, for what is known
as the intentional infliction of emotional distress. In
this particular case, the father sued the mother and
maternal grandparents because they had alleged that the
father sexually abused the children. The suit alleges that
the ex-wife and her parents began alienating the children
from the father during the pre-divorce separation in 2006.
The defendants allegedly told the children, court-appointed
psychiatrists and law enforcement officials that the father
was a sex addict and had molested the children in the past,
the suit says. It also says the children are afraid to
sleep at their father's home because they have been told
they are in danger of being sexually abused.
November 2008
GEORGIA
Ga. High Court Sponsors Billboards Pushing Marriage to Fight
Crime
Bill Hendrick, Fulton County Daily Report
11-24-08 --
A dozen billboards around the state that urge Georgians to
"Get Married, Stay Married" are sponsored not by a church or
family-values group but by the Supreme Court of Georgia
through its Commission on Children, Marriage and Family Law.
. . . Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears said that the
48-foot-wide, 14-foot-tall billboards are one of the few
things a jurist can do to battle high crime rates, high
divorce rates and low numbers of fathers raising their kids.
. . . Along with the "Get Married, Stay Married" slogan,
each sign shows a happy-looking mother, father and child and
one of two messages: "Children do better with parents
together" or "For Children's Sake." . . . "We paid $50,000
to get about $500,000 worth of billboard space to send this
vital message," Sears said, noting that the costs of the
billboards themselves were paid by the Georgia Bar
Foundation and "not state money." The billboard space was
donated by the
Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia,
which donates unused billboard space to charitable, civic
and governmental organizations.
Wanting to Divorce, But Unable to Afford It
By Alex Johnson
11-23-08 -- The
economic crisis may be doing what pastors, family therapists
and matrimonial counselors have long struggled to
accomplish: keeping troubled marriages together. . . .
Marriage counselors and divorce lawyers nationwide say more
distressed couples are putting off divorce because the cost
of splitting up is prohibitive in a time of stagnant
salaries, plummeting home values and rising unemployment. .
. . While the stress of economic uncertainty often worsens
already shaky unions, it also can make couples more
financially dependent on each other, said Pamela Smock, a
researcher at the Population Studies Center at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. . . . “Anything of
this magnitude that’s going to affect millions of people
does not bode well for all sorts of families,” she said. “It
could keep unhappy couples together.”
New FMLA Rules Will Create More Confusion and Litigation,
Attorneys Warn
Tresa Baldas, The National Law Journal
11-20-08 --
The Family Medical Leave Act, which has long been a source
of litigation and confusion in the workplace, has undergone
major changes for the first time in its 15-year history. . .
. Those changes, however,
may cause still more confusion and litigation,
attorneys note. . . . The
U.S. Department of Labor this week published revised
FMLA regulations,
detailed in more than 750-pages, that explain how and when
employees can take unpaid leave to care for a sick relative
or themselves. The new rules, which take effect on Jan. 16,
were a response to complaints by employers and employees
alike. . . . Employers have long argued that workers are
abusing FMLA, especially in the area of intermittent leave.
Employees counter that they're unfairly being denied FMLA,
and, are often retaliated against for taking it.
Decisions of the United States Supreme Court Upholding
Parental Rights as “Fundamental”
by Christopher J. Klicka, Esq.
The Supreme Court of the United States has traditionally and
continuously upheld the principle that parents have the
fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of
their children. A review of cases taking up the issue shows
that the Supreme Court has unwaveringly given parental
rights the highest respect and protection possible. What
follows are some of the examples of the Court’s past
protection of parental rights. . . . In Meyer v. Nebraska,1
the Court invalidated a state law which prohibited foreign
language instruction for school children because the law did
not “promote” education but rather “arbitrarily and
unreasonably” interfered with “the natural duty of the
parent to give his children education suitable to their
station in life...”
2 The court
chastened the legislature for attempting “materially to
interfere… with the power of parents to control the
education of their own.”
3 This decision
clearly affirmed that the Constitution protects the
preferences of the parent in education over those of the
State. In the same decision, the Supreme Court also
recognized that the right of the parents to delegate their
authority to a teacher in order to instruct their children
was protected within the liberty of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
4 . . .
Furthermore, the Court emphasized, “The Fourteenth Amendment
guarantees the right of the individual ... to establish a
home and bring up children, to worship God according to his
own conscience.”5
TEXAS
Adult children ask judge to divorce their father from his
second wife
By Jon Nielsen / The Dallas Morning News
11-17-08 -- Claude
Thomas married Susana Martinez Ramirez in 2001, but he kept
it hidden from his adult children for at least two years. .
. . When they finally found out, they were shocked. That
shock turned to anger when his four children realized that
most of his estate – and their inheritance – had vanished. .
. . Now the children are asking an Ellis County family court judge to
divorce the 45-year-old Mrs. Thomas from their 87-year-old
father and award custody of the ailing man to one of his
sons. . . . Mrs. Thomas' attorney said his client is
entitled to Mr. Thomas' money because they're married. But
his children say she is taking advantage of Mr. Thomas,
spending his money on her own children and their father,
Santiago Diaz. . . . At issue for the court is what's best
for Mr. Thomas and whether he's capable of making his own
decisions.
CALIFORNIA
California's same-sex marriage case affects all of us
It forces us to consider why
we have rights.
By Kermit Roosevelt, Christian Science Monitor
11-14-08 --
Philadelphia - What now for California? In May, its Supreme
Court announced a right to same-sex marriage. Gays and
lesbians rushed to take advantage of the opportunity; by
early November, 18,000 such marriages had been performed.
But on Nov. 5, they stopped. By a 52-47 percent margin,
California voters approved Proposition 8, an amendment to
the state constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage. . . .
Immediately, gay rights supporters filed lawsuits asking to
overturn the ruling. Critics are calling Proposition 8 an
illegal constitutional "revision," fundamentally altering
the guarantee of equality – not a more limited "amendment."
. . . This suit raises a serious question: When should a
majority have the power to take away a constitutional right
granted by a court? . . . It's a question that forces us to
think about why we have constitutional rights in the first
place, and why they are enforced by judges. But it is not
simply a theoretical puzzle. All of us enjoy constitutional
rights, and most of us are at some point in a minority. All
of us could be affected. . . . American constitutional
practice has generally been to expand rights over time, both
by amendment and by judicial decision. Amendments to the
federal Constitution, for example, gave women and minorities
the right to vote. Judicial decisions have expanded the
constitutional guarantee of equality to protect more and
more groups. Some of these decisions remain intensely
controversial, but none have been overruled by a federal
amendment.
NEVADA
Justice of the Peace may be charged with domestic violence
By Jeff
German
|
Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo |
11-14-08 --
Metro Police are recommending a misdemeanor domestic violence charge
against Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo over an
early morning fight this week with his wife, Sue, who is the sister
of District Judge Michelle Leavitt. . . . "We're reviewing the case
to deternmine whether to prosecute him," District Attorney David
Roger said late Friday. . . . Roger said police are asking that one
count of misdemeanor domestic battery be filed against Abbatangelo,
who has been a justice of the peace since 1996. . . . Abbatangelo,
the current vice chief justice of the peace, allegedly choked his
wife at her home during an argument about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, law
enforcement sources said.
CALIFORNIA
A small army of attorneys file amicus briefs in Proposition
8 case
Amanda Bronstad / Staff reporter
11-12-08 --
Dozens of lawyers filed friend of the court briefs on Monday
in support of a petition before the California Supreme Court
seeking to overturn Proposition 8, a state constitutional
ban on gay marriage that passed on Nov. 4 by a 52.3% to
47.7% vote. . . . The petition was filed on behalf of six
same-sex couples by Shannon Minter, legal director of the
National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, and
Gregory D. Phillips, a partner in the Los Angeles office of
Munger, Tolles & Olson. Strauss v. Horton, No. S168047
(Calif.). In a separate case earlier this year, Minter
successfully argued before the California Supreme Court that
same sex couples have the fundamental right to marry.
CALIFORNIA
California Family Law Attorney Issues Statement as
Proposition 8 Passes in the State
Proposition 8 eliminating the
right of same-sex couples to marry passes as a
constitutional amendment in California So…….. Now What? A
legal analysis surrounding the legal ramifications of
passing Proposition 8
PRWEB
“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or
recognized in California.”
11-5-08 -- As reported
today by the Wall Street Journal California voters passed
Proposition 8. According to California Family Law Attorney
Veronika Melamed of the law offices of Feinberg & Waller,
A.P.C., the measure amends the California Constitution to
specify that only marriage between a man and a woman is
valid and recognized in California. Now that the voters of
California have passed Proposition 8, and amended the
State's Constitution, what does this mean for the state and
for the approximately 18,000 same-sex marriages that have
been solemnized since June 17, 2008? And, what can
proponents of same-sex marriage do now? . . . The voters of
California have chosen to amend the state's Constitution to
explicitly provide that, "Only marriage between a man and a
woman is valid or recognized in California." Coming in
reaction to the state's Supreme Court ruling allowing
same-sex marriage in California, opponents of same-sex
marriage sought assurance that no future court decisions
would again grant same-sex marriage rights in California. .
. . The California Supreme Court is delegated with the task
of upholding the state's Constitution and assessing whether
the laws enacted by the Legislature and the voters comply
with the Constitution. In carrying out this task, the
Supreme Court's decision in May 2008, granting same-sex
couples the right to marry, was based on its interpretation
of the California Constitution and whether Family Code
Sections 300 and 308.5, defining marriage as, "between a man
and a woman" comported with the Equal Protection Clause of
the state's Constitution.
 Download
this press release as an Adobe PDF document.
NEVADA
Mack seeks to invalidate murdered wife’s divorce agreement
By Geoff Dornan, Nevada
Appeal Capitol Bureau
11-5-08
-- An attorney for
Darren Mack told the Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday his
divorce settlement with his wife, whom he is convicted of
killing, cannot be enforced because she died before it was
finalized. . . . Julia Islas said District Judge Chuck
Weller never finalized the agreement because it didn’t have
the agreement of Mack’s mother, who owned the majority of
the family’s business and assets. . . . Mack was convicted
of stabbing his wife, Charla, to death, then shooting Judge
Weller in the chest with a high-powered rifle from a
building across the river from the courthouse. At the time,
the two were engaged in a bitter divorce proceeding, with
Weller as presiding judge. . . . “Nothing that happened
before Charla Mack died resulted in an enforceable decree,”
Islas told the high court.
Alec Baldwin on Divorce, Children and Reconciliation
Actor
Says Many Divorce Judges and Lawyers are 'Corrupt,
Inefficient, Lazy, Stupid'
In his new book, "A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through
Fatherhood and Divorce,"
Baldwin chronicles his journey for other fathers who are
seeking custody and struggling for justice in family court.
He says it's time to do something about the business of
divorce in America and, in typical Baldwin fashion, he doesn't mince words. . . . "I don't care if the judges and
the lawyers die of heart attacks in the process of getting
their job done. They are corrupt, inefficient, lazy, stupid
-- they're the most God-awful people." . . .
Baldwin believes that many
family court lawyers and their manipulations and delays make
the child custody duel much worse than it needs to be. "The
judges are like pit bosses in Vegas casinos. Their job is to
make sure everybody stays at the table and keeps gambling."
NEW
YORK
Law Firm Forms 'Karma Committees' for Doing Good Deeds
Peter Page, The National Law Journal
11-3-08 --
With the Wall Street meltdown and law firm closings
dominating the headlines, this may be a good time to build
up some good
karma. Denver-based
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
has created "karma committees" at its offices for staff and
attorneys to choose collective good deeds to work on, such
as delivering flowers and candy on Valentine's Day to
hospitalized children. . . . "There is not a high
satisfaction rate, long term, for lawyers. People get burned
out," said Bruce James, the managing partner and chief
executive officer. "When I joined Brownstein in the mid-80s
I was struck by how satisfied and happy the partners were. I
was convinced it was because of their participation in the
community."
October 2008
Attorney Husband Who Misled Wife About Contract Change Gets
Benefit of Original Agreement
Husband struck separation
agreement clause at wife's request, knowing modification was
invalid; court says original separation agreement applies
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
10-30-08 --
A Long Island, N.Y., attorney is not obliged to pay $52,000
a year in maintenance to his ex-wife even though he
acknowledged crossing out a cohabitation clause freeing him
to stop the payments from a copy of the separation agreement
he had negotiated with her, a state judge has ruled. . . .
In
A.K.H. v. B.H.,
200306/07, Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey S. Brown of
Nassau County also granted the
attorney, Alan K. Hirschhorn, a divorce from his wife,
Barbara. . . . The names of the parties were redacted in
Brown's decision. They were identified by the New York Law
Journal through other court records.
NEW
YORK
Editorial: The judge who didn't act like one
Schenectady Gazette
10-29-08 --
Justice was done yesterday in the case of Fulton County
Family Court Judge David Jung, as the state Court of Appeals
unanimously upheld a state Commission on Judicial Conduct
order removing him from the bench. And, significantly, it
was real justice, with Jung afforded the full spectrum of
his due process rights — rights that he routinely denied
those whose cases came before him. . . . Note that we said
“whose cases came before him,” because that was a big part
of the problem. In three of the five cases reviewed by the
Court of Appeals, the defendants didn’t actually get a
chance to appear before Jung — because they were in jail and
Jung had an unwritten policy that they must formally ask him
to “produce” them. The court summons said nothing about this
policy, and even when a family member or a lawyer made Jung
aware that the defendant was incarcerated and wanted to
appear in court, Jung wouldn’t do what fairness and justice
demand and bring them there. Instead he found them in
contempt or declared them in default — and then, in
absentia, gave them more jail time or took away their
parental rights. In the other two cases, Jung used his own
rules to deny defendants counsel, one of the most
fundamental rights.
