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Elliot S. Schlissel is a father’s rights lawyer. His office can be reached at 516-561-6645, 718-350-2802 or by email to schlissel.law@att.net.
Father Granted Sole Custody of Child
October 28, 2014 By
In a case before Judge Lillian Wan in the Family Court located in Kings County, both a father and mother brought petitions for sole custody of their child. An attorney for the child was appointed. The attorney for the child recommended the mother receive sole legal and physical custody of the child pursuant to the request of the child.
Neglect Finding
The court took into consideration that a neglect finding had been issued without admissions against the father for excessive corporal punishment. In addition there was an abuse finding against the mother based on her acknowledgment she intentionally burned the child’s buttocks. As a result of these findings the child was removed from the home.
Boy Released to Father’s Custody
The child in question, a young boy, was released to the custody of his father in March 2012. The boy has been in his father’s custody with supervised visitation granted for the mother since that time. Judge Lillian Wan found while there was a finding of neglect against the father, the finding against the mother concerning burning the child’s buttocks was a much more serious finding. Judge Wan took into consideration the boy had been living with the father since 2012 and there had been a dramatic improvement in the behavior of the father since that time. However, the court found the mother had not proven herself to be a stable, fit parent or shown remorse in therapy for burning the child.
Judge Wan reached the decision it was in the child’s best interest to give sole legal and physical custody to the father and give the mother unsupervised visits during the course of the day with the child. The mother was not given overnight visitation with the child.
Custody Awarded to Non-Biological Parent
September 29, 2014 By
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Elliot S. Schlissel is a father’s rights attorney. He can be reached at 1-800-344-6431 or by email at schlissel.law@att.net.
Business Expenses Improperly Used to Avoid Child Support Obligations
September 27, 2014 By
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Elliot S. Schlissel is a father’s rights lawyer. He can be reached at 1-800-344-6431 or by email at schlissel.law@att.net.
Father Given Sole Custody Due To Mother’s Interference With His Visitation Rights
September 5, 2014 By
The Appellate Division of the Third Department, an appeals court in Upstate New York, recently rendered a decision affirming changing custody from the mother to the father based on the mother’s interference with the father’s rights to visit with the parties’ child.
The parties had initially entered into an agreement whereby the mother was given an award of sole custody. In addition, she was given a one year stay away order of protection against the father.
Father Files Petitions
The father filed a violation petition and custody petition in the Family Court. He alleged the mother had been continually interfering with his parenting time with the parties’ child. There were hearings in the Family Court. The Family Court judge found the mother had not complied with the visitation provisions in the court’s custody orders. The Family Court ordered the custody changed from the mother to the father. The father was given sole custody of the parties’ child. The mother filed an appeal.
The Decision on Appeal
The Appeals Court unanimously affirmed the changing of the custody of the child from the mother to the father. The Appeals Court found the mother had frequently violated the terms and her obligations under the prior court orders requiring her to cooperate with regard to promoting the relationship between the father and child and by refusing to give him his parenting time with the child. Instead of complying with the court orders for long periods of time, the mother simply refused to give the father visitation with the child. The mother intentionally violated court orders on a regular basis.
The Appeals panel took into consideration the fact the mother’s fitness to care for the child had deteriorated. In the end, the appeals court found it was in the child’s best interest to give the father sole custody.
Father Seeks to Provide Child Support In the Form of Eggs, Produce and Vegetables
August 27, 2014 By
In a case from Upstate New York, Justice Robert Muller sitting in Essex County, New York, Supreme Court had a new and interesting argument presented to him. The case involved a wife who had left the marital residence with the parties’ three children. Two other children of the parties continued to reside with the father.
Custody Issues
Justice Muller was presented with custody issues within the confines of a divorce case. The mother wanted child support for the children living with her and spousal maintenance (alimony). There were arguments made between the husband and the wife with regard to how much each party was earning. Eventually the court ruled the husband should pay the wife temporary maintenance in the sum of $370 per month.
