UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

Oregon Enacts Law | Fines for Making False Report of Child Abuse

Here's a great idea! After seeing three false reports of child abuse within three weeks in the middle of high-conflict divorce and custody cases . . . I hear that Oregon has finally come up with a solution.

The Oregon Legislature has passed legislation making malicious filing of false reports of child abuse in the midst of divorce, custody fight, or other domestic conflict a Class A violation carrying a $750 fine.

These false allegations can not only make the family law case much more difficult and lead to terrible injustice, they can ruin parent-child relationships and change lives forever. I find myself hoping more states will enact such laws and wondering whether the law will make a difference. Here's the Oregon statute:

New State-Wide Toll-Free Number | Report Child Abuse

From the Lansing State Journal comes this op-ed piece:

Michigan has a new statewide phone number for reporting child abuse and neglect: 1-855-444-3911. The number debuted this week and is part of a system designed to improve response to calls about child welfare. Staffed 24-hours a day, including weekends and holidays, the new service is designed to create uniform standards for response to complaints. It replaces a system where calls went to local county offices.

The new system also keeps Michigan in compliance with a court order to improve child welfare and foster care services following a 2006 lawsuit. Department of Health and Human Services Director Maura Corrigan and her staff are working diligently toward repairing a badly damaged system. That’s good for Michigan’s children.

An LSJ editorial

Home Alone | Part VI | Assessing Readiness

One question frequently asked by parents is, "How old should a child be before he can be left home alone?" Often, I'm asked this question when holidays are coming up and parents will be at work, but children won't be in school. The question is asked even more frequently as summer vacation approaches. Of course, there is no simple one-size-fits-all answer. This decision is complicated because much depends upon the individual child and also family dynamics. A parent has to consider not only whether his or her particular child is "old enough," but is ready enough to be left home alone. The issue becomes more complicated if there are younger siblings. Is the oldest child ready to stay home alone and to be "in charge of" the younger children?

Woman charged with felony in infant death

The Traverse City Record Eagle published an article today about criminal action against a mother who allegedly gave birth to a baby downstate, dismembered her infant, stuffed it in a backpack, and took it to her home in Boyne City to bury the backpack in the backyard. According to law enforcement, the mother is charged with a felony count of disinterment and mutilation of a body, and a misdemeanor count of unlawful disposition of an unclaimed body. An autopsy had produced no evidence that the child was born alive.

Once again, emphasis needs to be placed on getting the word out about how women, mostly young teenagers, can safely and without any risk of criminal charges, turn over their healthy live babies to Safe Haven facilities so that an unwanted baby may be adopted. In light of recent infant deaths in Grand Traverse County, I publish details about the Safe Delivery of Newborns Act hoping that pregnant women and the people who come into contact with them--know they are pregnant--know that they are at risk, either because of emotional or social problems, to abandon their babies, likely ending in death of a healthy infant. You could be the person who not only helps a mother deal with what seems overwhelming to her, but also save the life of an innocent. Here's what you can do to help.

"De-Baptism" -- Families' self-initiated separation from the church

As my readers know, not all of my posts are about substantive family law. Many are about parents' concerns during this age of Internet dangers to children and of other safety or social concerns. Today's post comments on the trend in Europe to separate from the Roman Catholic Church because of the church's posture and approach to the issue of sexual abuse of children over an extended period of decades by priests.

The Global Post online reports from  Belgium that "(f)aced with ever-more harrowing revelations of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergymen, Belgians are turning in record numbers to apostasy — formally breaking with their religion through a process of “de-baptism.” [My emphasis]

The Safe Delivery of Newborns Act | Help for young moms & infants

Greater publicity about options available to young mothers who want to legally surrender their children for adoption is provided in a community-based effort to avoid infant deaths such as occurred in several cases locally where newborns have been found abandoned and dead in the Traverse City area.

Lorrie Jorgenson, pregnancy counselor at Bethany Christian Services in Traverse City said, "This provides a way out for a desperate person. Fear and desperation would lead to the type of tragedies this community has witnessed."

Fatal Distraction | Infant left alone in hot car

We've all read these stories: Infant left alone in car for hours. Infant dies of hyperthermia. I remember reading one news article about a mother who left 2 children alone in a car on a hot day while she went to get her hair and nails done. Both died. Horrifying. One thinks: Of course! These parents should be convicted . . . of something. Or should they?

