Caryn Tamber tells the story in the Maryland Daily Record of Marius Aydanian and Antonina Aydanian, both of Bulgaria, who met when they were seeking political asylum in the United States.  They were granted asylum, married and moved to Indianapolis.  In 1998, Antonina enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.  Marius stayed in Indianapolis.  Antonina gave birth to their son.  In 2005, she obtained a Bulgarian divorce.

Marius was able to obtain a visitation order in the U.S. for two days a month and the summers.  However, Antonina sent the boy to Bulgaria for two summers in a row.

Marius filed suit in Montgomery County, Maryland, for intentional interference with visitation.  On July 1, 2009, after two and a half days of trial, the jury returned a verdict for Marius in the amount of $23,000.

In a 2008 case, Khalifa et al. v. Shannon, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld a $3 million verdict in favor of a father for interference with visitation when his ex-wife and mother-in-law took their two children to Egypt.

Katrina Daniels Lee had some good advice on her radio show last night for parents who are prevented from seeing their children by a hostile parent or by the court.  She told them to set up a Facebook site and post their positive feelings for their children on it.  She said that children are so  computer savy these days they will find it sooner or later.  In her interview with me, she also told her listeners to reach out for support, help each other and never give up hope for reunification with their children.

Fathers will ask me from time to time how they can monitor their child support payments to make sure the money will be used for the children’s expenses and not the mother’s expenses.  Some of the money would have to be allocated to common expenses like rent, utilities, food and transportation.  Others would be direct expenses like clothing.  It seems to me that this would be an accounting nightmare so I recommend against it.

Some fathers want me to raise the issue with the court.  I tell them about the equitable doctrine of “De minimis non curat lex” (”The law does not bother with trifles”).  Judges are barely keeping up with the cases they have, and simply don’t have the time or inclination to monitor monthly expenditures in a child support case.

The court will take action if a child is being neglected, typically by changing custody.  But short of that, mothers do not have to report how child support is spent.  For a mother’s perspective on this, see this article by Christina Rowe.

Question:

My wife says she is leaving and taking the kids.  I don’t want her to.  What do I do?

Answer:

First, tell her that she can go, but the kids stay.  You have joint legal custody and joint physical custody until and unless the court says otherwise.  You have the right to pick them up from school or any other place she takes them.

Second, call your lawyer.  He or she will try to reach a written agreement with your wife’s attorney about the children, even if it is a temporary one.  The agreement will cover who lives where, how much time each party spends with the children and how the bills will get paid.

Third, if you can’t reach an agreement, then you can petition the court for a custody and access order.  This will usually involve legal fees, pleadings and a hearing.

While many clients think the trial resolves everything, most lawyers know that is not the case.  If the mother of your children was difficult before the trial, the trial is not going to make her into a different person.   She will still be difficult, you will have disputes regarding the children and you will need to resolve them somehow.

The court has the power to enforce its orders or the agreement of the parties.  So the court can order a mother to allow visitation or can order a father to pay child support.  However, the court will only do this if one of the parties asks it to do so by filing a petition.  The other party will then have an opportunity to respond and a hearing to present their side to the judge.

It is always better to resolve disputes yourselves if possible.   If you have a settlement agreement, you can include a provision that disputes will be submitted to mediation before taking the other party back to court.

You can also include a Parenting Coordinator in an agreement.  This would be someone that the parties can take their disputes to and let them make a decision.  This is less costly and time consuming than litigation.

If you cannot resolve your dispute through one of these methods, then you must go back to court and ask the judge to decide.  In some cases, it may be like trying your case all over again.  In addition to resolving post-trial disputes, the court has the power to modify legal custody, physical custody, timesharing and child support after the trial, if circumstances change and the modification would be in the best interests of the child.

Every judge sees it differently. If the judge’s father abandoned his family and the judge’s mother slaved day and night to help her son through law school, then the judge will have a hard time understanding why a father should have custody. The mother does not have an automatic edge in litigation. Fathers win in a lot of litigated cases.

There are certain doctrines and presumptions (but not inflexible rules or requirements) which aid the court in determining the best interest of the child:

1. Parental rights. Parents must be shown to be unfit before the children will be given to someone else, such as grandparents.

2. Continuity of placement. If children are doing well where they are, do not mess things up by moving them.

3. Children’s preference. A judge will consider who the children want to live with. The judge may talk to the child in private and may talk to a child younger than fourteen years of age. The judge is not bound by what the child wants.

4. Other. The court can consider the custodian’s age, health, wealth, religious beliefs, conduct, type of home, psychological evaluations; the location of the residences of the child’s siblings; the child’s school performance; or anything else the court considers important.
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