Father Lives on a Farm
The husband advised the court there was a farm located on the land where the marital residence was located. He sought to have the maintenance paid to the wife in the form of meat, eggs, and vegetables from the farm. The father requested the court allow him to pay the child support and maintenance with regard to the various items grown or maintained on the farm.
Judge Robert Muller found this to be an interesting argument. However, the attorney for the father was unable to produce any precedent which authorized one party to pay maintenance and child support payments with food instead of money. The father’s request to pay the child support payments with food was denied.
Conclusion
For those of us who live in the Metropolitan New York area, this seems like a humorous case. However, in Upstate New York, in rural communities, where cash flow on farms can be difficult to obtain, the argument of getting credit for providing food, eggs, produce, meat and vegetables to a spouse to allow her to feed her children, is an interesting argument. Although I don’t believe the entire child support payment should be allowed to be made in food, it is not inconceivable a court in Upstate New York might someday allow child support payments to be made, with regard to parties living on a farm, with a portion of the food, produce and meat raised on the farm.
Elliot Schlissel is a father’s rights attorney. He represents fathers in divorces, custody and child support proceedings. 
Court Orders Change in Custody Due To Mother Interfering With Father’s Visitation
August 22, 2014 By
There was litigation in the Family Court between a father and a mother. The father alleged the mother had acted in an obstreperous manner, had interfered with his visitation with the parties’ children in violation of court orders and had created a situation which made it extremely difficult for the father to have visitation. The father claimed the mother’s disruptive, antagonistic behavior was not in the children’s best interest and was having a negative impact on the parties’ child.
A trial was held in the Family Court. The mother had declined to have an attorney and had represented herself during these proceedings. At the end of the Family Court trial, the Family Court Judge found there had been a change in circumstances to the extent a change in custody was warranted due to mother’s interference with father’s visitation rights. The mother appealed this proceeding.
Appellate Court Decision
The Appellate Division for the Third Department (an appeals court) upheld the Family Court’s order finding the mother in contempt and changing custody to the father. The Appeals Court found the mother had violated a prior court order with regard to the father’s visitation rights. The court also found the transfer of sole custody of the child to the father was indicated in the circumstances due to the mother’s contentious behavior. The Court found the mother was aware of the terms of the Family Court order giving the father visitation and she intentionally refused to comply with this court order.
The mother had argued she was denied her right to counsel due to the fact she represented herself. However, the appellate court found she was given the opportunity to retain an attorney and declined to do so. The court also found the mother had engaged in obstructionist behavior during the course of the Family Court trial and her responses to questions were evasive.
The appellate court affirmed the decision of the Family Court giving the father sole custody.
Conclusion
This is a major victory for father’s rights! A mother’s obligations when she is the residential custodial parent is to promote a loving, warm relationship between the children and the father. Interference with a father’s visitation rights is appropriate grounds to change custody from the mother to the father.
False Allegations of Child Abuse
August 12, 2014 By
A disgusting tactic sometimes used against men when the children’s mother perceives there will be a custody dispute is to file false allegations of child abuse and/or domestic violence against the other parent. Courts tend to take these allegations seriously. In my experience, false allegations of both domestic violence and child abuse are made by both men and women. However, they are used much more often by women and courts take allegations of domestic abuse against women more seriously. This turns out to be a tactic with very little downside risk. The reason for this is courts do not usually punish individuals who make false allegations of domestic violence and child abuse.
Child Protective Service investigators and the police tend to believe the accuser. They often ignore the credible explanations made by the individual who is accused of either domestic violence or child abuse.
Control
The tactic of making false allegations of either domestic violence or child abuse has to do with controlling the family situation. In many cases, the false allegations of abuse are part of a program of Parental Alienation Syndrome (hereinafter referred to as “PAS”). The individuals making the false allegations of child abuse are not taking into consideration the long term impact this will have on their children. They are doing this for inappropriate, selfish reasons.
When a mother makes false allegations of child abuse, the father is usually thrown out of the house. This gives the mother exclusive occupancy of the home, control of the home’s assets, and control of the children. The man is put out on the street with just the clothes on his back. He needs to get a court order just to get back in the house and get the rest of his clothing.