NEW JERSEY
When Palimony's at Stake, Three's a Crowd
Appeals court reverses
damages award for woman who cohabited with a man and his
wife, finding no promise of support was made
Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
10-28-08 --
If any practical legal principle can be extracted from the
gnarled facts of
Bayne v. Johnson v. Johnson,
it is probably this:
You can't get palimony if you cohabit with a married man and
his wealthy, elderly wife and then leave him because he
won't leave her. . . . A New Jersey appeals court on Monday,
though finding this arrangement a marriage-type
relationship, reversed a trial judge's grant of palimony
damages, concluding there was no express or implied promise
of lifetime support. . . . "Palimony is the enforcement of a
broken promise made for future support," Appellate Division
Judge
Donald Collester
wrote. "It is not recompense for years spent in a failed
relationship" nor "an economic substitute for opportunities
that may have been lost or expectations that were
unfulfilled." . . . The ruling cost Fiona Bayne the $384,000
awarded her at the trial level, leaving her only with an
equity share in a condominium in which she had invested. . .
. The court gave no quarter to Bayne's argument that she
gave up her romantic commitment to Earl Johnson because he
refused to divorce his wife, on whom he was economically
dependent. . . . Throughout Bayne's relationship with
Johnson, he was married to Carolyn Johnson, a woman 20 years
his senior, who was the beneficiary of a spendthrift trust,
valued at $11 million, that pays her $200,000 to $300,000 a
year.
NEW
YORK
N.Y. Judge Grants Divorce to Lesbians Wed in Massachusetts
Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal
10-24-08 --
A Manhattan judge has ruled that a same-sex couple wed in
Massachusetts can obtain a divorce in New York. . . .
Concluding that the divorce action could proceed between the
two women, who were New York residents at the time of their
August 2005 marriage, Supreme Court Justice Rosalyn Richter
cited
Martinez v. County of Monroe,
50 AD 3d 189 (4th Dept. 2008), and Beth R. v. Donna M.,
350284/07, in which New York courts recognized same-sex
marriages contracted in Canada. . . . The judge also noted
that her decision was consistent with recent "political
developments," including Gov. David A. Paterson's May
directive that state executive-branch agencies recognize
same-sex marriages solemnized outside of New York.
MINNESOTA
Bar Association panel paving way for gay marriage
By Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune
10-20-08 -- Below the
radar, the groundwork is being laid to change the meaning of
marriage in Minnesota. . . . The new "Rights of Unmarried
Couples Task Force" of the Minnesota State Bar Association
is the latest step in this process. . . . Here's how the Bar
Association defined the task force's mission: "In light of
the disparity between legal rights and protections available
to same-sex couples as compared to different-sex couples,"
the task force will "review the current state of Minnesota
law and ... make recommendations as to desirable changes, if
any, in the law to address this disparity." . . . "The task
force's goal is to ensure that Minnesota law treats all
people equally and with fairness," said attorney David
Ahlvers, a task force co-chairman. "It is not to make
recommendations on equal marriage rights for same-sex
couples and heterosexual couples."
PENNSYLVANIA
State passes buck, kids of divorce pay
By Nancy Eshelman of The Patriot-News
10-19-08 -- Opponents
call it a tax on the smallest and most vulnerable citizens.
The state claims it's simply one more federal mandate that
can't be wrung out of a budget already being squeezed on
every side. . . . Whatever you call it, some parents said
it's just not fair. . . . Parents such as Amber Sanders said
the $25 annual fee being charged to custodial parents is
"taxing kids." . . . Sanders has written to her state and
federal representatives. She's complained to friends. But
she finds sympathy -- such as the court-ordered child
support for her 6-year-old daughter -- hard to come by. . .
. "Now you're going to tax me for something I'm not going to
get in the first place," she said. . . . The fee began with
a federal law requiring states' help in recouping some of
the costs for providing child support enforcement services.
States were given the option of collecting the money from
one of the parents or paying it themselves.
CALIFORNIA
Court Decision Highlights Obama-Biden Opposition to Civil
Rights
Roger F. Gay
10-16-08 --
Joe Biden has called his contributions to and passage of the
Violence Against Women Act the proudest moment of his
career. Barack Obama has voiced his support and pride in his
running mate in relation to the act repeatedly, even in
presidential debates. But civil rights groups oppose the
law, which was dealt yet another blow this week by a
California appellate court. . . . Civil rights have suffered
greatly over the past few decades due to over-zealous
federal involvement in state and private issues. Acceptance
by courts requires a makeshift reclassification to the
social policy arena where individual rights no longer apply.
The fundamental, formally established features in
Constitutional law are replaced by group-oriented
culture-war rhetoric and propaganda, managed by political
whim. . . . The title of the act itself advertises its
prejudicial nature – a legislative decision regarding guilt
and innocence of the people who will come face to face with
its force. The act was signed into law by Bill Clinton in
1994; at a time when anti-male, and particularly anti-father
propaganda was building to a screeching crescendo. All men
are evil. All women are victims. All heterosexual behavior
is rape. were among the well-known refrains. The myth of the
“deadbeat
dad” drove dramatic
government expansions and intrusions in a new welfare
super-state. States were tasked with implementing the
federally defined laws.
NEW
YORK
Single parents in NY must now pay $25 fee to collect child
support
CBS 6 News
10-15-08 -- Single
parents in New York state are scratching their heads over a
new policy requiring them to pay $25 in order to collect
their child support payments. . . . One of several viewers
who emailed CBS 6 News regarding the new fee explained, "The
Governor has sent letters to single working mothers saying
they must pay $25 to have their child support collected...
they must submit a form agreeing to this fee or their
benefits are not forwarded to them." . . . "Don't we have a
child support agency that is paid by our taxes to already
enforce these court-ordered payments?," the viewer
continued. . . . That $25 fee is actually a federal
requirement -- the state simply collects it for the federal
government, according to Michael Hayes, spokesperson for the
Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. . . . The fee
had been implemented in 2005 as part of the Federal Deficit
Reduction Act passed by Congress that year, but until now,
New York state did not assess the fee.
CONNECTICUT
Connecticut's Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Draws on California's
Mike McKee, The Recorder
10-14-08 --
Gay couples in Connecticut might not realize it, but they
owe a debt of gratitude to the California Supreme Court. . .
. In a 4-3
ruling Friday that legalized same-sex marriage
in that New England state, the Connecticut Supreme Court
relied heavily on the
California court's own 5-month-old gay-marriage ruling
to reach many of its conclusions. . . . In fact, the
Connecticut court's decision -- which made that state the
third in the nation to OK same-sex marriages -- directly
named California's high court nine times and separately
cited its May 15 ruling in In re Marriage Cases, 08 C.D.O.S.
5820, 15 times. Additionally, it referred to the state of
California, its constitution
and its case law another seven times.
CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Supreme Court legalizes 'gay marriage'
by Michael Foust
10-10-08 --
(BP)--Connecticut became the third state in the nation to
legalize "gay marriage" Oct. 10 when its Supreme Court
issued a much-anticipated ruling declaring that homosexual
couples are guaranteed the right to "marry" under the state
constitution. . . . The 4-3 decision follows a similar one
by the California Supreme Court in May and a landmark ruling
by the Massachusetts high court in 2003. All three rulings
involved one-vote margins. . . . The Connecticut court
overruled a lower court decision that had upheld the state's
marriage laws. . . . Conservatives in Connecticut have few
options, although their best one will appear on the Nov. 4
ballot, when voters will be asked whether a constitutional
convention should be called. The state constitution requires
the question to appear on the ballot every 20 years.
Connecticut High Court Says Same-Sex Partners Have Right to
Marry
New York Lawyer, By Dave Collins, The Associated Press
10-10-08 -- A divided
Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples
have the right to marry in Connecticut. . . . The court
ruled 4-3 Friday that gay and lesbian couples cannot be
denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution,
and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those
couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples. . . .
Justices overturned a lower court ruling and ordered that
court to find in favor of the plaintiffs.
Click this link to access the decision (pdf)
Infertility patients caught in the legal, moral and
scientific embryo debate
Tough decisions about what to
do with unused embryos lead to a bigger question: When does
life begin?
By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times
Staff Writer
10-6-08 -- Six years
of frustration and heartbreak. That's how Gina Rathan
recalls her attempts to become pregnant. . . . Finally, she
and her husband, Cheddi, conceived a daughter, now 3,
through in vitro fertilization. About a year later, she
became pregnant with a second child, naturally. Their family
was complete. . . . Then, a year ago, the Fountain Valley
couple received a bill reminding them that their infertility
journey wasn't quite over. They owed $750 to preserve three
frozen embryos they'd created but hadn't used. . . . "I
don't see them as not being life yet," says Gina Rathan, 42,
a pharmaceutical sales representative. "I thought, 'How can
I discard them when I have a beautiful child from that IVF
cycle?' " . . . Many other former infertility patients also
appear to be grappling over the fate of embryos they have no
plans to use: An estimated 500,000 embryos are in
cryopreservation in the United States.
OHIO
Youngstown Attorney Admits Bigamy
WFMJ
10-2-08 -- Youngstown
attorney admits he was legally married to two women at the
same time.. and his future as a lawyer could be in jeopardy.
The Ohio Supreme Court Board of Commissioners on Grievances
and Discipline is considering a complaint against Attorney
Dennis DiMartino.
NEW
YORK
Confidential Divorce Papers Must Be Disclosed in Related
Malpractice Suit, Court Rules
Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal
10-1-08 --
A doctor who accused his former lawyer of botching his
divorce cannot keep the papers submitted in the underlying
matrimonial proceedings confidential, a New York appeals
court has ruled. . . . In an unsigned opinion, a unanimous
panel of the Appellate Division, 1st Department, has held
that the "shield afforded" by Domestic Relations Law §235,
which requires that papers filed in a matrimonial action be
designated as confidential, "must, in this instance, give
way to the disclosure of relevant evidence needed for the
defense" against malpractice claims, "including records
filed in the divorce proceeding that may provide evidence to
rebut plaintiff's contentions of liability and the extent of
his financial loss." . . . However, the panel held in
Kodsi v. Gee,
4089N, that the lower court "abused its discretion" when it
denied an order to protect the confidentiality of Robert E.
Kodsi's tax returns.
September 2008
WASHINGTON
State bar association supports same-sex marriages
Seattle Times
9-29-08 -- The
Washington State Bar Association is now on record in favor
of equal marriage rights for same-sex couples as a matter of
practicality for lawyers and of fairness in society. . . .
The resolution was adopted unanimously by the group's
14-member Board of Governors despite considerable opposition
from association members, board president Mark Johnson of
Seattle said. . . . "We felt it was appropriate to take a
position," Johnson told the Tri-City Herald. "There
certainly will be people who will be distressed." . . . As
part of the state's judicial branch, the bar association is
authorized by the state Supreme Court to license and
discipline lawyers, and membership is required for lawyers
to maintain their licenses. The Board of Governors sets
policy and meets once every six weeks.
NEW
YORK
Client's 'Frivolous' Motion in Divorce Case Leads to
Attorney Sanction
Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal
9-24-08 --
A Westchester County, N.Y., judge has taken an attorney to
task for standing "steadfast and blindly behind" an
embittered matrimonial client's recusal motion and her
"seemingly uncompromised and unaudited fifty-three page
diatribe" against the court for rejecting her bid to
relocate to Texas with her children. . . . In D.I v. S.I.,
14749-06, New York Supreme Court Justice Lewis J. Lubell
said that to grant Sally Reed Impastato's recusal motion
would be to allow her to "'judge-shop,' and thereby benefit
from her own post-hearing attack on not only the Court's
determination ... but, in a most inappropriate and unfounded
manner, the Court itself and the Attorney for the Children."
. . . Concluding that what he described as "frivolous"
conduct "shared by defendant and counsel, albeit to varying
degrees," the judge slapped attorney Clement S. Patti Jr.
with a $2,500 sanction and ordered Ms. Impastato to pay more
than $7,200 in attorney fees. . . . The case illustrates
what can happen to a lawyer who becomes caught up in the
volatile tug of war that frequently occurs between litigants
enmeshed in a messy divorce.
NEW
YORK
NY BigLaw Partner Sues His Wife for Giving Him Herpes
New York Lawyer, By Brian Baxter, The American Lawyer
9-23-08 -- The New
York Post reports that Frederick Tanne, a senior corporate
partner in Kirkland & Ellis's New York office, is suing his
wife, her lover, and her doctor father, after contracting
herpes because of his wife's alleged infidelity. . . . The
48-year-old Tanne claims that his wife, Amy, has had
numerous extramarital affairs. After discovering his wife's
most recent dalliance with a Westchester County accountant
when Tanne came across her herpes-treatment prescription in
their medicine cabinet, the Kirkland partner filed for
divorce and moved out of their home in Mount Kisco, N.Y.,
and into a Park Avenue apartment in May. . .
. Tanne filed a civil suit in New York State Supreme Court
in Manhattan last week, alleging that Amy Tanne -- who also
appears to be a lawyer -- knowingly gave him herpes. Tanne
claims that Amy, 46, asked her father Samuel Messing to
prescribe her Valtrex once she discovered she was infected.
Suits, Legislation Over a Civil Right to Counsel Grow Across
U.S.
Tresa Baldas, The National Law Journal
9-19-08 --
Through litigation and legislation, a growing number of
private and public interest lawyers across the country are
pushing to secure those with low incomes the right to
counsel in civil matters, including foreclosures, evictions
and child custody cases. . . . Legal aid groups are
under-funded and overworked, they argue, and pro bono
services aren't enough to fill the gap for the millions who
go unrepresented. . . . "We can't do it alone," said Kathryn
Grant Madigan, immediate past president of the
New York State Bar Association,
who for the past year has been hitting the radio airwaves
with public service announcements calling for a civil right
to counsel. . . . "No one should lose their child because
they did not have effective counsel," said Madigan, partner
at
Levene Gouldin & Thompson
in Binghamton, N.Y. "This is a significant
social movement, and it has spread indeed all over the
country. We've been beating this drum for so long and hard,
and we've gotten to the place now where everyone is starting
to pay attention."
ILLINOIS
Couple can't sue for wrongful death over embryo destruction
By Chris Rizo, Legal Newsline
9-14-08 -- A couple
cannot sue a fertility clinic for wrongful death because it
destroyed their embryos, an Illinois court has ruled. . . .
A state appeals court ruled Friday that Allison Miller and
Todd Parrish cannot seek damages from the Center for Human
Reproduction in Chicago. . . . The couple in
January 2000 created and stored nine embryos at the clinic.