The Washington Post yesterday won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a story about several parents who made a horrible mistake. They drove to work. They parked their cars. They did not remember that they had not dropped their infant off at the day-care. The child died in the car as the temperature rose. What kind of parents do this?

Child support | Termination of parental rights doesn't end obligation

In a case for publication, In Re Beck, decided March 4, 2010, the Michigan court of appeals held that the termination of parental rights arising out of a neglect or abuse case does not end a parent's obligation to pay child support.

The father whose parental rights were terminated argued that the trial court violated his due process rights by providing in the termination order that his “[c]hild support and other support for the children shall continue.” He did not appeal the termination order itself.

Court holds that hiding of abducted child is parental neglect

You may recall that in early September 2009 I wrote about the recovery of a child who had been abducted by his mother after the father was awarded custody by the trial court. Immediately after that court decision, the mother took the child and, with her mother’s help, hid him for nearly two years. The earlier post and details of the case are found here on the post “Parental Kidnapping | Effective response”. http://tinyurl.com/yjth6j7

An Illinois court has now decided that the mother’s hiding of her son for nearly two years in his grandmother's home, often in a crawl space behind a wall (in a space that was roughly 5 feet by 12 feet and about the height of a washing machine), amounted to neglect. The judge’s ruling, according to an AP report, was based partly on her agreement with a counselor's belief that the seclusion left the boy, now 7, with post-traumatic stress disorder. The judge’s ruling clears the way for a possible decision at a Jan. 8 hearing on custody or visitation arrangements for the boy, who now is in the temporary custody of a relative. The father, Michael Chekevdia, 48, is seeking custody.’
You may read the entire AP report here. http://tinyurl.com/yjv28kh

Social workers & qualified immunity from § 1983 cases

My guest blogger today is Daniel Pollack, MSSA (MSW), JD. Pollack is a full professor at Yeshiva University's School of Social Work in New York City and Senior Fellow, Office for Foster Care and Adoption, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. His topic today is:

When qualified immunity protects social workers from 42 U.S.C § 1983 lawsuits

As social work has developed into an increasingly seasoned, mature, and specialized profession, the role of the social worker has also changed.  So too is the expectation that social workers will ensure that they are satisfying all legal responsibilities owed to their clients. Although many public sector social work administrators and practitioners are concerned about liability litigation and qualified immunity, no national studies of appellate cases have been published. This study explores when social workers are and are not successful in asserting qualified immunity when sued in civil court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Read the entire article here:

Social workers as expert witnesses in family and child welfare cases

My guest blogger today is Daniel Pollack, MSW, JD, professor of social work at the Yeshiva University in New York, New York.  He writes:

Lawyers are increasingly calling upon social workers to serve as expert witnesses in cases involving children and families. Roles for social workers are emerging in the courtroom as social work expert witnesses in such areas as guardianship, forensic issues, child abuse and neglect, wrongful death, commitment hearings, education, family custody evaluation, child welfare, adoption, and foster care.

As society gets more specialized and complicated, the courts are using the testimony of expert witnesses (such as social work expert witness, foster care expert witness, social worker malpractice and child welfare worker malpractice) to help resolve cases. Whether defending social workers or agencies, or litigating on behalf of a client, having the right experienced expert witness can make the difference between winning or losing an important case.

Rights regarding custody & parenting time | Unmarried parents

Recently, the following issues were raised concerning the custody and parenting time rights of an unmarried father after a breakup with the mother.

After the breakup, the father was able to file for custody and parenting time because he and Mom had signed an Acknowledgment of Parentage. His status as a legal father was thus already established. Dad requested joint legal and joint physical custody.

Mom objected to his proposal and asked for sole physical and sole legal custody. She claimed that Dad had a history of domestic abuse, of being an absent and uninvolved father. In her opinion, Dad posed a risk to the young child as demonstrated by earlier incidents.

While Dad's motion is pending and before any order for custody or parenting time was issued, Mom allows Dad to have parenting time on the condition that the paternal grandmother would be there to supervise. Dad promises that he will exercise his parenting time at his mother's house. However, during one of the parenting times, the grandmother leaves to run errands. Dad and his girlfriend then put the 2 1/2 year old child in Dad's car without any proper car seat or proper child restraints.

Home Alone | When is it appropriate?

