In re: T.R. – Part 1

           It was late in 1988 when it all started. Clayton W. Rose, Jr. was the Administrative Judge of the Franklin County Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court at the time. When I got to the Courthouse that morning, he came to my office and said he wanted to talk to me. I didn't know it then (do we ever?) but events were about to begin to unfold that would change my life. Here is that story.

                                                          

            Judge Rose told me that he had set aside a custody decision in a divorce case and dismissed the custody portion of the case after facts were revealed to him concerning the alleged child of the parties. Genetic tests had revealed that Richard Reams, the husband in the divorce case, was neither the natural nor adoptive parent of the alleged child of the marriage. Further, the wife in the divorce, Beverly Reams, later known as Beverly Seymour, was neither the biological nor adoptive mother of the child.

            Judge Rose told me that a custody case had been filed by Beverley Seymour, pro se, concerning the child, whose name was Tessa Annaleah Reams. As Administrative Judge, he had assigned the case to me, if I was willing to accept it. "Sure," I said, "why not?' His response was: "Have fun."

            The circumstances of Tessa's birth were complex, to say the least. Richard and Beverly Reams were unable to conceive a child, so Richard contacted an agency called the Association for Surrogate Parenting Services, which put him in touch with Norma Lee Stotski. Norma agreed to act as a surrogate and to be artificially inseminated with Richard's sperm. She was to be paid $10,000 to provide this service, surrender custody of the child at birth, and consent to adoption of the child by Beverly.

            Tessa was born on January 12, 1985, and Richard and Beverly took possession of her soon after. Nothing was done to formalize the adoption of the child by Beverly. The divorce action, which Judge Rose eventually resolved without determining custody of the child, was filed a year later.

            Genetic tests to determine just who Tessa's parents were revealed that Richard was not her biological father; rather, a friend of Norma's named Leslie Miner had provided the sperm for a supposed self-administered artificial insemination of Norma after the attempts with Richard's sperm had failed. Neither Richard nor Beverly had been informed of this change in plans.

            While Richard and Beverly shared possession of Tessa, a custody action involving Richard, Beverly, Norma, and Leslie was commenced and assigned to me. A Guardian ad Litem was appointed to represent the best interests of Tessa. The battle was joined. Newspaper articles about the dispute appeared in the Delaware Gazette and the Columbus Dispatch.

But these initial articles were just the beginning of a storm of publicity that occurred when Beverly decided to attempt to enlist the press as her ally in the struggle to obtain custody of Tessa. In January of 1989, she sent a press release she prepared, accompanied by a picture of Tessa, entitled "Mother in Fact Battles Surrogate for Child" to newspapers and surrogate parenting organizations. The release included solicitation of contributions to a "legal fund."

All hell broke loose as The New York Times ran several articles about the case. The Columbus Dispatch included pictures in its coverage. People Magazine ran a six-page story. A supermarket tabloid ran a feature titled "Who Owns Baby Tessa" and invited readers to submit proposed solutions. A crew from Fox Television interviewed Beverly and she was invited to appear on the Geraldo talk show.

Something had to be done.

Ten Ways to Lose Your Custody Case – Part 5

          These last two hints on how to lose custody of children both relate to the failure of parents to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions. Sometimes a parent will come to see that things are not going well in their quest to be the primary custodial parent of their children. They then have two choices: They can examine their behavior and consider that their actions have placed them in the position they find themselves. Or, they can resist change and place the blame elsewhere.

9.         Don't get help

            Over the years, I have had contact as judge or lawyer with a number of parents who are clearly their own worst enemies. Sometimes the problem is drugs or alcohol, or both. Sometimes it is the result of personality or mental health problems. Sometimes it is the inability to control their emotional response to the other parent. Often, it is a combination of several of these factors.

            Problems of this nature often become apparent to the various players in a custody case, including the lawyer for the parent with the problems. It is very difficult for a lawyer to tell his or her own client that they are the source of the difficulties with their case. But a good lawyer will confront the client about the client's need to seek help to deal with a serious life problem that is impacting that parent's relationship with, and ability to care for, children.

            We were recently involved in a case where it was clear to all the lawyers and the Guardian ad Litem that one parent had serious mental health difficulties, as well as drug and/or alcohol challenges. The other parent, whom we represented, was compelled to seek a revision in the custodial arrangement because of fears expressed by a child concerning the erratic behavior of the parent with problems, and, most significantly, because the troubled parent would not acknowledge and seek help to overcome the problems that were interfering with their ability to take care of the child.

10.       Blame your lawyer – Get a new one

            Finally, when all is going poorly and the custody case seems about to be lost, individuals who cannot take personal responsibility shift the blame to the lawyer they have chosen to represent them. "Certainly," the client thinks, "this can't be my fault. I am a wonderful parent and my spouse is a miserable person. I don't like the advice my lawyer is giving me. If things aren't going my way, it must be my lawyer who is at fault."

However, there are several pitfalls associated with changing counsel in the middle of any litigation. Changing lawyers is expensive. Any litigation, whether it involves custody or some other issue, requires a lot of "front-end load" of the lawyer's time. When a case is already in progress, this may be compounded by the need to review and absorb a complex file just to get up to speed.