When they called the center six months later to have the
embryos transferred to another facility they were told the
embryos had been destroyed. . . . They sued under the
Wrongful Death Act, which provides for monetary compensation
from someone who harms a fetus in the womb by an attack or
accident. . . . Two judges had ruled the couple could not
sue under the law. Then Cook County Circuit Judge Jeffrey
Lawrence reversed their decisions. . . . The appeals court
decision Friday reverses Lawrence's decision.
FLORIDA
New Florida Custody Law Won't Change Anything
By: Dean Tong NewsWithViews.com
9-12-08 --
Florida dads and your new pro-father organization
Fathers Supporting Fathers
take heed - the new child custody law that takes effect
October 1 is not what it's cracked up to be. Let's take a
look at what Florida legislators have done to allegedly
improve the maxim "the best parent is both parents." . . .
The new law contains different language as the current/old
terms visitation, custody, custodial parent, primary
residential parent and non-custodial parent are gone. In are
the terms parenting plan and time-sharing schedule. Quoting
the new language - The Division of Statutory Revision is
directed to re-designate Chapter 61, Florida Statutes, as
"Dissolution of Marriage; Support; Time-Sharing." Please
see the entire bill here
for Ch. 2008-61. . . . That should appease, pacify and
placate future divorced dads of Florida! Instead of being
labeled visitors you can now be called time-sharers. Dads -
You are now equivalent to high-rise condos! The new law is
redundant, too, eradicating "the tender years doctrine"
(which supposedly has been off of the books for over 20
years now in favor of the children's best interest) and
adding "shared parental responsibility" (which is already in
place).
WASHINGTON
Attorney general bars online divorce company
By Chris Rizo, Legal
Newsline
9-11-08 --
The Washington state
attorney general's office has blocked an Internet-based
company from providing divorce services in the Evergreen
State. . . . Attorney General Rob McKenna's office claims
that Divorce Online was offering paralegal services that
were not overseen by a state-licensed attorney, as required
by Washington law. . . . The attorney general's office began
investigating the company after receiving a bevy of
complaints from dissatisfied customers who said they did not
receive promised services and refunds were difficult to
obtain. . . . The Delaware-based firm, which charged $249 to
help customers fill out forms, agreed Wednesday to stop
offering services in Washington. The firm has also agreed to
provide refunds to customers who complained to the attorney
general's office.
NEW
JERSEY
The Three Pony Rule and a New York Giant
Linda’s Law Blog
9-5-08 --
In the 1990's, a Kansas Appellate Court opined on a child
support case involving parents of financial means that "no
child, no matter how wealthy the parents, needs to be
provided [with] more than three ponies." In that case, the
court was attempting to define what is reasonable especially
in cases where the family has access to virtually unlimited
wealth. . . . This week, the Appellate Division of the
Superior Court of New Jersey quoted the "three pony rule" in
a child support case involving Michael A. Strahan, a New
York Giants football player. You can read the complete
Opinion
here. . . .
Apparently, Michael met Jean in 1994. At the time, she
earned income as a model and a manager for a cosmetics
company in the neighborhood of approximately $70,000 per
year. They married in 1999 and become the parents of twin
girls in 2004. According to the Opinion, Jean signed a
Prenuptial Agreement prior to the marriage.
CALIFORNIA
Lawyer wants to split elderly newlyweds
(UPI)
9-3-08 -- The son of
an 88-year-old man is trying to dissolve his father's
marriage to an 86-year-old woman. . . . While a lawyer
serving as guardian for Herbert Woodward II says the
octogenarian has not been competent to enter any contract,
marital or otherwise, the past two years, the children of
Woodward's wife, Wani Bielinski, say the couple love each
other and should remain together, the San Diego
Union-Tribune reported Tuesday. . . . "I don't think
dementia affects love," said Bill Berwin of San Diego,
Bielinski's son. "These are deep emotions." . . . A judge in
Vista Superior Court is to hear arguments Thursday. . . .
Woodward and Bielinski met in an assisted-living facility in
Carlsbad. Bielinski's family says they married at the
courthouse in Vista in 2006 when one of Woodward's sons, who
had objected to the wedding, was away.
 
August
2008
NEW
JERSEY
'Three Pony Rule' Invoked to Cut Former NFL Player's Monthly
$18K Child Support
Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
August 27, 2008
8-27-08 --
Former New York Giants defensive end
Michael Strahan on
Tuesday won his appeal from an $18,000-a-month child support
obligation imposed in his 2006 divorce, which a New Jersey
appellate court found both exorbitant and unfairly
apportioned against him. . . . . The court, in
Strahan v. Strahan,
A-3747-06, said that the trial judge failed to make the
specific findings of fact necessary to sustain his decision
to add $200,000 a year to the $35,984 annual award that the
couple's twins girls are due under statutory guidelines. . .
. . While acknowledging there are unique problems with
determining the reasonable needs of children of high-earning
families, the court said trial judges should nevertheless
avoid overindulgence -- citing the doctrine of In re
Patterson, 920 P.2d 450 (Kan. App. 1996), that "no
child, no matter how wealthy the parents, needs to be
provided [with] more than three ponies."
NEW
JERSEY
Malpractice Claim Reinstated Against Norris McLaughlin in
Matrimonial Case
Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
8-22-08 --
A New Jersey appeals court reinstated a malpractice claim
Thursday against
Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus
and a pension specialist, saying the plaintiff kept alive
her right to sue by objecting to the outcome of her
matrimonial case. . . . The court relied on a 1992 state
Supreme Court ruling that a malpractice claim can proceed
even if the client accepts a settlement that could have been
considered fair. . . . The Appellate Division's unpublished
ruling in
Schachter, Trombadore, Offen, Stanton & Pavics v. Peters,
A-3174-06, rejected the Somerville, N.J., firm's argument
that the client's claims were barred by collateral estoppel
because she had exhausted her attempts to amend the final
judgment of divorce and qualified domestic relations order (QDRO).
. . . Trudi Peters retained Michael Stanton, of Schachter,
Trombadore, Offen, Stanton & Pavics in Bridgewater, N.J., in her divorce from John
Thornton Jr. The firm merged later with Norris McLaughlin in
2005.
FEDERAL
Congress Tags Child Support as Luxury Income; Collection
System an Economic Failure
Roger F. Gay
8-16-08 -- Fathers’
rights activists have complained about arbitrarily high
child support orders for almost two decades. Class action
suits were filed, the fathers’ rights movement grew, debates
broke out in academic journals, a few social scientists
demonstrated with calculations and documentation, some men
have committed suicide because they were unable to support
themselves, and a few serious investigative journalists
analyzed in depth. . . . Congress finally decided to act –
with a flat luxury tax on child support income. . . .
Starting next month, parents will see an “annual fee” of $25
deducted from child support payments as part of a new
federal law. It applies to families not in the welfare
entitlement system, but who have been forced into the
federal child support collection system. Child support money
is already taxed at the payer’s end as part of regular
income with no deduction.
NEW
JERSEY
Dina Matos gambled - and lost
By Angela Delli Santi, Associated Press
8-12-08 -- Dina Matos
took a calculated risk and lost. . . . Offered a settlement
said to top $300,000 early in divorce talks with her
husband, former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, Matos
turned it down. The four-year drama that ensued cost each a
half-million dollars and drained the well in the court of
public opinion. . . . "She got a little greedy," said
matrimonial lawyer Joshua Forman, who has watched the case
closely. "Plain and simple, the guy was governor of New
Jersey. He wasn't working for some huge corporation making a
lot of money." . . . What did Matos get for all the bother?
A lump sum payment of $110,000, which represents half the
assets McGreevey and Matos accumulated during the four years
they lived together as Mr. and Mrs., much of the time living
in the governor's mansion in Princeton.
NEW
JERSEY
Trial Court Judgment:
McGreevey v. McGreevey
Restraining Orders Can Be Straitjackets On Justice
by Glenn Sacks and Mike McCormick,
NewsWithViews.com
8-10-08 -- Women’s
advocates and the state Attorney General's office are
criticizing a new court ruling which will make it harder for
women to get restraining orders against their male partners.
Star-Ledger columnist Fran Wood, in her recent op-ed “Don't
soften protection for women,” called New Jersey’s Domestic
Violence Prevention Act “one of the best statutes in the
country,” and said the new ruling could “diminish the
ability of domestic violence victims to get the protection
they need.” . . . Certainly abused women need protection and
support, but there are many troubling aspects of the DVPA’s
restraining order provisions that merit judicial and/or
legislative redress.
NEW
YORK
Gay father kidnaps son, takes him to Israel
Jewish father calls
ex-husband, threatens, ‘You will never see him again’. State
Department asks Israel Police to help locate kidnapper, baby
Yaniv Halily, Israel News
8-10-08 -- The New
York police have defined this affair as “the first ever
kidnapping of a child of a same-sex couple.” A good Jewish
boy from Boston is suspected of kidnapping his son and
taking him to Israel. . . . E. arrived in New York a few
years ago as part of his job in a high-tech company. He met
29-year old J., who is also Jewish, and four years ago the
two were joined in marriage. . . . They flew to
Massachusetts, a state which permits homosexual marriage,
and conducted a very exclusive wedding ceremony in the
presence of their family and friends. . . . It seemed that
the two had created a completely normal familial lifestyle.
To complete the picture, the couple decided to adopt a
child. One of the couple’s female friends, who bore witness
to their yearning for a child, agreed to be the surrogate
mother and gave birth to their child two years ago.
CONNECTICUT
DCF documents altered in
abuse case
By: Connecticut DCF Watch
DCF workers here in Connecticut as well as all other states
lie about the child and parents as a matter of practice and
policy. Lying in the court record or DCF's written
narratives harms the children and parents. Lying by DCF
workers is no difference than the police lying in a case or
planting evidence. Here in Connecticut DCF worker Valerie
Miles knowingly and willingly lied that mom had drugs in the
house even though the police said to her NO drugs were
found. Miles refused to remove the lies and the Hartford
police arrested her for out right lies. Miles also
attempted to get a neighbor to lie suborning perjury. She
was also charged for that tampering with witnesses. . . .
DCF condones and approves of workers lying about children
and parents in order to get their way and to trigger the
federal Title IV-E funding. They couldn't care less if they
cause harm to children or parents. The Constitution
prohibits DCF workers from lying yet they disregard the law
in every single case.
www.connecticutDCFwatch.com
CALIFORNIA
Parents have the right to home school, state court says
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
8-8-08 -- A state
appeals court reversed itself today and ruled that parents
in California have the right to home school their children
even if they lack a teaching credential. . . . The Second
District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles had ruled Feb. 28
that the state's compulsory education law requires parents
to send their children to a full-time public or private
school or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.
The ruling caused an uproar among home-schooling advocates
and could have made truants out of an estimated 166,000
children in California who are taught at home by their
parents. . . . After hearing from an array of objectors that
included state education officials and Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, the court agreed to reconsider the case and
issued a new ruling today that reached the opposite
conclusion: State law allows home schooling, although
children can be required to attend school if they're being
abused or neglected at home.
NEW
YORK
Discovery Approved for Computer in Divorce Proceedings
Among the mistreatment
claims: a purported sexual relationship begun in an online
chat room
Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
8-8-08 -- A computer
recovered by a woman from the trunk of a family car is
subject to discovery in a matrimonial proceeding, a
Manhattan judge has ruled. The woman's husband opposed
allowing her to use information gleaned from the laptop,
arguing she had improperly "seized" his personal,
work-issued computer. . . . But New York Supreme Court
Justice Saralee Evans found that the wife had broken no laws
by accessing the computer and threw out the husband's motion
to suppress.
GEORGIA
Appeals Court Candidates Confront Anti-Abortion Group's
Survey
Alyson M. Palmer, Fulton County Daily Report
8-6-08 -- It's
unlikely the Georgia Court of Appeals will ever issue a
ruling on whether the state or federal constitution contains
a right to abortion. But a Georgia anti-abortion group still
wants to know what the seven candidates seeking an open seat
on the court think on the hot-button subject. . . . Georgia
Right to Life has sent candidates to succeed Judge John H.
Ruffin Jr. a 10-point questionnaire about such topics as
whether an unborn child is "biologically human and alive"
and how courts should handle lawsuits over infants born with
disabilities. . . . The Court of Appeals generally doesn't
have jurisdiction to decide whether statutes -- including
those limiting abortion -- are constitutional. And the
viability of so-called "wrongful birth" lawsuits by parents
of disabled children was effectively squelched by the state
Supreme Court in 1990.
NEW
YORK
Continuing Trend, Judge Awards Interim
Counsel Fees in Divorce Action
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
8-6-08 -- In what
seems to be an emerging trend following a recent decision by
a Brooklyn appeals panel, another Long Island judge has awarded interim counsel fees to a non-moneyed spouse, to be
paid by her income-earning husband. . . . In Gordon v.
Gordon, 202475/06, Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue
Marber of
Nassau County, N.Y., ordered
Laurence Gordon, who works in real estate, to pay $150,500
in interim counsel and expert fees to his wife, Lisa Gordon,
an unemployed speech therapist. . . . Marber's ruling is the
second to follow New York's Appellate Division, 2nd
Department's holding in Prichep v. Prichep, 28727/08.
. . . In that case, the panel ordered a "highly successful
vascular surgeon" who earned roughly 400 times more than his
wife, an intervention therapist,
to pay $75,000 in interim counsel fees.
MASSACHUSETTS
Out-of-state gays on the way
Weddings expected to bring
$111M to state
By Benjamin Bell
8-1-08 -- Gay couples
are booking flights to Boston after Gov. Deval Patrick
yesterday signed into law a bill repealing a 1913 law that
grounded same-sex marriage plans for out-of-state residents.
. . . “The stars couldn’t have aligned better,” Darin
Johnson of New York City said yesterday. . . . Johnson, 37,
is set to marry his partner of nine years, Greg Keffer, 36,
in Provincetown later this month. . . . “I think it is the
beginning of the end of discrimination against gay couples,”
Johnson told the Herald. . . . The New York couple is part
of a same-sex marriage wave predicted to pump $111 million
into Bay State business over the next
three years and bring 30,000 out-of-state gay couples - most
of them from New York - to Massachusetts.
“Support System Down”
Explores Child Support
Nightmares
Film Synopsis
SUPPORT? is a film that covers the
everyday issues of stress, family, struggle, and suffering
that families experience when put through the detrimental,
winding maneuvers of the Family Court systems, which are
flooded with more cases than the labor force can handle or
chooses NOT to handle.
