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Who decides custody if two parents or two other people with an interest in custody of a child live in two different states? Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), a court in a child’s home state has exclusive jurisdiction to initially determine child custody. What is a home state? A home state for children over the age of six months is a state where the child lived with a parent or person in the role of a parent for six consecutive months or more immediately before the child custody proceeding.

In a recent case, an appellate court considered whether a seven-year-old boy’s visit to Maryland was a temporary absence after the visit interrupted his 17-month residence in Indiana. The court looked at the mother’s intent to change homes from Indiana to Maryland.

The case arose when the boy’s maternal grandparents, who were Maryland residents, sued for custody of the boy. The parents were Indiana residents, and they were named as defendants. The boy was born in Indiana to Jennifer Bornman and Edward Wright. He lived in Indiana until he was about 18 months old. In 2006, he and his parents moved to Maryland. They lived with Bornman’s parents. In a few weeks, his father moved back to Indiana. Continue reading

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Failure to pay child support can result in serious consequences. Maryland has a strong policy disfavoring those who avoid their child support obligations. However, there are a number of technical rules and time limitations that apply in order to compel a parent to pay child support arrearages.

In a 2009 case, a circuit court found a man in constructive civil contempt for failing to pay child support that had been ordered in 1987. Before the contempt finding, the man had asked the petition for civil contempt to be dismissed. He argued that the Department of Human Resources had not properly served him with the paperwork.

The case arose when a baby was born in 1983. Four years later, the baby’s mother filed a petition to establish the baby’s paternity and claimed that the man was the baby’s father. He responded by entering into a consent paternity degree that obligated him to pay $20 per week in child support. The decree also required him to obtain consent to leave the state, report address changes to the Bureau of Support Enforcement, and to appear in response to any related notices. Continue reading

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In a 2008 case, a husband and wife were married in North Carolina in 1994 and had two kids. The wife filed for limited divorce in 2005. The case was tried in 2006-2007. In 2007, a judgment of absolute divorce was granted on the grounds that the wife had committed adultery.

Among other things, the wife was awarded sole legal and physical custody of the children and the husband was ordered to pay child support. The husband was found in contempt for failing to pay child support previously ordered. The judge also granted the wife use and possession of the family home for two years.

The husband appealed on five grounds. One of these grounds was that the judge should not have treated the house at Alfreton Court as the family home under Family Law Article § 8-201. The judge awarded the use and possession of the residence to the wife and children under § 8-208(a), which provided that in the context of divorce, regardless of how the family home was owned or titled or leased, the judge could give one party sole possession of the property. Continue reading

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In an interesting recent case, a Maryland wife opposed her husband’s request for divorce based on a 12-month separation. The basis for her opposition was that she had continued to have phone sex with the husband while they were separated. Under Section 7-103(a)(4) of the Family Law Article, a Maryland court can grant an absolute divorce to couples who were separated for 12 months if they lived separate and apart, not cohabiting for 12 months without interruption before they apply for divorce.

The couple had married in 2006 and then separated in 2010. The husband moved out because the wife had gotten a protective order against him. He filed a complaint for limited divorce, claiming voluntary separation and constructive desertion. When the protective order expired, the parties continued to maintain separate residences. Although divorce proceedings were pending, the couple started a sexual relationship. During the proceedings, the husband testified that the last time he had sex with the wife was in 2011 and after that he had not once spent the night with her.

Even so, the husband admitted he and the wife kept communicating through telephone conversations and text messages. Sometimes the conversations and text messages were explicit or sexually provocative, and the husband admitted the last time he did so was in 2012. He said the wife had come to his house unexpectedly on six occasions, but he didn’t allow her inside. The husband amended his complaint seeking absolute divorce on grounds of a 12-month separation. Continue reading

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In a 2010 case, a couple were cohabiting on a piece of real property, but were not married. They were romantically involved for 14 years and were engaged at one point, but postponed their wedding due to the plaintiff’s brother’s death. They lived with the plaintiff’s mother for about three years. During that time the defendant helped around the house and took care of the plaintiff’s brother. The plaintiff paid $600 in rent so that the defendant could save money for both of them and the defendant deposited the savings into a joint checking account that was in both of their names.

The pair decided to buy a house together in 1997. They found a house, and applied for a mortgage together. The plaintiff’s credit score kept them from qualifying for a loan jointly. The parties agreed to have the defendant to apply for a mortgage loan in his own name. He paid a down payment of $4500 from the joint checking account. The plaintiff paid him $3700 as a contribution towards the down payment.

