For many parents contemplating a divorce or dissolution of their marriage, a primary concern is which parent shall have “custody” of the child or children of the marriage. I shall begin the article by addressing the differences between the two parenting systems in Ohio – “sole custody” and “shared parenting”.
- The parents have different names or titles: In a situation where one parent has “sole custody” of the child/children, that parent is designated as the “residential parent and legal custodian” and the other parent is designated as the “non-residential parent” or the “non-custodial parent”. In a shared parenting situation both parents have the same title. They are both designated as the “residential parent and legal custodian” of the child or children. For school district reasons of residency and tuition, one parent’s residence is typically designated as the residence of the child for school district purposes. The parent whose residence is the residence of the child for school district purposes may have a slight advantage over the other party as he or she has the ability to change residences with the child changing school districts accordingly. For example, in a “shared parenting” arrangement wherein Mother’s residence is the residence of the
On July 1, 2009, I received a decision on one of the more interesting cases I have worked on since embarking on my legal career. The case started out as a custody case in Juvenile Court, but quickly spiraled into a full-scale federal trial; and subsequently, an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. It’s safe to say that this was not your typical custody case. What made this case different, among other things, was that the family had moved to Ohio from Israel and the mother had returned to Israel. While in Israel, she decided to pursue custody and filed a Petition for the return of the minor child under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, claiming that our client, the child’s father, had kidnapped the child and wrongfully retained him here in the United States instead of allowing him to return to Israel.
This is a follow-up to my recent article about Ohio Domestic Violence and the impact it can have on individuals. I decided to write this article to help educate the public about Domestic Violence proceedings in Ohio and what people should know when filing a petition or responding to a petition. After conducting an informal survey, I discovered that there are many important issues that people need to consider when dealing with a Petition for Domestic Violence. I have included some of the items that court personnel wished people knew, including information on the Petition, what is relevant in the proceedings, and the impact that a finding of Domestic Violence can have on an individual.
An Ontario, Canada, Superior Court Judge issued a thorough well-reasoned but very unusual decision on January 16, 2009, changing custody of three (3) girls, ages 15, 11 and 9, from their primary caregiving mother to the father based upon evidence of a long pattern of parental alienation. In fact, Mother had denied Father, a vascular surgeon, any contact with the girls for about two (2) years before these proceedings.
Ohio Revised Code Section 3109.051(A) provides, in part, that, “Whenever possible, the order or decree permitting the parenting time shall ensure the opportunity for both parents to have frequent and continuing contact with the child, unless frequent and continuing contact by either parent with the child would not be in the best interest of the child.” In 2006, a bill was introduced in the Ohio Senate to allow Juvenile or Domestic Relations Courts to grant a reasonable amount of “electronic communication” between a parent and a child so long as the electronic communication was in the child’s best interest and the equipment was readily available. In Senate Bill 341, electronic communications was defined as “communication facilitated by the use of methods of communication such as the telephone, electronic mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, or other wired or wireless technologies via the internet, or another medium of communication that allows a party who has been granted parenting time, companionship, or visitation rights to communicate with a child during times in which the child is not physically present with the party.” While … 
You may not be aware that, years after you have prepared a separation agreement, it may have a direct bearing on whether your clients are covered under their auto or homeowners’ insurance policies in a variety of accident scenarios.
It is important that family law attorneys remain aware of the patterns of behavior found in cases involving possible parental alienation and pay heed to ongoing complaints by clients experiencing even the early stages of alienating behavior. Early in a custody case it can be very apparent that one parent is extremely angry, bitter or feels betrayed, by both the other parent and by expectations of the “system”. Having to share custody may only intensify the anger due to having to continue the relationship with a person they despise. Then a campaign begins to align the children to his or her side and together with the children work to destroy any viable relationship with the target parent.