Finally, a shocking documentary that
exposes the truth! Hear what experts say about how some
have figured out how to make money by emphasizing on divorce
and child support issues between men and women through court
orders. Parents are made to pay exorbitant amounts of money
in exchange for their CREDIT, HOMES, BANK ACCOUNTS, and even
their FREEDOM!
Exposed…SUPPORT? brings you deep into
the MILITARY angle! Go face-to-face with the attorneys that
handle the cases of the men and women who give their lives
to protect our homeland.
Shockingly, when soldiers return home after
fighting, they are met with incarceration when they arrive
on American soil for child support payments that they were
unable to make while abroad. Is this justice? You be the
judge!
SUPPORT? was made to be educational
and provocative in order to spark a call to action to bring
about much-needed reform in the family courts. American
children should not have to suffer due to an ineffectual and
corrupt legal system!
July 2008
NEVADA
Judge Chuck Weller receives low ranking
KRNV, (AP)
7-30-08 -- According
to a survey, the Reno judge who was shot in the chest by a
businessman while standing in his chambers in June 2006 has
been ranked last among Washoe County District Court judges.
. . . The county Bar Association survey of 244 lawyers gave
Family Court Judge Chuck Weller a score of 3.04 on a scale
of 1 to 5, with 5 being the top score. . . . Sixty-three
percent of those surveyed said Weller should not stay on the
bench. Weller questioned the validity of the survey. . . .
Darren Mack was convicted of attempted murder in the
shooting of the judge and murder in the death of his wife,
Charla. Weller was presiding over their contentious divorce.
CALIFORNIA
Lawsuit to seek halt in 'gay' lobbying inside voting booth
California officials change
reference to marriage protection amendment
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
7-29-08 --
Pro-family leaders in California who organized a drive for
more than a million signatures to put a constitutional
amendment to protect traditional marriage on this fall's
election ballot say they will seek a court ruling to prevent
pro-homosexual lobbying inside the actual voting booths in
November. . . .
Attorney General Jerry Brown
has announced he's changing the official state language
describing Proposition 8, which would limit marriage in
California to one man and one woman. . . . He now wants
voters to read when they're voting on the issue that it
would "eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry." .
. . "This is an extremely biased description designed to
defeat Proposition 8," said Karen England, executive
director of
Capitol Resource Institute.
IOWA
Man accused of hiring hit man had indicted judge as attorney
By Ann McGlynn, Courier Lee News Service
7-27-08 -- Dan Dostart
sits in a jail cell, accused of attempting to hire a hit man
to kill his ex-wife. . . . Dostart, formerly of Waterloo and
the Quad Cities who now lives in
Hiawatha, was indicted last week in federal court in
Cedar Rapids for using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of
murder-for-hire. He has pleaded not guilty. . . . According
to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Dostart and his ex-wife, Jamie
Mortimer, are both 1983 Waterloo East High grads. . . . In
April, in an interview with the Quad-City Times, the retired
Air Force man expressed frustration with how his divorce
attorney handled his marriage dissolution. His attorney was
Kyle Williamson, who went on to become an associate court
judge but now faces federal charges of his own: fraud,
identity theft and forgery.
GEORGIA
Jury Gives Woman Left at Altar $150K
She Moved to Be With Him, He
Backed Out of Wedding by Leaving Note in Bathroom
By Scott Mayerowitz, ABC News Business Unit
7-24-08 -- A broken
heart is a tough thing to mend, but one Georgia women is at
least getting $150,000 to help her heal. . . . A jury this
week ordered RoseMary Shell's ex-fiance to pay her $150,000
after he broke off their engagement three days before the
wedding by leaving her a note in their bathroom. . . . To
top things off, a few months after the engagement was over,
Shell told the jury that she learned that her fiance had
been seeing another woman while they were engaged. . . .
Shell had moved from Florida to Georgia to be with her
fiance, Wayne Gibbs, according to court records. She found a
new job, taking a pay cut. Her salary went from $81,000 a
year, plus a 15 percent bonus, to $31,000 a year.
NEW
YORK
Even Perelman judge is tired of hearing about their battles
By Jose Martinez, Daily News Staff Writer
7-23-08 --
The judge in the latest court dispute between billionaire
Ron Perelman and his ex-wife, Patricia Duff, expressed
frustration Tuesday over the bad blood between the pair. . .
. "I would be remiss if I didn't say how sorry I am to see
what should be a de-escalating situation escalating,"
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Rosalyn Richter said. . . .
Richter recommended that Perelman and Duff, the Revlon
mogul's third ex-wife, even consider going to therapy to
learn to get along better. . . . The two have recently
returned to court over charges from their daughter's
court-appointed law guardian that their 13-year-old
daughter, Caleigh, has been subjected to "emotional abuse"
by her mother.
OHIO
Ohio Judges See More Do-It-Yourself Divorces and System
Slowdown
The Associated Press
7-22-08 -- With the
economy down and the cost of lawyers high, more people are
choosing to represent themselves in divorce cases. But legal
amateurs who struggle with complicated paperwork are slowing
down an already clogged system, some judges say. . . . "It's
kind of a nightmare sometimes," said Franklin County, Ohio,
Domestic Relations Judge Dana Suzanne Preisse. "You would
prefer to have at least one competent attorney on the case.
But I understand how some people can't afford it." . . .
Christa and Walter Wood recently filed for their dissolution
pro se, a Latin term for representing yourself. . . . "When
we separated, we wrote out our own agreement and then went
to divorcesyourself.com," Christa Wood said.
NEW
YORK
Judge rules against YouTube star in divorce court
By Edith Honan, Reuters
7-22-08 -- A British
actress who earned YouTube stardom after posting monologues
about her failed high society marriage was cruel to her
husband and must vacate their apartment within a month, a
New York judge ruled on Monday. . . . Tricia Walsh Smith,
49, has until August 21 to move out of the swank Park Avenue apartment belonging to Broadway producer Philip Smith, 77. The
apartment provided a backdrop for some of Walsh Smith's
video monologues, which have been seen by millions of
viewers on the YouTube Web site. . . . Philip Smith, the
president of the Shubert Organization which owns Broadway
theatres and stages shows, had sued for divorce on the
grounds the videos constituted spousal abuse. He was ordered
to pay Walsh Smith $50,000 (25,000 pounds) immediately and,
within 30 days, $700,000 promised under the couple's
prenuptial agreement, signed before their 1999 wedding.
Hours of Free On Line Information on Divorce, Custody as
Shown on TV
Hours of Free on line divorce
video offered at
www.nycdivorcelawyer.net designed to help parties
minimize costs of matrimonial and/or child support issues.
Pensions and health care rights are also discussed on line.
(PRWEB)
7-22-08 --
High Profile New York Divorce
Lawyer Lisa Beth Older, Esq. is pleased to announce that she
now offers consumers FREE video divorce information on her
website which was previously sold on the open market. Go to
www.nyc.divorcelawyer.net
to view its content on divorce. . . . Go to the website
www.nycdivorcelawyer.net
and click on any free chapter, anything from prenuptial to
separation agreements to custody and child support, or
whether it's information about Family Court, about custody,
equitable distribution, uncontested divorces or contested
divorces. You'll even find video divorce information about
prenuptial agreements.
OHIO
Do-it-yourself divorce
Skipping lawyers saves money,
but amateurs' mistakes gum up an already-clogged system
By Rita Price, The Columbus Dispatch
7-21-08 -- Court
begins at 9 a.m., but the room fills much earlier. . . .
Former lovers come to demand protection from each other,
parents want new custody arrangements, husbands and wives
seek the official end of their unions. . . . Many in this
unhappy family stew sit with folders and Internet printouts.
These papers take the place of what once was a
domestic-court staple: an attorney. . . . "When we
separated, we wrote out our own agreement and then went to
divorcesyourself.com," says Christa Wood. . . . She and
Walter Wood filed their dissolution pro se, Latin for
representing yourself. Court officials say the practice also
might be called a legal epidemic. . . . Self-representation
is an absolute right. But it slows an already-clogged system
that isn't designed for amateurs, said Judge James W. Mason
of Franklin County Domestic Relations Court.
CALIFORNIA
Challenge to Calif. Gay Unions Measure Fails
Mike McKee, The Recorder
7-17-08 – Any chance
that California voters wouldn't have their say on same-sex
marriage was put to rest Wednesday when the state Supreme
Court refused to review a challenge to the November ballot
initiative's validity. . . . The high court's unanimous
decision to leave Proposition 8, which would limit marriage
to heterosexual couples, on the ballot didn't surprise at
least two legal experts, though both thought the arguments
raised by civil rights groups had merit. . . . "I think it's
a sign the court doesn't want to short-circuit the
democratic process, and was worried about the appearance of
overreaching after such a historic ruling in May," Elizabeth
Hillman, a constitutional law professor at Hastings College
of the Law, said Wednesday. . . . Santa Clara University
School of Law professor Gerald Uelmen, a leading expert on
the California Supreme Court, agreed, noting that the court
doesn't like to tamper with ballot initiatives in advance of
elections unless there's no choice.
CALIFORNIA
Division Emerges Among Foes of Calif. Same-Sex Marriages
Mike McKee, The Recorder
7-16-08 --
A united front by conservative forces against same-sex
marriage in California is showing signs of cracking -- or of
having been an illusion all along. . . . Last week, the
proponents of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that
would limit marriage to heterosexual couples, asked the
California Supreme Court to prevent another conservative
group -- the
Campaign for California Families
-- from intervening in a suit that could determine whether
that issue stays on the November ballot. . . . In a
short brief filed Thursday,
Folsom, Calif., lawyer Andrew Pugno, counsel for
ProtectMarriage.com,
argued that rather than back Prop 8, the CCF actively campaigned against it for years in favor of another amendment
that would have sharply curtailed all gay rights.
Good News: Census Bureau Respects Marriage
by Devon Williams, associate editor
7-15-08 -- Same-sex
couples will be counted as 'unmarried partners.' . . .
Massachusetts and California may have decided to legalize
gay “marriage,” but the U.S. Census Bureau will not count
same-sex “marriages” in its 2010 census report. . . . Census
officials said even though same-sex “marriage” is legal in
some states, federal law defines marriage as between one man
and one woman. . . . “The U.S. Census Bureau procedures used
to count and tabulate relationship data are guided by and
comply with legal requirements of the Defense of Marriage
Act of 1996, which requires all federal agencies to
recognize only opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of
administering federal programs,” said Stephen Buckner, a
spokesman for the Census Bureau. “Many of these programs
rely on Census Bureau statistics.” . . . Jenny Tyree,
associate marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action,
said the Census Bureau is just one arena in which a
redefinition of marriage would cause chaos. . . . “The word
'marriage' has long been understood across many cultures as
the cooperative union of male and female with a vital
interest in the next generation,” she said. “Thankfully,
President Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act
and gave the Census Bureau a clear guideline.”
CALIFORNIA
Judge dismisses juvenile case prompting homeschool ban
Advocate calls decision
'significant favorable development' for families
By Bob Unruh, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
7-12-08 --
A judge in California has ended juvenile court jurisdiction
over two children in a family case that prompted an appeals
court at one point to declare that parents had no right to
homeschool their children in the state. . . . The opinion in
the Rachel L. case when
WND broke the story
in February rocked the foundations of homeschooling in the
state and across the nation, because of its implications
that without such rights, parents could be liable for civil
and criminal penalties simply for teaching their own
children at home. . . . It especially outraged those who
opposed California's mandated advocacy for homosexual and
other alternative lifestyles in public schools.
MASSACHUSETTS
Massachussetts to expand same-sex weddings
Change would allow
out-of-state duos to 'marry'
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
7-12-08 -- Lawmakers
in Massachusetts are resurrecting a once-abandoned bill that
would allow out-of-state duos to visit, obtain a
Massachusetts "marriage" and then return home and create
"havoc" with it, according to a pro-family organization. . .
. "This bill would destabilize the
Massachusetts marriage laws," wrote Brian Camenker in
his
Mass Resistance alert
on the issue. "Currently no out-of-state couple can get
'married' in
Massachusetts if that
marriage would not be legal in their home state. This would
overturn that law." . . . Massachusetts was the first state
to allow same-sex duos to obtain a "marriage" license,
several years ago.
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma Supreme Court Rejects Gay 'Divorce' Case
Family News in Focus
7-11-08 --
'Recognizing a same-sex divorce would mean recognizing a
marriage that doesn’t exist.' . . . The Oklahoma Supreme
Court has sided with a lower court that refused to grant a
"divorce" to a lesbian couple who were never legally married
in the state. . . . The women were married in Canada in
2002. Four years later, one of them filed for "divorce" in
Tulsa, Okla. . . . Voters amended the state constitution in
2004 to define marriage as between one man and one woman. A
state statute prohibits recognition of same-sex "marriages"
that take place out of state. . . . Alliance Defense Fund
litigation counsel Jim Campbell said the courts were correct
to respect the will of the people. . . . “Recognizing a
same-sex divorce would mean recognizing a marriage that
doesn’t exist under the laws of most states, and
specifically, in this state," he said.
NEW
YORK
Judge Rewrites 'Absurd' Language in Divorce Case
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
7-9-08 -- A Nassau
County, N.Y., judge has granted a divorce after rewriting
what he called "absurd" statutory language aimed at alerting
parties to the loss of health insurance. . . . Attorneys
familiar with the case say it's an example of the judiciary
effectively preserving the spirit, if not following the
letter, of a statute that has caused delays in thousands of
cases as courts are forced to track down information on the
health insurance status of divorcing parties. . . . The
statute in question, Domestic Relations Law §177, went into
effect last October and requires that parties sign papers
acknowledging that they may lose their health insurance as a
result of the divorce. . . . Such agreements, according to
the bill, should either "(a) provide for the future coverage
of the individual; or (b) state that the individual is aware
that he or she will no longer be covered by his or her
spouse's health insurance plan." . . . To that end, a
two-sentence acknowledgment must accompany each divorce
agreement: "I may no longer be allowed to receive health
coverage under my former spouse's health insurance plan" and
that "I may be required to secure my own health insurance."
