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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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It’s extremely rare for someone to request alimony separate from divorce these days, but it is possible. In an interesting 2009 case that illustrates the importance of having a family lawyer represent you through your divorce, a couple were married and had two children. The husband filed for limited divorce after a one-year separation from his wife. Next the wife counter-claimed for absolute divorce on the basis of adultery and abandonment. The wife requested alimony.

Both of the spouses needed an interpreter and were not represented by counsel. By law, requests for divorce are granted only with a corroborating witness. Neither the husband nor the wife had brought one. The court wasn’t able to award a divorce or a limited divorce. Additionally neither spouse offered testimony to corroborate grounds for divorce. The trial judge nonetheless heard testimony on child support and alimony.

Although the divorce case collapsed, the judge awarded custody of the two kids to the wife and ordered the husband to pay child support of $764. The judge ordered the husband to pay $1500 to the wife every month as indefinite alimony. The court did not characterize the alimony or child support as pendente lite (temporary pending litigation). The case was closed with the requests for divorce denied. Continue reading

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In spite of an increasing number of headlines involving people whose social media use has endangered their lawsuits, Americans continue to post incriminating information on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, as of September 2013, 73% of adults online in America use social networks. Unfortunately a feature of social networking is its ease; because it’s so easy to connect with others, most people don’t think very carefully before they post or tweet. A Maryland divorce, alimony, child custody and divorce battles can be put in jeopardy by the information your soon-to-be-ex-spouse or a family law attorney finds about your on Twitter.

In the past, couples would hire private detectives to find out whether their spouse had cheated or had other secrets that could result in is getting easier and easier to catch litigants in lies. Often this is no longer necessary because people willingly share information that can damage them on social media.

If you are going through a divorce, you should either close your social media accounts or simply take a break from them. Privacy filters are unlikely to be of much help in a divorce case. One reason for this is that couples share a lot of common friends. It is very easy to think that you have gotten “custody” of a particular friend and be wrong. A friend may casually mention something to your spouse not knowing it is information that will hurt you.

Continue reading

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What happens if your spouse refuses to pay child support or is unable to pay child support? Recently, a Maryland Circuit Court held a man in constructive civil contempt for failing to pay child support. While no sanction was ordered, the court did order the man to pay $300 every month to cure his child support arrearage (the back payments of child support). The man was also required to give information about his job search to the court and the woman’s attorney on a regular basis (called a “purge provision”).

The man did not comply and as a result the court ordered his incarceration for 179 days. The man filed a motion to modify the child support obligation a the same time. The master who heard the motion found the man was currently unemployed but recommended a reduction in the child support payments from $1000 to $708.

The man filed exceptions, which were sustained by the court. The court did not issue a new child support order, instead considering another motion to modify. Six months later, the court considered another motion to modify and again sent the issue to the master to take evidence. In the same order, the man was sanctioned with incarceration. He appealed on five grounds, which the appellate court collapsed into three questions. Continue reading

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Domestic violence is a more common problem than you might believe. 1.3 million American women are victims of physical assault by a sexual partner every year. Some of these physical assaults result in homicide. Not all victims are women, but about 85% are. Maryland courts take allegations of domestic violence into account when determining child custody. Often the abusers not only abuse their partners, but also abuse children in the house, triggering the cycle of intergenerational violence whereby male children grow up to abuse their own partners and children. Several measures were recently proposed in the Maryland General Assembly that are expected to increase victim protection in the domestic violence context.

One of the bills reduces the burden of proof required to get a protective order against the person allegedly committing the domestic violence. The burden of proof in Maryland to get such an order currently is “clear and convincing evidence.” This is a higher standard that any other state in the nation. This measure would lower the burden of proof to a “preponderance of the evidence.” State Senator Brian E. Frosh said this measure is the most important in the group of bills, explaining that the preponderance of the evidence standard is what’s used in almost other civil matters. The Maryland governor’s office found that 1777 protective orders out of 19,043 applications were denied based on the petitioner’s inability to met the high burden of proof.

Another bill calls for those who commit domestic violence in front of children to receive an additional five years in prison. About 70% of domestic violence incidents happen in front of children and can do serious damage to them psychologically. Vicki Sadehvandi, the executive director of Citizens Assisting and Sheltering the Abused (CASA) noted that “Witnessing the abuse creates ‘the cycle of abuse… Even if they escape physical injury, they suffer from mental injury/abuse.” Many who go on to commit acts of domestic violence were victims or witnesses to domestic violence when younger. The goal of the bill is to create a deterrent for the man people who perpetrate domestic violence repeatedly. Continue reading

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When a Maryland child is removed from a parent’s care and custody, the department of social services has a statutory obligation to make reasonable efforts to reunify the child with the parent. However, there are cases in which a parent’s inability to recognize and seek treatment for his or her problems can result in those reunification efforts getting terminated.

In a recent case a mother appealed from an order permitting the Baltimore City Department of Social Services (“BCDSS”) to stop making reunification efforts between the mother and her daughter. The mother had five children and a long history with BSDSS. This case involved her youngest child, but she had previously brought her son to the hospital to be hospitalized. Instead, she was evaluated and hospitalized for psychiatric treatment.

The Circuit Court found that her son and an older daughter were children in need of assistance (CINA) and took them out of her custody and placed them with the mother’s parents. The mother had only sporadic contact with her son after that and he turned 21 without reunification. Continue reading

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Maryland recognizes the importance of psychotherapist-patient privilege in cases where a parent seeks psychiatric help or counseling. This privilege keeps records confidential in many, but not all instances. The issue of your mental health can come up in a custody proceeding.

In a 2000 case, a mother sought sole custody of her two minor children. She had married in 1985 and worked as a paralegal. Her husband worked as an attorney. When they first married, she had a history of psychiatric treatment, which she continued to receive at her husband’s request through their marriage. The couple had two sons and separated and reconciled several times over the years. They saw a psychiatrist jointly for a period.

When they separated in 1995, they prepared an agreement, specifying joint guardianship, care and custody of their children, with the mother to have primary residential care of them. However, when she filed for divorce, she sought sole custody. Her husband sought sole custody in response. Continue reading

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In a 2010 case an appellate court considered whether funds received by the ex-wife as a settlement in an employment discrimination claim were marital property. The couple was married in 1998 and had two children, ages 10 and 4 at the time of trial in this case. The ex-wife was an attorney and the ex-husband was a clerk with the IRS. The ex-wife filed for divorce on the grounds of constructive desertion. The ex-husband filed a counterclaim on the same basis. They had lived apart for 1 year beforehand. The court granted the divorce on that basis.

During the marriage, the ex-wife’s employment with her law firm was terminated as of December 31, 2002. She filed a discrimination lawsuit against the firm and its partners and employees, alleging violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act. She settled the case in 2006 and was paid $550,000. These were paid in two installments.

In a joint statement to the court in connection with the divorce proceedings, she claims she kept $300,000 from the settlement. She contended that the settlement didn’t specify which portion represented what element of damage and therefore, the settlement could not be characterized as marital property. The ex-husband argued that the settlement was marital property. The trial court found that the lawsuit was based on employer practices that had occurred during the marriage. However, it did not find that the settlement was marital property. Continue reading

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