Questions frequently arise during the course of a divorce about about how old one must be in Michigan to be a babysitter, about how old a child must be in Michigan before she can be left alone without a babysitter or daycare, and about whether older siblings can babysit for younger ones. When children may be with the non-custodial parent for a large portion of the summer, specific concerns often arise about whether the child can or should be left home alone.

This isn't an Ozzie and Harriet world anymore. I can remember when, in 1975, I felt perfectly comfortable to browse in the adult section while my three-year-old ran to the children's book area of Horizon Books in Traverse City to look for the book he'd come back clutching saying "This is the Richard Scarry book I need today!" Would I allow a young child to be unsupervised in a downtown store today? Absolutely not. Similar concerns are raised these days about leaving children unsupervised in their home.

Significant increase in unwed births reported by CDC

An alarming statistic was revealed on May 15, 2009. According to the Center for Disease Control, about 40% of all babies born alive in the United States are born to unmarried mothers.

The CDC report highlights are these:

• Childbearing by unmarried women has resumed a steep climb since 2002.
• Births to unmarried women totaled 1,714,643 in 2007, 26% more than in 2002. Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. births were to unmarried women in 2007.
• Birth rates have risen considerably for unmarried women in their twenties and over, while declining or changing little for unmarried teenagers.
• Non-marital birth rates are highest for Hispanic women followed by black women. Rates for non-Hispanic white and Asian or Pacific Islander women are much lower.
• Most births to teenagers (86% in 2007) are non-marital, but 60% of births to women 20–24 and nearly one-third of births to women 25–29 were non-marital in 2007.
• Teenagers accounted for just 23% of non-marital births in 2007, down steeply from 50% in 1970. [This is significant because it means that the initiatives to reduce teen pregnancy are really working!]

Parents, children - falling through the cracks?

The economy is having a profound effect on families - especially single-parent families struggling with survival. Today's news brought me the story of an Albuquerque, New Mexico mother who suffocated her adorable 3-year-old child. She then buried him in the sand on a playground. The mother and child were homeless and had been sleeping in a park after having been thrown out of two homes. The sad story is found here on Albuquerque's's Channel 9 & 10 News
It is so important if you know someone skating on the edge of disaster that you call child protection services. The Michigan contact numbers are here. If you live outside of Michigan and cannot find the number, call your local police agency and ask.

Child sexual abuse | High quality tools for use in detection & proof

Do you believe or does your client believe that a child has been sexually abused? A most important first step is to seek out capable, qualified and highly trained professional help. Your first call should be to Child Protection Services. [NOTE: The contact information for the agency near you in Michigan can be found here.] You should not attempt to elicit the details from the child yourself. This may seriously compromise prosecution of a child molester. There are many links below to resources that may be found online dealing with the tools used by experts to determine whether the abuse alleged has actually occurred.

Child abuse & neglect | Effect of worsening economy

Today's economy and growing unemployment put huge strains on families. Some of these families may have been under pressure before the economic slowdown. Increasingly, family practitioners are seeing more cases involving domestic abuse and neglect of children. It's important that services be made available as quickly as possible. As Dr. Robert Sege and Barbara Talkov wrote in an Op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe:

Home Alone | Is your child ready for this?

One question frequently asked by parents is “How old should a child be before he can be left home alone?” Often, I’m asked this question when holidays are coming up and parents will be at work, but children won’t be in school. The question is asked even more frequently as summer vacation approaches.

Of course, there is no simple one-size-fits-all answer. This decision is complicated because much depends upon the individual child and also family dynamics. A parent has to consider not only whether his or her particular child is “old enough,” but is ready enough to be left home alone. The issue becomes more complicated if there are younger siblings. Is the oldest child ready to stay home alone and to be “in charge of” the younger children?

Should a child be called as a witness?

In a case for publication, Surman v Surman, __ Mich App ___, __ NW2d ___ (2007) decided December 4, 2007, the Michigan Court of Appeals held that a child may be called as a witness at a child custody trial to testify about the child’s allegations of abuse at the hands of a parent.

Here, after allegations of child abuse were made by a child, his father filed an ex parte motion to suspend the mother’s parenting time. The father claimed that the mother had told the child to lie to his counselor. An ex parte order was entered on August 1, 2005. Jane Surman filed a motion to rescind that order and to transfer custody to her from Joseph Surman. She attached a protective services report to her pleading. The court temporarily placed the child with his mother with an ex parte order issued on August 9, 2005.