Family justice: the secret state that steals our children
Every year thousands of
children are taken from their parents, largely on the say-so
of ‘experts'. It is a secret and sometimes unjust process
and the system must change
Camilla Cavendish
7-6-08 -- Two weeks
ago I got a phone call from a woman I hadn't seen for four
years. She was calling to tell me that she was moving
abroad, unable to bear the pain of living in the same
country as the daughter she is no longer allowed to see. “I
wanted to thank you,” she said, “for being the only person
who ever gave me a fair hearing.” I was seized with guilt.
This woman had asked for my help, and I had utterly failed
her. Her story had been just so incredible. She described a
world where courts need no criminal conviction to remove
your child, only the word of a psychiatrist or doctor, and
can deny you the chance to call any expert in your defence.
A world that uses the “welfare of the child” to gag you from
discussing your case. Where even if you prove yourself
innocent on appeal, your children may already have been
adopted: in which case you will never be allowed to contact
them again. A world which had treated her so badly, this
rather pretty and utterly normal young woman, that she was
sincerely thanking me just for listening.
June 2008
GENERAL
Marriage bill exposes judicial activism
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow
6-30-08 --Mississippi
Senator Roger Wicker says he's hoping to further re-ignite
the national debate over same-sex "marriage" by introducing
a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of
one man and one woman. . . . Senator Wicker's bill is the
companion to House legislation sponsored by conservative
Congressman Paul Broun (R-Georgia). Wicker says although he
is under no illusions that Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nevada) will bring the legislation forward this year for
passage, it is important to draw attention to the issue. . .
. "Frankly, the American people are so overwhelmingly in
support of a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex
marriage that I think it draws a clear distinction in an
election year between two basic worldviews," says Wicker.
"And I think it's an appropriate thing to introduce, if for
no other reason than to have a national debate."
NEW
YORK
Court Affirms Tuition Agreement Called Distinct From Invalid
Child Support Pact
Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
6-25-08 -- A divorcing
Westchester,
N.Y., couple's agreement
regarding their children's college expenses is valid even
though its basic child-support provisions are invalid under
federal law, a New York state appellate panel has ruled. . .
. At the center of the Appellate Division, 2nd Department's
ruling was the finding that the stipulation's
college-expenses provision was separate and apart from the
provisions that must be vacated under the Child Support
Standards Act. . . . "There is nothing in the record that
would support a finding that the father agreed to pay a
share of college expenses as a trade-off against some other
expense," Justice Daniel D. Angiolillo wrote for the
unanimous panel in
Cimons v. Cimons,
1051/05. . . . Wayne and Caroline Cimons entered into a
settlement agreement in May 2006 that set forth among other
things each party's obligations regarding the support of
their three children.
MINNESOTA
This much is true: A family was ripped apart
A troubled daughter's
accusations of abuse in Palisade, Minn., led to 59 charges
that were finally dropped in a mangled pursuit of justice.
By Larry Oakes, Star Tribune
6-22-08 -- Three years
ago, it looked as though authorities here had rescued a
23-year-old Palisade woman from a nightmarish life. . . .
She and her 40-page diary told police how relatives had
abused her from the time she was 3 -- raped her, choked her,
beat her, doused her with bleach and hot grease, locked her
up and withheld food. . . . Prosecutors had filed a total of
59 charges against the woman's parents, Dan and Sherri
Rassier of Palisade, and Dan's brother, Bill Rassier of
Oakdale. . . . But the case unraveled over time, ending
quietly this month with a one-page document in which the
Aitkin county attorney dismissed the last of the charges.
NEW
YORK
N.Y. Judge Modifies Matrimonial Part Rules on Interim
Counsel
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
6-20-08 -- Attorneys
seeking pendente lite counsel fees in Part 18 of
Nassau County's Matrimonial
Center must now orally argue their case, a Long Island judge has ruled, "in order to facilitate a
prompt determination by the court." . . . In Cohen v. Cohen
201308-07, Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Ross said he
modified the rules of his part to give "meaningful
recognition of our Court of Appeals maxim 'to make the more
affluent spouse pay for the legal expenses of the needier
one.'" . . . The decision by Ross, supervising judge of the
Matrimonial Center, comes on the heels of
last month's Appellate Division, 2nd Department ruling
that good cause must be articulated in deferring an
application for interim counsel fees by a non-monied spouse
to the trial court. . .
. In Prichep v. Prichep, 28727/08, Presiding Justice A. Gail Prudenti overruled a
Suffolk County judge who declined to award $75,000 in
interim fees to an early intervention therapist with an
annual income of $4,015, whose husband, a "highly successful
vascular surgeon," earned roughly 100 times that amount.
CALIFORNIA
Lawyers Plunge Into Same-Sex Marriage Ceremonies
Mike McKee and Evan Hill, The Recorder
6-18-08 -- As
flashbulbs burst, crowds cheered and wedding rings slid onto
fingers Tuesday -- the state's first full day granting
same-sex marriages -- some big names in the legal community
got hitched themselves or firmed up their plans. . . .
Gay-rights lawyer Jennifer Pizer, one of the many attorneys
involved in the historic same-sex marriage cases, wasted no
time Tuesday getting a license to wed. . . . Pizer, senior
counsel in the Los Angeles office of Lambda Legal Defense
and Education Fund, proudly marched into West Hollywood's
City Hall with public interest attorney Doreena Wong -- her
partner of 24 years -- to grab for the ring of marriage
equality.
NEW
JERSEY
Cohabitation Not a Requirement for Palimony Claim, Says N.J.
Supreme Court
Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
6-18-08 --
Cohabitation is not an absolute requirement for a
successful claim for palimony but is only one of a number of
factors a judge should consider, the New Jersey Supreme
Court ruled on Tuesday. . . . A 6-1 majority, breaking with
precedent set by nearly every other state court, said a
plaintiff in a palimony case need only prove that there was
a "marital-type relationship" rather than show that the
couple lived together for some period. . . . "We hold that
cohabitation is not an essential requirement for a cause of
action for palimony, but a marital-type relationship is
required," wrote Justice John Wallace Jr. in
Devaney v. L'Esperance,
A-20-07.
GEORGIA
Ethics Flap Surrounds Judge Who Presided Over Politician
Ex-Partner's Divorce
New York Lawyer, By Shannon McCaffrey, The Associated Press
6-17-08 -- A Paulding
County judge who initially said he did not handle the
divorce of Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson has
reversed himself, telling The Associated Press on Monday
that he did dissolve the Republican lawmaker's marriage. . .
. Superior Court Judge James Osborne is a former law partner
of Richardson and Osborne's daughter is an associate at the
speaker's law firm. Ethics watchdog George Anderson filed a
complaint against Osborne with the state Judicial
Qualifications Commission arguing that he should have
recused himself from Richardson's divorce proceeding in
February.
TEXAS
Texas Justice of Peace Must Halt Courtroom Paddling
Christopher Sherman, The Associated Press
6-13-08 -- A justice
of the peace in Texas can no longer give parents the choice
of paying a fine or paddling their children in
6-13-08 --
open court for now, a judge ruled Wednesday. . . . Los
Fresnos Justice of the Peace Gustavo Garza was sued by three
families who say Garza left them with no real option when he
told them they must pay a fine for their children's
transgressions or paddle them in open court. . . . Until
District Judge Abel Limas can resolve that case, he ordered
Garza to halt the paddling. A trial date has not been set. .
. . The lawsuit was initially brought by the parents of a
15-year-old Los Fresnos girl who appeared in Garza's court
in April for skipping school.
MASSACHUSETTS
Lesbian activist sworn in as judge of family court
Governor ignores
council vote, installs advocate of same-sex marriage
By Chelsea Schilling, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
6-12-08 --
Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick has appointed lesbian
activist and lawyer Maureen Monks as associate justice of
the Middlesex Probate and Family Court, effectively ignoring
a dissenting vote by the Massachusetts Governor's Council. .
. . WND received official word from the court that Monks was
sworn in and formally assumed her position Friday despite
the council's recorded 4-4 vote denying confirmation. Monks
is required to win 5 votes to be confirmed by the council. .
. . Monks, 49, a member and co-chair of the Massachusetts
Lesbian and Gay Bar Association, is an advocate for "gay"
and women's rights. She has represented homosexuals pro bono
for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.
RHODE
ISLAND
Judge raises constitutional issue in R.I. gay divorce case
The Associated Press
6-12-08 -- A Superior
Court judge has refused to hear the divorce case of a
lesbian couple, but questioned whether the law that barred
the women from ending their marriage unconstitutionally
denied them a right enjoyed by heterosexual Rhode Islanders.
. . . The Rhode Island Supreme Court last year ruled that
the state's family court could not grant a divorce to
Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston, who wed in 2004 in
Massachusetts soon after same-sex marriage became legal in
that state. . . . The justices said the state statute that
created the family court recognized marriage as between only
a man and a woman and the court, therefore, could not
divorce a same-sex couple. . . . Chambers then sought a
divorce in Superior Court. Judge Patricia Hurst denied that
claim on Wednesday, saying her court does not have
jurisdiction to handle divorce.
Last Resort: A Family's Bizarre Battle With Insurer,
Feds
Family whose child is
molested by a hotel employee sues and finds itself a target
of federal probes
W.J. Hennigan, Legal Times
6-9-08 --
It might have been bearable if the horror had stopped when
Paul Gayter and his wife Flora Nicholas learned that their
9-year-old daughter had been molested by a hotel employee
during a family vacation. . . . Or if it had stopped when
the hotel's insurer,
American International Group,
decided on exceptionally tough tactics -- endless
depositions, private investigators and psychological tests
-- to prevent a payout to the family. Or when federal
prosecutors, perhaps acting on a tip from lawyers for the
insurer and hotel, started questioning the family's
immigration status (they're from Britain) and launching
criminal probes into their business dealings. Or when a
settlement deal with the hotel fell apart and the battle
headed back to court. . . . But it hasn't ended. Eight years
after their daughter was attacked, the Gayters' fight grinds
on. (See
Timeline PDF.)
Lawsuits have snaked through two federal trial courts and
two federal appellate courts. At least 20 lawyers have
worked on the matter, including litigators from some of the
top firms in the country. Lawyers for the hotel have been
admonished repeatedly for overreaching discovery tactics.
Yet they've been able to bat down a jury trial.
VIRGINIA
Civil union laws spread across state lines
Vermont lesbian wins custody
of Virginia ex-partner's child
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
6-7-08 -- The Virginia
State Supreme Court whiffed today on an opportunity to
preserve state sovereignty and solidify traditional marriage
laws. Instead, the court upheld a ruling that may allow
states like Massachusetts and Vermont to export homosexual
marriage laws across the country. . . . The case centers on
the fate of Isabella Miller, a 6-year-old girl born in
Virginia to her mother, Lisa, while Lisa was bound in a
civil union (performed in Vermont) to Janet Jenkins. . . .
Lisa later became a Christian, left her lesbian relationship
and moved permanently to Virginia with her daughter. When
she sought to dissolve her civil union, however, Jenkins,
who lives in Vermont, sought custody of the child.
NEW
YORK
Student Aid Ruled Not Income in N.Y. Child Support
Calculation
Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
6-4-08 -- In a case of
apparent first impression, a Queens, N.Y., judge has ruled
that the grants and student loans a father receives to
finance his dental school education should not be deemed
income when calculating the father's child support
obligations. . . . Finding New York's Child Support
Standards Act silent regarding such funds and discovering no
New York
cases on point, Family Court Judge
John M. Hunt turned
to decisions in other states, which have "almost uniformly"
rejected considering the financial aid as income. . . .
"This Court finds that the definition of 'gross income' in
the child support statute is similar to that in other
jurisdictions where appellate courts have found that student
educational loans and grants do not come within the
definition of 'income' for child support," Hunt wrote in
Mariana D. v. Frank D.,
3275/07. . . . Finding "no basis to disregard the reasoning
of [those] cases," Hunt rejected a support magistrate's
ruling that the loans and grants constitute income and
remanded the matter to the magistrate for further
proceedings.
Do Families Have A Compelling Interest In Maintaining The
State?
By Don Feder
6-3-08 -- In the long,
dreary annals of judicial idiocy, perhaps the stupidest
words ever uttered by a black-robed booby were contained in
the recent California Supreme Court decision mandating
homosexual marriage. . . . Writing for the majority, Chief
Justice Ronald M. George declared: “In light of these
circumstances, we conclude that retention of the traditional
definition of marriage (a man and a woman) does not
constitute a state interest sufficiently compelling, under
the strict scrutiny equal protection standard, to justify
withholding that status from same-sex couples.” . . .
Curiously, George is saying the government of California
lacks any compelling interest in maintaining the integrity
of an institution that developed over thousands of years,
sanctified by faith and tradition. . . . The family is
society’s fundamental, irreplaceable unit. It’s the
incubator of character – where children are taught manners,
economy, loyalty, faith and love. Anyone with half a brain
(which automatically excludes most of the judiciary)
wouldn’t mess with an institution on whose future the
survival of humanity depends.
CALIFORNIA
Family Court Judge Slammed By Third Appellate District Court
Coastal Post
6-3-08 -- Ulf Carlsson
has won his appeal against a shocking action by Sacramento
Family Court Judge Peter McBrien for violation of
fundamental fairness in a divorce trial. The Third Appellate
District Court of Appeal justices unanimously agreed: "We
shall conclude that the trial court's actions deprived the
husband of his due process right to a fair hearing." . . .
The three justices determined that the "...trial court
essentially ran the trial on a stopwatch, curtailing the
parties' right to present evidence on all material disputed
issues. Using the constant threat of a mistrial, Judge
McBrien pressured (Mr. Carlsson's) Attorney Huddle into
rushing through her presentation and continuing without a
break." . . . "After displaying impatience and reluctance in
allowing the parties adequate time to complete their
presentations, (Judge McBrien) ended the trial while an
expert witness for the husband was on the witness stand and
counsel was in the midst of asking him a question." . . .
The Appellate Court likened the situation to having "a
football team be declared the winner where the referee
stopped the game in the fourth quarter, on the ground that
the team had a sizeable lead and a comeback by the opponent
was unlikely." . . . "By arbitrarily cutting off the
presentation of evidence, Judge McBrien rendered the trial
fundamentally unfair and violated Ulf's right to due
process. (U.S. Const., 14th Amend., § 1; Cal. Const., art.
I, § 24.)"
