In re C.V.D.C. and C.D.C., _______NC________ (2020). In North Carolina, for a Termination of Parental Rights petition to succeed, a set of factors set out in N.C.G.S section 7B-1110(a) must be weighed by the court. If the balance of those factors favors termination, the trial court has discretion to do…
When a marriage ends, many former couples carry hurt, anger, grief, resentment, and hostility towards each other. Some former spouses cannot let go of these feelings even after the divorce. What happens to the children of these marriages when those feelings carry over into their post-separation lives? During custody exchanges,…
Padilla v. Whitley De Padilla, COA19-478 (2020) (unpublished). Child custody orders are modifiable. In order to do so, the party seeking a modification must show a substantial change from the circumstances found in previous order that warrant the modification. It may seem obvious that a diminishment in the custodial parent’s…
Routten v. Routten, ______ N.C. _______ (2020). Child Custody can be a hotly contested issue in divorce cases with minor children involved. In certain instances, a court can award sole custody to one parent and even deny visitation to the noncustodial parent. That determination is severe and, by law, must…
Hamdan v. Freitekh, ______ N.C. App. _______ (2020) (COA19-929). Here in North Carolina, and across the nation, the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) sets the jurisdictional rules for how and where custody orders are enforced. The cardinal rule in custody cases has always been, and continues to be,…
In our practice in Greensboro, North Carolina, it is not uncommon for the parties in a divorce to agree verbally to a change in child support payments. Read on to see how such an apparent show of comity may not hold up in the eyes of the court. Baker v.…
Shak v. Shak, ____ Mass. _____, SJC-12748 (2020). Nondisparagement clauses are ubiquitous in custody agreements and orders. Generally, they are a blanket prohibition on a parent from “talking bad” about the other parent in a form that the minor child(ren) will understand (whether in their presence or on social media,…
Demar v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 201991, 2019 WL 3244301 (2019) (a) Facts: Husband and wife were divorced. The divorce decree, which was a consent judgment, provided that the child would reside primarily with the wife. The husband was permitted to claim the child as a dependent for tax purposes in…
Skitzki v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 2019106, 2019 WL 3946102 (2019) (a) Facts: Husband and wife were divorced. The divorce decree gave the father custody two weekends each month, one weekday per week if the mother was in Ohio, and three (before age four) or four weeks in the summer. It…
Cook v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 201948, 2019 WL 2011087 (2019) (a) Facts: An unmarried couple had a child. A New York court awarded custody to the mother. The order was silent on the tax exemption for the child. The parties orally agreed that the father could claim the exemption. The…