Changing lawyers also often sends a message to the other players in a case, including the opposing counsel, the Guardian ad Litem, and the judge and/or magistrate involved in the matter. Lawyers are generally leery about taking on a case that another lawyer has been handling, primarily because we are aware that clients change lawyers under circumstances that are usually difficult in cases that have gone off the tracks for some reason. Many lawyers simply refuse to be the "substitute" in a case that has been ongoing.

            Finally, if the client is changing lawyers because the advice he or she is getting seems to point to problems of the client's own making, the refusal to deal with realities cannot be cured by seeking new counsel. Parents in custody litigation need to look to their own behavior with as critical an eye as the one they focus on the other parent.

Kittens in the Courthouse

             Some 25 years ago, when I was on the bench, Donna and I discovered that a little black cat had delivered kittens in our back yard. We called her "Mommy" and watched the kittens grow. Then, suddenly, one day, they were gone. We figured that a dog or something had got to them. Mommy, however, was still around.

            A couple of months later, we determined that Mommy was again pregnant. But, this time, we decided to bring her into the house to have her kittens. Shortly, she produced five precious little balls of fur.

            Donna and I became cat people very soon after we were married. When we returned from our honeymoon we moved into our apartment in Buckeye Village, OSU's married student housing, and began our Fall Quarter classes. Walking back to the apartments after that season's (1965) first home football game, we discovered a young cat in a field across Olentangy River Road. We picked her up, took her home, and named her Sooty.

            Since that day, we have always had at least one cat. Today we share our home with Willie and Tybee. Willie marched into the house one day and decided to stay just as I unlocked and opened the front door. I have no idea where he came from. Tybee was a tiny kitten, fostered with his litter mates by our son Adam and daughter-in-law Sandy until he was old enough to come home.

            We have a soft spot for cats.

            After Mommy had her kittens, we had her spayed, changed her name to Mimi, and she became part of our family for many years. But, what were we to do with the five kittens?

            One morning, when the kittens were about six weeks old, I put them in a cardboard box and carried them to the Courthouse with me. I figured that, cute as they were, I would have no problem finding them good homes with my co-workers in Domestic Relations Court. I was right. The kittens became the prime attraction on the sixth floor that day, and, by the time 5 o'clock rolled around, all five had been claimed and were on their way to their new forever homes.

            I got regular reports on the kittens from their new families over the years. All of them were loved and several produced offspring of their own. In fact, one of the cat adopters told me that the kitten I had assured her was a male had given birth to a litter of seven kittens!

            I know there are "dog people" and "cat people" and sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye. But I can't imagine a home without an animal that cares about us. I think about Sooty and how she introduced us to the joys of cat ownership. I view each of our long line of cats as gifts of love that made our lives a little more livable.

Ten Ways to Lose Your Custody Case – Part 4

            A parent involved in a custody dispute may well feel moved to punish his or her spouse for any number of real or imagined transgressions. Unfortunately, the weaponry involved in the punishment may well impact the children and heavily influence the determination by the court concerning the allocation of parental rights and responsibilities. Numbers 7 and 8 on our list involve just that sort of vindictive behavior.

7.         Don't meet your financial obligations

            Financial obligations related to children, as every parent knows, are both multiple and varied. When a divorce is in process, those obligations are usually assigned to one or both parents as part of the "temporary orders" process. The obligations can include the payment of a monthly sum of temporary child support, daycare expenses, medical costs, school fees and expenses – the list goes on and on. Obligations can also include servicing the family debt and the payment of temporary spousal support.

            P. G. Wodehouse, the English humorist, compared paying money to an estranged spouse to "feeding hay to a dead horse." Far too many divorcing parents share this point of view, even when the financial obligations directly or indirectly impact the children they claim to love so much. Many lawyers have heard their client's lament, "I know she (or he) is not spending all that money on the kids. Why should I have to pay?"

            There are a couple of answers to that question. The first is easy: The court ordered you to pay and not complying is contempt and could land you in trouble. The second, however, is more poignant. You claim to love your children and to look out for their best interests. That claim is unsustainable when you are not doing your part to provide them with the financial support they need and deserve.

8.         Interfere with the other parent's parenting time

           

.           In all but the most unusual cases, those involving abuse or neglect, both parents are allocated time to spend with their children. This parenting time is viewed not only as the right of the parent, but of the child, as well. Temporary orders in divorce cases spell out the time each parent is to enjoy with the child.

            Interference with parenting time can be a two-way street. A parent may refuse to permit the other to have the children during his or her scheduled time, often making flimsy excuses, or simply declaring that the other parent can't have the children due to some act that has angered the denying parent. The opposite pole is the parent who does not take advantage or his or her parenting time, imposing upon the other as an involuntary baby sitter. A client recently reported to us that her former husband, when confronted about not taking the children and thereby increasing the mother's daycare costs, told her that "watching the kids is what I pay you child support for!"

            The bottom line here is that the court will carefully scrutinize how obligations and rights related to the children are fulfilled and enjoyed by the parents. If you want to lose your custody case, not meeting financial obligations and interfering with parenting time are sure paths to that result.