NEW
YORK
Family Court Judge Abused Contempt Power
North Country Gazette
6-3-08 -- Linda C.
Griffin, a Rensselaer County Family Court judge since 1994,
has been censured by the state Commission on Judicial
Commission for abusing the contempt power. . . . The
judicial disciplinary panel found that Judge Griffin “abused
the contempt power” by holding litigants in three different
cases in contempt of court without explicitly warning them
of the consequences of their behavior and without an order
stating the facts justifying the contempt citation, which is
necessary to enable appellate review. “Regardless of whether
the parties’ initial behavior provided sufficient basis for
a contempt holding,” the commission said that, pursuant to
Judiciary Law, Judge Griffin had an obligation to warn the
litigants “explicitly that their conduct could result in a
summary citation for criminal contempt resulting in
incarceration,” and to give the litigants a chance to
“desist from the conduct.”
. . . Her current term expires in 2013.
Opinion:
http://www.scjc.state.ny.us/Determinations/G/griffin.htm
TEXAS
Here's the text of the FLDS child release order
The Financial Consequences of Divorce
Tips To Save Some Money Along
The Way
By Erin Petrun (CBS)
6-1-08 -- A divorce
can be rough financially as well as emotionally. Stephanie
AuWerter, Editor of SmartMoney.com, has some tips for
lessening the blow. . . . Because divorce is such an
emotional process, it can be difficult to focus on practical
matters, like your finances. Don't go into a divorce without
doing a little prep work. "Lawyers are not cheap," says
AuWerter. "Any work that you can do on your own dime, rather
than your lawyer's dime, is going to save you some money."
The easiest thing you can do is get your financial paperwork
in order before you see your lawyer. Get together important
forms like your tax returns, 401k statements and other
documents ahead of time. That way, you won't waste your
lawyer's time - and your money - sorting through it. . . .
Your attorney is not your financial advisor. You shouldn't
go to them looking for tax or other financial advice. If you
need a financial planner, hire one. Otherwise, leave your
lawyer to take care of legal matters only. . . . Just
because you have a lawyer, though, doesn't mean you should
rush to court. No matter how upset you are with your spouse,
you can save a ton of money if you can settle outside of
court. "[It] could easily double your costs - or more," says
AuWerter.
May 2008
CALIFORNIA
Future Gay Unions Face Legal Hurdles in California
Mike McKee, The Recorder
5-30-08 --
Same-sex couples excited by the California Supreme Court's
two-week-old decision declaring their right to wed are
already booking dates to get licenses. But what will happen
to those marriages if voters approve a
proposed constitutional amendment
in November that would restrict marriage to the union of a
man and a woman? . . . There is no clear answer, but
attorneys on both sides of the issue have staked out their
positions and are ready for a fight. Gay-rights lawyers say
the marriages would remain valid, conservative groups insist
they would be nullified, and many on both sides predict
there could be complicated legal battles to resolve the
impasse.
NEW
YORK
NYC Family Law Attorney launches Online Course on 'Managing
Child Support Payments'
Written by Webmaster
5-30-08 --
New York City lawyer Tracey A. Bloodsaw will be launching an
online child support management course in fall. . . . Tracey
A. Bloodsaw (http://www.traceyabloodsaw.com),
a well-known and experienced attorney specializing in family
law, divorce and criminal law, with a special emphasis on
'family' law issues has launched an online course to start
this fall. The course will discuss the basics of child
support and the essential steps to take in an effort to keep
them manageable. It be a 45-minute course at OneMinuteU.com.
. . . “It really troubles me to see that many people
affected by the financial crisis are facing immense legal
woes as a result.
N.Y. Governor Defends Recognition of Other Jurisdictions'
Gay Marriages
Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal
5-30-08 -- Fairness
and fear of legal liability convinced New York Gov. David A.
Paterson to direct all state agencies to immediately
recognize as valid same-sex marriages solemnized outside of
New York, the governor said Thursday. . . . "If I didn't
take this action, I would leave this state open to
lawsuits," Paterson said. "I would leave the state treasury
open to monetary damages and I would be discriminating
against individuals who are coming here from other
jurisdictions who are allowed that right [to marry] -- and
now are suddenly being denied that right." . . . Paterson
compared recognizing legal same-sex marriages as akin to the
state's traditional policy of recognizing as valid
common-law marriages from other jurisdictions. Same-sex
marriage is not legal in New York, and neither is common-law
marriage. . . . "We have a time-held and time-tested
tradition of honoring those [common-law] marital rights,"
Paterson said. "Same-sex marriages, marriage equality now in
two other states, would come under the ambit of that
interpretation of the law."
CALIFORNIA
Calif. Justices Appear to Favor Lesbian in Dispute Over
Artificial Insemination
Case with unusually high
number of amicus briefs involves doctors who claimed
religious beliefs kept them from providing intrauterine
insemination
Mike McKee, The Recorder
5-29-08 --
Less than two weeks after stunning the nation by
upholding marriage rights for same-sex couples,
the California Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to
deliver another victory for gay rights. . . . Specifically,
the court gave every indication during oral arguments in San
Francisco that it would rule that doctors can't invoke their
religious beliefs to deny gays and lesbians medical
services. . . . Justice Joyce Kennard all but announced a
win for the gay community when she asked Los Angeles lawyer
Jennifer Pizer, who represented a San Diego County lesbian
who had been denied intrauterine insemination, whether she
would be satisfied with a narrowly tailored ruling in her
client's favor, or whether she was hoping for a ruling that
touched on a variety of issues.
WEST
VIRGINIA
Justices say Legislature wrong on felony child support
By Steve Korris -Statehouse Bureau
5-29-08 -- West
Virginia legislators violated state and national
constitutions when they forced fathers facing felony child
support charges to prove they couldn't pay, the Supreme
Court of Appeals decided May 23. . . . The Justices
unanimously erased a law stating that in child support
prosecutions "the defendant's alleged inability to
reasonably provide the required support may be raised only
as an affirmative defense, after reasonable notice to the
State." . . . The law "unconstitutionally shifts to a
defendant the burden of disproving an element of the
offense," Justice Robin Davis wrote. "We have previously
observed that it is a foundation of criminal law that the
State must prove all the elements of a crime beyond a
reasonable doubt." . . . The law violates due process under
Article III of the West Virginia Constitution and the 14th
Amendment to the United States Constitution, she wrote.
CALIFORNIA
Whoa! Marriage laws aren't changed – yet
Activists note California
court cannot change existing statutes
By Bob Unruh, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
5-24-08 --
Some 10 days ago, four black-robed members of the California
Supreme Court
trashed traditional marriage of one-man-and-one-woman.
But that opinion has to be translated into changes in state
law, forms, and procedures before any actual same-sex
"marriage" can take place, and that hasn't happened yet and
might not for some time, according to a pro-family
organization. . . . For example, one of
the legally established forms in California
involving marriage issues reflects several references to
"bride" and "groom" and "husband" and "wife" that must
properly be filled out by "qualifying" individuals before
state law allows it to be recognized, according to Randy
Thomasson of the
Campaign for Children and Families.
. . . And state law demands, "Every person who knowingly
procures or offers any false or forged instrument to be
filed, registered, or recorded in any public office within
this state … is guilty of a felony." Thomasson believes that
leaves a formal change in state statutes as the only way the
state can implement what the court has expressed in its
opinion.
OREGON
Court backs gay marriage ban
Measure 36 - Gay-rights
supporters argued that the initiative was too sweeping to be
on the ballot
Ashbel S. Green, The Oregonian Staff
5-22-08 -- The Oregon
Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the ban on gay marriage
that state voters approved by a wide margin in 2004. . . .
.The court rejected two procedural arguments that attacked
the scope of the initiative, Measure 36, and whether it
should have been placed on the ballot. . . . There are two
ways to change the Oregon Constitution: by initiative, which
allows citizens to propose discreet changes; and by
revision, which allows the Legislature to propose sweeping
changes. . . . Gay-rights advocates argued that Measure 36
was a revision because it fundamentally altered the
constitution. . . . "Our constitution was created to
perpetuate liberty and establish justice," said Jeana
Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, the
gay-rights group that brought the legal challenge. "And
Measure 36, by denying a portion of our community access to
equality of the law -- that's a serious change in what the
constitution promises." . . . But the Court of Appeals said
Measure 36 "is not so far reaching" that it should be
overturned as a revision. . . . Measure 36 supporters
applauded the ruling.
You can access the ruling of the Court of Appeals of
Oregon at
this link.
 
NEW
YORK
Hundredfold Disparity in Spouses' Incomes Leads to
Award of Interim Counsel Fees
Court: Award 'ensures that
the non-monied spouse will be able to litigate the action
... on equal footing with the monied spouse'
Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal
5-21-08 -- A husband
earning roughly 100 times more than his wife must pay her
counsel $75,000 in interim fees, a Brooklyn appeals panel has ruled, reversing a
Long Island judge who denied the wife's requested relief. . . . In Prichep v.
Prichep, 28727/08, the Appellate Division, 2nd Department
held that Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Pastoressa of
Suffolk County
"articulated no reason" for denying pretrial motions by
Patti Prichep seeking interim counsel fees from her husband,
Robert. . . . Because of the importance of such awards to
the fundamental fairness of the proceedings, "an application
for interim counsel fees by the non-monied spouse in a
divorce action should not be denied -- or deferred until
after the trial, which functions as a denial -- without good
cause, articulated by the court in a written decision,"
wrote Presiding Justice A. Gail Prudenti for a unanimous
panel.
NEW
YORK
N.Y. Judge Rejects Israeli Divorce Based on 'Get'
Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
5-20-08 -- A New York
state judge has declined to recognize an Israeli divorce
judgment that was based on a "get," or decree of divorce,
issued by a Brooklyn rabbi. . . . "If this court were to
sanction the utilization of a 'Get' to circumvent the
constitutional requirement that only the Supreme Court can
grant a civil divorce, then a party who obtains a 'Get' in
New York could register it in a foreign jurisdiction and
potentially, later on, rely on the 'Get' to obtain a civil
divorce in New York thereby rendering New York State's
Constitutional scheme as to a civil divorce ineffectual,"
Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey S. Sunshine of Brooklyn ruled
in Tsirlin v. Tsirlin, 20542/06. . . . "It would have
the practical effect of amending the Domestic Relations Law
section 170 to provide a new grounds for divorce," he said.
. . . Sunshine allowed the plaintiff-husband's Brooklyn
divorce proceedings to go forward, denying the wife's motion
to dismiss on the grounds of comity and judicial estoppel.
When Woman Hits Man
Hypocritical Attitude
by Marc H. Rudov NewsWithViews.com
5-17-08 --
How do people typically react when hearing about or
witnessing a woman-hits-man situation? Other than
presumptively asking “What did he do?” they don’t seem to
care. The implication is that the man deserved it, because
women are naturally peaceful, and men are naturally violent.
Besides, even if he didn’t deserve it, it’s just a woman
hitting a man — a woman can’t possibly hurt a man, right?
Such stereotypical nonsense insults both genders. . . .Our
societal attitude is: When man hits woman, it’s violence;
when woman hits man, it’s emotion. This hypocritical
attitude, resulting in the unconstitutional Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA),
gives women a free pass to accost men
and to falsely accuse them of violence and rape. Aside from
the occassional arrest, such as what happened to
“bachelorette” and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader,
Mary Delgado, for
punching “bachelor” and fiance Byron Velvick (both appeared
in the 2004 season of ABC’s The Bachelor), most women who hit men do so with impunity.
CALIFORNIA
Celebrity Lawyer's Soon-to-Be Ex Posts Online Rant
New York Lawyer
5-14-08 --
(AP) - It's not easy being Al Reynolds these days. . . . The
soon-to-be ex-husband of Star Jones says he's "been called a
gigolo, a freeloader, unemployed, a sham and many other
things that don't bear repeating" since Jones filed for
divorce in March. . . . Reynolds posted a 485-word rant on
MySpace and Facebook on Tuesday, using the social-networking
Web sites to air his frustrations with media coverage. . . .
"If you think you are having a tough day, may I propose you
walk in my shoes for a few hours," reads the opening line.
"In my mind, it feels like 'Dump on Al Month.'" . . . His
publicist issued Reynolds' only official statement on his
split from Jones after three years of marriage: "We are
taking the high road." . . . "As much as I want to defend
myself, it seems like a silly and futile exercise," Reynolds
writes. "It's clear that the media doesn't want to let the
truth get in the way of a good story. I hate to ruin their
fun." . . . Still, he spends the bulk of the time explaining
himself and defending his marriage.
ILLINOIS
State falsely accuses 3,000 of child abuse
Investigators have
'power of God,' can ruin life with stroke of pen
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
5-15-08 --
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services
erroneously labeled 3,051 innocent people as child abusers
by placing them on the state's official list. . . .
According to a
Belleville News-Democrat investigation,
11,473 people have appealed to strike their names from the
state record. The list has a 27 percent error rate of
parents falsely accused of abuse. Once on the list, people
are required to remain there for a minimum of five years. .
. . "They're not all bad, there are good ones," Nick
Brunstein reportedly said of state child abuse
investigators, "but the bad ones have the power of God, and
with the stroke of a pen they can ruin your life."
TEXAS
Mental health workers blast CPS for separating polygamist
families
The Associated Press
5-12-08 -- Removing
children from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch was
unnecessary and traumatizing, several mental health workers
sent to aid the families wrote. . . . In a set of unsigned
written reports, workers with Hill Country Community Mental
Health-Mental Retardation Center said that the Child
Protective Services investigation of suspected child abuse
and its decision to ask for state custody of all 464
children punished mothers who appeared to be good parents of
healthy, emotionally normal kids, the San Antonio
Express-News reported. . . . "The mothers are incredibly
loving and patient with the children. The children were
well-socialized and well-behaved and interacted willingly
and happily with us," one wrote. . . . Another wrote: "The
children were sweet and well-mannered upon our arrival. They
obeyed their mothers and appeared to be healthy and
well-nourished. They had none of the traditional withdrawal
common in abused children."
NEW
YORK
Making Seven Minutes Count
New York Lawyer, By Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
5-9-08 -- Each week
day, hundreds of litigants show up at Brooklyn's Family
Court, nearly four-fifths of whom are unrepresented by an
attorney and, to varying degrees, unprepared for what may be
six or seven of the most important minutes of their lives. .