The parties agreed the plaintiff couldn’t qualify for a mortgage so the parties would act as joint owners and she would pay him half of the mortgage and other expenses every month. They did not agree she was a tenant, but rather that she was a joint owner. The defendant promised that the plaintiff’s name would be put on the deed in the future and that they held the property in joint tenancy. Continue reading

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In a recent case, a woman who had married in 1995 and had two sons filed for divorce in 2009.  The husband was a physical education teacher. The wife later claimed the husband spent most of his time with somebody she thought was his girlfriend. She testified she was the daily caretaker for their kids. She worked as a manager at a used goods store and couldn’t afford to move out of the home and support he kids solely on her income.

The wife later claimed the marriage was tumultuous and that the husband had failed to pay the electric bill on one occasion and she and the kids had to live at home without electricity for a week. A similar incident happened with the water bill. She also argued she needed assistance from Social Services.

The wife also testified that about three years before her daughter from a prior relationship had told her that the husband sexually abused her while she was living in the family home. Because of that the wife had moved out of the couple’s bedroom where she stayed because she couldn’t afford to leave. Continue reading

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In a recent case, a Maryland wife sued for divorce in 2010. The husband countersued shortly thereafter, but the following year, he mother dismissed the original suit and brought a new one requesting alimony, child support and monetary award.

Both husband and wife were lawyers. The wife stopped working when she got pregnant with twins and there were complications. The wife did not return to work because the twins had health problems. The couple had a third child. The wife had been making about $120,000 per year when she stopped working.

By 2010, the husband was making more than $800,000 per year. This allowed the couple an affluent lifestyle, including a house worth $2 million, multiple cars, private school and dinners out. The amount of time the husband spent at work put a strain on the marriage and drove them to minor violence towards each other before they finally separated. Continue reading

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A personal injury or other lawsuit against a spouse is unusual, but possible. It is likely that An interesting and challenging 2010 case arose when a wife sued her husband of 25 years for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Both the husband and the wife were lawyers. During the marriage the husband managed the finances.

The couple had a joint checking account into which both spouses deposited their earnings. The wife stopped working to take care of their two children, but never read the bank statements. She also had an inheritance account only in her name, containing money inherited from relatives.

The wife later claimed that the husband spent huge sums from joint accounts on various investments and compact discs she couldn’t identify. The sums he spent exceeded the couple’s income. Accordingly, the husband took out loans against his 401k. He took out a home equity line of credit, ran up an overdraft of more than $10,000 and ran up debt on credit cards. He didn’t not tell his wife about these problems or why he had them. Continue reading

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If you have doubts about paternity, it is important to raise them from the start. A 2007 appeal illustrates the danger of waiting until years pass to contest or inquire into paternity in Maryland. In the case, the court considered a challenge to paternity with respect to a child born during a short marriage. The father Patrick Ashley and woman were married in 1980. Before their marriage, the woman had dated Steven Reid. When they got together Ashley asked the woman to take a pregnancy test. She told him that the pregnancy test indicated she wasn’t pregnant. They got married. Eight months later, the woman gave birth to a son.

Shortly after that, the couple separated. The court issued a divorce judgment awarding the woman sole custody of her son, visitation to the man, and requiring the man to pay child support.

Over a decade later, the father began to doubt he was the son’s father based on visual observation, and got DNA testing. It revealed he wasn’t the biological father. Instead, the biological father was Reid, the man that the mother had dated just before getting married. Ashley filed a lawsuit to discontinue child support and request paternity testing. He alleged that the mother was pregnant with the son before they married. He also alleged that in 2004, he told the mother about the DNA test results. The woman asked if they should tell the son and asked if he thought the son would hate her. Continue reading

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Last year, this blog covered an interesting ruling by the Court of Special Appeals in which the court ruled an adult sibling found to be a Child In Need of Assistance (CINA) had no rights to visit with her younger siblings against their parents’ wishes. Recently, the Court of Appeals issued a new decision in this case.

As noted in other blog posts, parents of minor children have a fundamental right to make major decisions about the care, custody and control of their children. Usually third parties who want visitation against the parents’ wishes have to make a showing of exceptional circumstances such that the court failing to grant visitation would have a very detrimental effect on the children. The earlier ruling followed a Supreme Court ruling about a Washington statute where the Court ruled a statute that didn’t give parents’ beliefs a presumption of acting in the child’s best interests was unconstitutional.

In this case, an older sister born in 1993 wanted to visit her half-siblings over the objections of her father from whom she was estranged after being declared a CINA. She had been deemed a CINA after her father wouldn’t let her come back home to him, his new wife and their two small children. Her own mother had committed suicide and she had alleged her father was abusive. Continue reading

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