Keeping Children From Their Father
After allegations of child abuse are made and a temporary order of protection is issued by a court, it can take weeks and sometimes months until the father has contact with his children again. Children who have not had contact with one of their parents for a considerable period of time sometimes become tentative and shy. If the allegations of child abuse are accompanied by the mother filling the children’s heads with false stories of abuse and neglect, the children can become fearful of their father.
My Way
In the end, the parent making the false allegations of child abuse is saying to the other parent, everything will be done my way. If you don’t do what I say, the way I tell you to do it, you are never going to see your children. Who suffers in the end? Both the loving parent kept away from his children and the children. PAS is a terrible syndrome and it can take long term therapy to deal with this problem if it is not nipped in the bud.
Parental Alienation Syndrome: What Is It?
August 8, 2014 By
Parental alienation syndrome, which is often referred to as “PAS”, involves a type of behavior of one parent which is designed to disrupt the relationship between a child or children and the other parent. The deprivation of children of a loving relationship with one parent by the other parent can cause the children to experience psychological distress, and the destruction of the relationship with the other parent. When one parent alienates children from the other, this is a type of child abuse.
PAS And How It Is Accomplished
The usual first steps of one parent alienating children from another involve the interference with the non-custodial parent’s rights to have visitation and personal contact with the children. The residential custodial parent is technically obligated to foster the relationship with the children and the other parent. However, in PAS situations, instead of working with the other parent to build a harmonious, loving relationship with the children, one parent interferes with the parenting time and communication of the other parent with the children.
Inappropriate Comments
Negative statements made by the residential custodial parent such as the other parent has abandoned us, has cut us off from money, is a bad person, and similar statements confuses the children and has a negative impact on the children’s respect for the other parent. These actions by the residential parent have a subliminal effect in casting the other parent as a bad, evil, inappropriate person. Even when the children want to maintain a relationship with the other parent, the conflict created by the custodial parent between the custodial parent’s representations concerning the other parent and the children’s love and affection for the other parent creates a conflict that children have difficulty dealing with. What the residential parent is actually doing to the children is conveying his or her negative feelings, dislike and hatred of the other parent to the children and convincing the children to adopt those negative feelings.
Repetition
When the custodial parent continually repeats negative statements, and/or negative incidents to the children concerning the other parent, these statements, even if untrue, end up being accepted as factual by the children. The children replace his or her warm, loving experiences with the other parent with false experiences which destroy the relationship with the other parent.
Conclusion
PAS damages children. Parents who hate each other should not confuse their children or subject their children into being brainwashed into believing they hate the other parent too. Children should love and respect both of their parents.
The Trial of a Custody Case – Part II
August 1, 2014 By
Temporary Custody
Sometimes, in divorce cases and Family Court custody proceedings, applications are made for temporary custody orders. These temporary custody orders give one parent or the other custody during the pendency of the case. Unfortunately the wheels of justice tend to turn slowly and the custody cases can sometimes languish in courts for years. A parent who receives temporary custody during this period would have a step up on the other parent in obtaining permanent custody. Therefore all temporary custody orders should be taken very seriously.
A temporary custody hearing is a mini trial within the trial. Preparation for this mini trial on custody should be handled in the same manner as the trial for permanent custody.
Settling the Custody Case
In most situations a settlement is the best route to take in a custody dispute. Joint custody can be worked out where one parent is the residential custodial parent and the other parent is the non-residential custodial parent. The non-residential custodial parent can have extensive visitation with the children to satisfy that parent’s needs to maintain a close relationship with the children. In the large majority of custody disputes this is the best route to resolve this issue. It eliminates the children getting too involved in the custody proceeding and the aggravation and stress of going through the trial.
Conclusion
Although custody cases can be aggravating and traumatic for the parents, it is even more traumatic and difficult for the children involved. Care should be taken that the trial and/or negotiations in the custody case are done out of sight and hearing of the children. The children should be insulated from custody litigation, issues in Family Court, and divorces. Children are designed by God to love both their parents. Frustrating or alienating the children from one parent to another is the worst possible outcome. Children are better off with two loving parents to guide them through life situations.