. . The six floors of the court at
330 Jay St. offer standing room only for people whose familial problems - mostly
custody, visitation, child support and paternity issues -
have deteriorated to the point that they require court
intervention. Virtually no one wears the tell-tale dark suit
of an attorney. . . . "Family Court hearings proceed very
quickly and pro se litigants are overwhelmingly unprepared
for this," said attorney Leah Edmunds. "They often emerge
not knowing what hit them." . . . Such was the genesis of
the now 18-month-old New York City Family Court Legal
Services Project, a twice weekly free-consultation service
in the Brooklyn Family Court that provides pro se parties a
chance to meet with volunteer attorneys on a one-time basis,
usually for about 30 minutes to an hour.
RHODE
ISLAND
Judge puts off same-sex divorce ruling
By Edward Fitzpatrick, Journal Staff Writer
5-9-08 -- A judge
yesterday said she needs to know more before deciding
whether to ask the state Supreme Court if the Superior Court
may grant Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce. . . . In
December, the Supreme Court ruled that Family Court lacked
jurisdiction to grant a divorce to two Providence women —
Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston — who married
in Fall River in 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became
the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex
couples. . . . Now, Chambers wants the high court to
determine whether Superior Court, the state’s main trial
court, can dissolve the marriage. . . . During a hearing
yesterday, Superior Court Judge Patricia A. Hurst asked both
sides to submit legal memos and she scheduled another
hearing for June 12. “You have caught me off guard with a
one-page motion with no supporting memoranda, no analysis,”
Hurst told Chambers’ lawyer, Louis M. Pulner.
CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles man wins right to use wife's last name
By Jill Serjeant Reuters
5-5-08 -- All Michael
Buday wanted to do was take the last name of his wife, Diana
Bijon, when they married. . . . But it took two years, a
lawsuit alleging sex discrimination and a change in
California law before he picked up his new drivers license
in the name of Michael Bijon on Monday. . . . "It was
personal. I feel much closer to (Diana's) father than I do
mine. She asked me to take her name and I thought it would
be very simple. I never imagined the state would make it so
difficult," Michael Bijon, 31, told reporters. . . . He
discovered it would take a $350 fee, court appearances, a
public announcement and mounds of paperwork to make a change
on his driving license that is routine for women who marry.
. . . After months of frustration, the Los Angeles computer
programmer and his ER nurse wife Diana, 29, took their
problem to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern
California.
April 2008
PENNSYLVANIA
Now We Know, Marriage Is Cost-Effective
By Carey Roberts, NewsWithViews.com
4-26-08 -- It’s long
been known that family break-up inflicts massive social
costs on communities and children. But what about the burden
it imposes on the American taxpayer? . . . It’s a proven
fact that family dissolution places children at greater risk
of poverty, mental and physical illness, juvenile
delinquency, abuse, substance abuse, and educational
failure. A few years ago Wade Horn, former director of the
federal Administration for Children and Families, revealed,
“My agency spends $46 billion per year operating 65
different social programs. If one goes down the list of
these programs... the need for each is either created or
exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages.” . . .
But what about the impact of heavier demands on the criminal
justice system? Medical care services? And losses in tax
revenues? At last we have a good idea of the answer. . . .
Last week -- Tax Day to be exact -- the Institute for
American Values released its ground-breaking report,
“Taxpayer
Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing.”
Is Planned Parenthood Above The Law?
By Maggie Gallagher
4-22-08 -- Planned
Parenthood likes to think of itself as above all reproach --
a champion of women's rights and also (as its annual report
claims) the nation's "social justice movement." . . . But
this week, in front of Planned Parenthood offices at 1108
16th St. NW in Washington,
D.C., on Thursday, a group of
black pastors and pro-life activists (joined by two GOP
congressmen) will demand a congressional audit of what the
group alleges are a pattern of racist practices, funded by
taxpayers, at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. . . .
Planned Parenthood's latest trouble began when a feisty
pro-life student magazine called Planned Parenthood offices
in seven states, posing as an openly racist donor seeking to
make sure his check could be earmarked to abort "a black
baby." The resulting phone conversations are horrifying
listening. (Judge for yourself at
www.youtube.com./watch?v=zwif0VMW3c4.)
According to the group, Planned Parenthood officers in at
least four states agreed not only to accept the racists'
check, but to actually earmark the donation for that
purpose. "The less black kids the better," the caller tells
one Planned Parenthood employee. "For whatever reason we'll
accept the money," was one typical response.
NEW
YORK
"Til Death Do Us Part" Just Sounds Too Long to One NY Judge
New York Lawyer By Vesselin Mitev
04-01-08 --
Noting that Americans are living longer with fewer financial
resources, a Long Island judge has refused to order a 59-year-old car salesman to pay lifetime
maintenance to an ex-wife with health problems. . . . "[W]hile
a non-durational maintenance award in this case might
assuage the Court's concerns for the wife's future financial
well being, it would do so at the expense of enslaving the
historic wage earner to indefinite years of employment
beyond any reasonable expected retirement," Supreme Court
Justice Anthony J. Falanga of
Nassau County wrote in
J.S. v. J.S. . . .
Justice Falanga found that Mr. S. has "no choice but to work
full time" until he turns 65 and has the ability to work
until he is 70 in order to provide for his ex-wife. . . .
Thus, he ordered Mr. S. to pay a monthly stipend of $3,000
only for 10 years. The payments will stop should Ms. S.
remarry or either party die during that period. . . . The
case, according to attorneys familiar with the issues, is
illustrative of a trend - Americans are living longer and in
relatively good health while facing a diminishing income as
they pass retirement age.
OHIO
R&B Star Dies in Jail
New York Lawyer, By Thomas P. Sheeran, The Associated Press
04-01-08 -- Sean
Levert, a third of the 1980s R&B trio LeVert and son of lead
O'Jays singer Eddie Levert, has died after falling ill while
serving a jail term. He was 39. . . . Authorities said
Monday that an autopsy was inconclusive but foul play was
ruled out. . . . Levert was sentenced last week to one year
and 10 months in jail for failing to pay $89,025 in child
support. He died at Lutheran Hospital in Cleveland late
Sunday, less than an hour after he was taken there from the
jail, said coroner Frank Miller. . . . Levert was sentenced
by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo,
who said a presentence report indicated he had been addicted
to marijuana from the time he was 14 until recently. He
didn't speak at his sentencing and gave no indication of any
health problems, the judge said Monday. . . . His brother
Gerald Levert, who had success as a solo artist after
leaving their trio died in 2006 at age 40 of an accidental
mix of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. . . . The
brothers had formed LeVert in the 1980s with childhood
friend Marc Gordon. Their hits included "Baby I'm Ready,"
''(Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop) Goes My Mind" and "Casanova."
March 2008
GENERAL
Credit Crunch Raises New Issues for Divorce Lawyers
Matthew Hirsch, The Recorder
03-19-08 -- Andrew
Ross' client is in a bit of a jam. . . . The Walnut Creek,
Calif., divorce lawyer represents a man whose wife wants to
keep the family home. But because of the tight consumer
credit market, she can't get enough cash to buy his client's
piece of the property. . . . To facilitate a settlement,
Ross said his client is thinking about helping his wife
secure a new loan on the house. "He needs $200,000 to
$300,000 to make it an equal division of property," he said.
. . . A haven for mortgage brokers and McMansions,
California's Contra Costa County has been hit
especially hard by the U.S. housing slump and the credit
crunch. . . . The weakening economy, in turn, has some
lawyers and judges in divorce cases grappling with issues
they haven't seen in years, if ever. And it's affecting
families at all income levels.
CONNECTICUT
Before High Court, On His Very Own
Father Brings Case On Parents’
Right
By
Colin Poitras | Courant Staff Writer
03-19-08 --
For 30 minutes Tuesday, Tom
Dutkiewicz, a 47-year-old
Bristol truck driver, stood
before the Connecticut Supreme Court passionately arguing that
the state routinely violates parents' constitutional rights. .
. . Not many laypeople get the opportunity to be heard before
the state's highest court, and Dutkiewicz waited six years for
this single, defining moment. . . . As Dutkiewicz bolstered
his argument with a scattering of legal citations that he had
pulled from the Internet, the panel of five black-robed
jurists, including Chief Justice Chase Rogers, listened with a
patient ear. They asked no questions. . . . When asked later
why he didn't hire a lawyer, Dutkiewicz said, "No guts no
glory. When you hire a lawyer, they say what they want to say.
I wanted to be there to speak for myself." . . . Dutkiewicz
was in court to challenge the constitutionality of a state law
requiring divorcing parents to participate in parenting
education classes. He insists the state has no right to compel
parents to take such classes unless the parents are deemed
unfit. Simply getting divorced, Dutkiewicz said, doesn't cut
it. . . . "The state wrongly assumes I need help," Dutkiewicz
told the court in what was at times a rambling opening
statement. "To me, that's arrogance."
VERMONT
Vt. high court upholds ex-partner's visitation rights
By Associated Press
03-17-08 -- A woman
involved in a high-profile custody dispute welcomed a
Vermont Supreme Court ruling yesterday upholding her
visitation rights to a child her former lesbian partner had
when they were together. "I think it's absolutely wonderful," said Janet
Miller-Jenkins, 43, of Fair Haven, Vt. "It's just affirming
that she indeed has two parents." . . . After hearing an
appeal from Lisa Miller-Jenkins on Thursday, a three-judge
panel ruled yesterday that it had no reason to reexamine the
case. . . . "There is no new evidence or facts to consider
that would affect our prior legal conclusions," the justices
said. . . . Lisa Miller-Jenkins, a resident of Winchester, Va., has been fighting to bar
custody to her former partner since the two split in 2003,
three years after they had obtained a civil union in
Vermont. . . . In April 2002, Lisa Miller-Jenkins gave birth
to the girl, who was conceived through artificial
insemination, and the three moved to Vermont. . . . About a
year later, Lisa Miller-Jenkins renounced her homosexuality,
returned to Virginia, and denied Janet Miller-Jenkins access
to Isabella, who is now 5.
CALIFORNIA
Ruling threatens custody of homeschool kids
'We hope common
sense prevails, people wait for Supreme Court'
By Bob Unruh, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
03-07-08 --
An attorney working on an appeal to the California Supreme
Court of a ruling declaring homeschooling by parents illegal
says the threat to such families is serious and immediate,
especially if there has been a contentious previous
relationship with authorities. . . . Ultimately, Brad Dacus,
chief of
the Pacific Justice Institute,
told WND the ruling involving a Los Angeles family might
even be used by "overzealous" school district officials and
social workers to try to remove a child from a family. . . .
"We are hoping enough common sense prevails for everyone to
wait and see how this plays out before the state Supreme
Court," he said. But in California, such appellate level
rulings are binding on lower courts when they are issued, he
said.
Children of the State
by Joseph A. D'Agostino
There is no such thing as
other people’s children. --
Hillary Clinton
03-04-08 --
Conservative Americans fancy that socialism has been largely
defeated or that its greatest remaining threat lies in
taxation and spending. They forget that the dream of leftist
revolutionaries for centuries has been not only to equalize
wealth and social status, but to eliminate all distinctions
among the citizens of their ideal republic. All of these
revolutionaries from Marx on down have targeted the family
for destruction. . . . Undemocratic Institution . . .
The family is a highly undemocratic institution. The nuclear
family consists of one man and one woman, a highly specific
and unliberated straitjacket of a social structure. They
have loyalty to one another greater than that to society at
large and also dedication to their own children, over whom
they have authority—and any private authority is a rival to
the government’s. To a true democrat, this preference for
one’s spouse and authority over one’s children violates the
principle of equality, which proclaims that we must treat
everyone exactly the same. For the modern democratic
statist, these loyalties and authorities weaken his own
power and inhibit the ongoing concentration of all authority
in one central government.
My Wife Became Legal And I Became Illegal
By Carey Roberts, NewsWithViews.com
03-03-08 --
Each year the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and similar
federal laws funnel $1 billion to help abused and battered
women – or so we are led to believe. A good part of that
money goes to immigrants who claim to be victims of domestic
violence. . . . Last Fall I wrote a three-part exposé that
revealed how an immigrant woman’s restraining order becomes
a “gold-plated meal ticket that entitles her to preferential
treatment by immigration authorities, free legal services,
and a generous helping of welfare services.” . . . One woman
whose father had been falsely accused of abuse and forced
from his home wrote me, “I believe the Violence Against
Women Act should be called the ‘Women
Get What They Want Act.’”
. . . Following those columns I received an unending stream
of horror stories from persons falsely accused of domestic
violence. One came from Sean Moffett of St. Paul, Minn. whose wife is from
Guatemala. Soon after the wedding he discovered to his
dismay that her real aim was different from what she had
pledged in her wedding vows.
CALIFORNIA
Judge orders homeschoolers into government education
Court: Family's religious
beliefs 'no evidence' of 1st Amendment violation
By Bob Unruh, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
03-03-08 -- A
California court has ruled that several children in one
homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or
"legally qualified" private school, and must attend, sending
ripples of shock into the nation's homeschooling advocates
as the family reviews its options for appeal. . . . The
ruling came in a case brought against Phillip and Mary Long
over the education being provided to two of their eight
children. They are considering an appeal to the state
Supreme Court, because they have homeschooled all of their
children, the oldest now 29, because of various
anti-Christian influences in California's public schools. .
. . The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles
granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to
represent the two youngest children after the family's
homeschooling was brought to the attention of child
advocates.
TEXAS
Child-support payments, federal funding caught in the middle
of Texas court battle
By David Tarrant / The Dallas Morning News
03-03-08 -- Claiming
that nearly $200 million in federal funding is at stake, the
Texas attorney general's office is involved in a faceoff
with family-court judges over who has the right to collect
child-support payments. . . . The high-stakes showdown
focuses on Guardian Ad Litem, a Dallas-area child-support
collection business run by Robert O'Donnell of McKinney
since 1986. . . . For more than 20 years, family-court
judges in Dallas and Collin counties have appointed Guardian
Ad Litem in about 20,000 divorce-decree cases to collect and
distribute child-support payments. He boasted a collection
rate of about 80 percent and was quick with enforcement
actions, including suing parents who fell behind on their
payments. He charged each client $10 per month.
VIRGINIA
Virginia cuts all government funding to Planned Parenthood
LifeSiteNews.com
03-03-08 --
The Virginia Senate decided to end taxpayer funding to
abortion provider Planned Parenthood on Wednesday. Lt.
Governor Bill Bolling cast the tie-breaking vote and
approved the amendment to the state budget following the
20-20 tie vote among senators. . . . Attorney general
hopeful Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II introduced the amendment. He
explicitly attacked Planned Parenthood's abortion programs.
"What we are doing is financing an abortion-mill operator,"
Cuccinelli said. "This will deny them that money" . .
[Click for more]
February 2008
NEW
YORK
New York Governor Launches Crusade to Expand Abortions
Family News in Focus
02-29-08 -- The state
is already the national leader in abortions. . . . New York
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, is pushing the Reproductive
Health and Privacy Protection Act, which declares that women
have a "fundamental right" to abortion — including in the
third trimester. The bill also takes out any reference to
the preborn child as a "person." . . . The state is already
the national leader in abortions — the annual rate of 38 per
1,000 women of childbearing age is the highest of any state
and twice the national average, the New York Daily News
reported. . . . New York has neither mandatory waiting
periods for abortion nor parental-notice requirements. The
state Medicaid program covers abortion for poor women.
NEW
YORK
In First, N.Y. Judge Allows Gay Divorce
Trial Court Ruling Appears to
Be State's First Allowing Divorce From Same-Sex Marriage
ABC News
02-27-08 -- In what
appears to be the first ruling of its kind, a New York judge
will allow a lesbian couple who married in Canada to sue for
divorce. . . . Though New York does not allow same-sex
marriages, a state trial court judge refused to dismiss a
divorce and child custody suit brought by a woman,
identified only as Beth R., against her former partner Donna
M. . . . Donna M. had argued that her 2004 marriage should
be invalid in New York because the state doesn't allow
same-sex marriage, but Supreme Court Justice Laura Drager
found that the out-of-state marriage could still be
recognized under New York law. Her ruling appears to be the
first divorce case in New York from a same-sex marriage.
E-Mail Is Evidence in Divorces
02-13-08 --
The use of electronic data as evidence in divorce cases has
sharply increased in the past five years, according to a
survey of the
American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
. . . E-mail is the most commonly used form of electronic
evidence, according to 82% of the lawyers surveyed. Text and
instant messaging and Internet histories both came in second
with 7% each. GPS data was cited by another 1%. . . . Wives
are more likely to be the ones using electronic evidence.
According to the lawyers surveyed, 27% said wives use the
data more often in cases, while only 5% said husbands did.
ALABAMA
Religion Joins Custody Cases, to Judges’ Unease
By Neela Banerjee
02-13-08 -- On a
January night nine years ago, Laura Snider was saved. . . .
A 27-year-old single mother at the time, Mrs. Snider felt
she had ruined her life through a disastrous marriage and
divorce. But in her kitchen that night, after reading
pamphlets and Bible passages that her boss had pointed her
to, she realized she was a sinner, she said, she prayed for
forgiveness, and put her trust in Christ. . . . Four years
later, the conservative brand of Christianity Mrs. Snider
embraced became the source of a bitter, continuing custody
battle over her only child, Libby Mashburn. . . . Across the
country, child-custody disputes in which religion is the
flash point are increasing, part of a broader rise in
custody conflicts over the last 30 years, lawyers, judges
and mediators say.
NEVADA
Investigation Against Family Court Judge Moves Forward
Edward Lawrence, Reporter
02-13-08 -- The
investigation against a family court judge is moving
forward. Judge Nicholas Del Vecchio faces 38 counts in a
judicial complaint including sexual misconduct with a minor.
. . . We are waiting to see if Judge Nicholas Del Vecchio
will be suspended from the bench. At the moment, the family
court judge has not officially received the charges. Once he
officially receives them, the judicial commission can
suspend him. So he is still hearing cases as of Tuesday. . .
. Del Vecchio usually decides cases. Now he's the defendant.
The Nevada Commission of Judicial Discipline outlined
inappropriate and sexually suggestive acts by the judge with
a girl back in 1992. . . . The relationship grew according
to the documents, saying Judge Del Vecchio made the girl
perform oral sex at 14-years-old. Then the complaint says he
took nude photos of her from ages 14 to 16-years-old.
GENERAL
High turnover: Many judges want no part of dependency
court
By Karen de Sá, Mercury News
02-11-08 -- For many
dependency court judges, the work is viewed as exile that
lasts only until another assignment arrives. Sixty percent
of 2,200 dependency judges surveyed nationwide in 2004
perceived that their legal community held them in moderate
to low esteem. . . . Judges give many reasons. The caseloads
are overwhelming, the decisions often too gut-wrenching and
hasty. The proceedings are closed, offering the judges
little professional visibility. And in some counties like
Santa Clara, dependency matters are heard in makeshift
courtrooms like trailers or abandoned banks. . . . Many get
out as soon as they can. . . . Only a handful of judges now
presiding over dependency cases in California have been in
their post for more than five years. The median length of an
assignment is 2.8 years, barely enough time for judges to be
fully trained and become familiar enough with the complex
dependency system.
CALIFORNIA
Broken families, broken courts:
A timid advocate for parents' rights
By Karen de Sá, Mercury News
02-11-08 -- Marquita
Jackson first met her lawyer minutes before the court battle
for her baby began. There was little time to talk before a
Santa Clara County Dependency Court commissioner would rule
whether her child could come back home. . . . Days earlier,
in 2004, the infant fell limp in his father's arms as
Jackson watched. The boy was discovered to have a brain
hemorrhage. Doctors and social workers suspected the baby's
father had violently shaken the baby earlier that day. To
win back her child, Jackson had to overcome the allegation
that she failed to protect him. . .. Jackson felt she had
no chance to tell her court-appointed lawyer that she did
not know how the injury occurred, that her boyfriend did not
believe he had even caused it. "There was no real
discussion," she said. . . . Inside the courtroom, the
social worker laid out the case, and it was over in moments.
"Everything was like boom, boom, boom." . . . Jackson, then
20, left the Terraine Street courthouse in San Jose that day
in a daze. The court permitted only a pair of two-hour
visits a week with her baby. She had six months to prove she
deserved him back.
CALIFORNIA
'Mom,' 'dad,' banned; now 600,000 students could go
Alternatives
offered to parents worried about 'repudiation' of Christian
morals
By Bob Unruh, © 2008 WorldNetDaily
02-08-08 --
Only months after a new state law effectively banned "mom"
and "dad" from California schools, 600,000 students soon
could be following them out the door because of what has
been described as the "repudiation" of 2,000 years of
Christian morality, according to leaders of a new campaign
assembling education alternatives. . . . The campaign is
called
California Exodus
and is being headed by Ron Gleason, pastor of Grace
Presbyterian Church in Yorba Linda, who said while the
country excels in social, economic, scientific and political
accomplishments, it "gets low grades on the education of its
children." . . . The issue is the state legislature's
adoption of Senate Bill 777, which requires only positive
portrayals of homosexual, bisexual, transgender and other
alternative lifestyle choices. . . . "First, the law allowed
public schools to voluntarily promote homosexuality,
bisexuality, and transsexuality. Then, the law required
public schools to accept homosexual, bisexual, and
transsexual teachers as role models for impressionable
children. Now, the law has been changed to effectively
require the positive portrayal of homosexuality,
bisexuality, and transsexuality to six million children in
California government-controlled schools," said Randy
Thomasson, chief of the
Campaign for Children and Families
and one of those who originally called for an abandonment of
public schools.
MINNESOTA
Circumcision Complaint Unappealing, Judges Find, But Lawyer
Vows to Battle on for "Genital Integrity"
Circumcision Complaint
Unappealing, Judges Find, But Lawyer Vows to Battle on for
"Genital Integrity"
New York Lawyer
02-06-08 -- (AP) --
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that a mother who
didn't like the way her baby's circumcision looked cannot
sue a Fridley hospital for medical malpractice. . . . Dawn
Nelson sued Unity Hospital and Dr. Steven Berestka, claiming
the doctor removed "the most erogenous tissue" after the boy
was born on Jan. 21, 2000 — without consulting either
parent. Nelson and the boy's father, David Nelson, were
unhappy with the result. . . . But the
Appeals Court noted in its
Tuesday decision that the mother indicated on a prenatal
form that the baby should be circumcised. . . . Attorney
Zenas Baer, who is representing the mother and son, said he
was disappointed with the court ruling.
CALIFORNIA
Grandparents win right to be
considered for
grandchildren placement
In re Antonio G., No. D051079
. . . Orders denying maternal grandmother's request to have
children placed with her are reversed and vacated in part
where county agency and the juvenile court essentially
ignored their duty under Welfare and Institutions Code
section 361.3 to properly consider grandmother's request to
have her two dependent grandchildren placed with her. The
agency did not reevaluate grandmother using the criteria set
forth in section 361.3(a), and the juvenile court did not
consider those criteria in assessing her as a placement
option.
Read more... PDF
version
January 2008
MASSACHUSETTS
Massachusetts Men & Women Looking for Alimony Reform
Joint Committee of the
Judiciary to hold Hearing at Statehouse; January 24 to Hear
Residents Experiences of Lifetime Alimony, Bankruptcy and Jail
Time
PRNewswire/
01-23-08 -- A growing
group of Massachusetts men and women who have formed the
group, "Mass Alimony Reform" will get their chance to address
the Joint Committee of the Judiciary on Thursday, January 24
at 1:00pm in regards to House Bill # 1567. . . . The
hearing, held in Room A 1 of the State House is meant to
provide a forum for Massachusetts residents who have been
ordered by the courts for years to provide a lifetime of
alimony to their ex-spouses as a result of divorce. The
majority of the residents that are scheduled to address the
committee regarding alimony reform are women, the second wives
of husbands once divorced. Many of these women are forced to
share the expense of providing living and other expenses for
their present husband's first wives who are unwilling to
support themselves. At the present time, the income of the
second wife is often used to determine the amount of alimony
awarded to the first wife..
NEW
JERSEY
N.J. High Court Hears Pitch for Palimony Sans Cohabitation
Michael Booth, New Jersey Law Journal
01-23-08 -- For the
nearly three decades that New Jersey has recognized a cause of
action for palimony, cohabitation has been the litmus test. No
degree of love, devotion, mutual assurance or sacrifice has
been found sufficient without it. . .. But what if the couple
is intimate for two decades but can't cohabit because one
party stays married to someone else? Put more bluntly, is
there equitable power to award palimony to a mistress? . . .
The lower courts have said no, putting the issue before the
state Supreme Court in L'Esperance v. Devaney, A-20-07.
. . . Palimony is shorthand for equitable recovery based on a
long-term, spousal-type relationship between two parties not
married to each other. It was first recognized three decades
ago in California in Marvin v. Marvin, 18 Cal. 3d 660 (1976).
New Jersey followed suit in Kozlowski v. Kozlowski, 80
N.J. 378 (1979), a case also involving a married man in a
relationship with another woman.
PENNSYLVANIA
Lyco judge to decide custody
Grandparents fight to raise
child left in wake of murder-suicide
By
Mark Maroney
01-23-08 -- Family
members seeking custody of a 4-year-old girl whose parents
died in a murder-suicide in Mill Hall last Easter Sunday go
back to court today, fighting to win the right to raise the
child. . . . The custody fight ensued after Benjamin A. Barone,
Gianna’s father, shot his estranged wife, Jodi L. Warshaw,
outside the Sheetz convenience store along Hogan Boulevard in
Clinton County and then turned the gun on himself, state
police said. They left a daughter, Gianna Barone. . . . Vickey
A. Warshaw of State College, the girl’s maternal grandmother,
is seeking full legal custody of the child. . . . Victoria
Barone of Williamsport is the child’s paternal grandmother
and, while the grandmothers follow a schedule of a week-on and
a week-off visitation, there is a dispute on where the girl
should live and grow up. . .. Barone and Gianna’s maternal
grandfather, Donald Warshaw of Florida, both were in court. .
. . Lycoming County Judge Richard A. Gray has determined the
girl’s grandfather is qualified to proceed because state law
automatically grants such standing to grandparents.
RHODE
ISLAND
Blog battle becomes free speech case
By
Edward Fitzpatrick, Journal Staff Writer
Related links
Read a memorandum of law for Anne Grant's petition (PDF)
Read Anne Grant&'s petition for write of certiorari (PDF)
Read DCYF's objection to Anne Grant's petition (PDF)
Read Anne Grant's reply to DCYF's objection
www.custodyscam.blogspot.com,
Author Anne Grant
01-14-08 --
The divorce and custody case involving children “Sara Doe” and
“Mary Doe” might have remained just another of the bitter
battles that play out in Family Court, deeply personal and
unnoticed by the public. . . . But a retired minister began a
blog that blasted the state Department of Children, Youth and
Families and others involved in the case, saying they’d used a
“bogus theory” to take a mother’s two daughters from her and
to send one of the sisters to live with the father — after the
father had been accused of sexually abusing the girl. . . . At
DCYF’s request, a Family Court judge ordered the state agency
to “advise” the Rev. Anne Grant to stop publishing the blog
“as it pertains” to the two children. While the blog used fake
names for the girls, DCYF said the blog included the
children’s photographs, diary entries and medical information,
and the site repeated the sexual abuse claim that a DCYF
hearing officer had deemed “unfounded.”
MISSISSIPPI
750,000 dollars in damages for cuckolded husband
01-07-08 -- (AFP) — A
Mississippi businessman must pay more than 750,000 dollars in
damages to the man whose wife he wooed away, after the US
Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in the
case. . . . In 1997, Sandra Valentine began working for Jerry
Fitch, a wealthy realtor and successful businessman. . . .
When she gave birth to a daughter two years later, it quickly
became apparent that her boss -- not her plumber husband --
was the baby's father. . . . The couple divorced a short time
later, after legal proceedings in which she acknowledged an
adulterous relationship with Fitch, whom she tied the knot
with a short time later. . . . But armed with the admission of
adultery, betrayed ex-husband Johnny Valentine decided to sue
Fitch, based on an antiquated Mississippi state law permitting
a cuckolded spouse to seek damages for "loss of society,
companionship, love and affection," as well as "the loss of
sexual relations."
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