Subsequently, a child custody trial was had in November and December 2006. Jane Surman’s attorney advised the court that he intended to call the child, now 12, as a witness. Joseph Surman’s attorney objected. The parties were told to submit briefs on the issue. Ultimately, the trial court held that the child could testify about the alleged abuse.

Child abuse? Mom fights system to be believed

Family lawyers who practice in the area of child abuse and neglect sometimes find that charges of Munchausen by Proxy have been made against their clients after doctors, nurses, and/or hospital staff have alleged that here are no observable symptoms of illness in a child, yet the child is frequently presented for treatment. The charges allege that the mother continues to bring the child into the office or into the emergency department seeking treatment and describing symptoms that are not seen by medical personnel.

Munchausen by Proxy is a rare mental disorder in which caretakers, usually mothers, either fabricate (make up) or cause illnesses in their children. The theory is that these mothers make their children sick in order to garner approval for their fastidious care and attention to the child. In other words, the mother is seeking positive attention from doctors and other medical personnel.

Recently, Diana Owen, a mother in Massachusetts was accused of having Munchausen by Proxy. The effects upon her, her child, and her family were devastating as she fought to regain custody of her only child Bryanna-Rose. Bryanna-Rose,  called by her mother Diana her "miracle baby," was conceived after Diana and her husband had been told they would never have a child. At the age of four months, the infant was taken from Diana by protective services and placed in foster care.

Home Alone: Part V

There has been a lot of interest in the issue of whether children should be left home alone and of how old children should be before they can be left alone. The interest is shown by the number of parents from all over the country who have come to this Blog seeking information. This a a rather long post, so I want to let all of my readers know that there is a checklist for you to use to assess whether a child is ready to be left home along. 

We discussed this topic on the State Bar of Michigan Listserv not long ago. Several family lawyers cited examples of why children should not be waiting alone at a bus stop for even 5 minutes just so Mom (or Dad) could get to work on time.

Home Alone: Part IV

Our discussion continues on the Listserv of the State Bar of Michigan's Family Law Listserv. Section member Mark Crane posted the following on Tuesday October 9, 2007:

We had a funeral service at Lake Orion High School last week for two brothers, ages 14 and 16, who were killed the preceding weekend in a car accident.  Driving home from a cross-country  meet, they ran a stop sign and their Honda Civic was hit by a pickup truck.  As if that is not suffering enough for one family, their older brother is in critical condition at a VA hospital in Texas, having been injured in combat in Iraq as a result of an IED explosion.  Statistically speaking, car accidents and even injury sustained during combat are real risks to young people.  So are certain types of childhood cancers, drowning, suicide, abuse at the hands of parents and other family members, and injuries sustained in the home.  Statistically speaking, abduction by strangers is not even a blip on the screen.  I am not suggesting that this is a risk to be ignored.  However, most parents would do well to spend less time worrying about this particular risk and more time focused upon the things that cause the other 99.99 percent of childhood mortality.  I, for one, can't imagine making a living preparing reports like this one, titled "Deaths:  Final Data for 2003," but for those who are interested in statistics regarding causes of death, see the following from the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_13.pdf

 

Mark E. Crane
Mark E. Crane, PLLC
950 West University Drive, Suite 102
Rochester, MI 48307

Technorati tags: child care, babysitter, babysitting ,
childcare

Home Alone: Part III

Recently, I blogged the issue of leaving children home alone. The interest in these Blog articles has been immense. Parents all over the country came -- mostly via Google -- to Updates in Michigan Law looking for an answer to the question "how old does a child have to be before the parent can leave him/her home alone?" Primarily, it appears that parents are concerned because the other parent fails to provide proper care and supervision. This could, of course, form a basis for modification of an existing custody or parenting time order.

This week, the issue arose again on the State Bar of Michigan's Family Law Listserv.

Summertime and the living is easy . . . or is it?

It's summertime. Many non-custodial parents are exercising large blocks of summer parenting time. It's easy to see, however, that there are some disgruntled and/or concerned parents out there who may be unhappy with the way the other parent is handling the children's summer care.

I wrote recently on this blog about the appropriate age when children can be left alone without a caregiver and about the appropriateness of assigning siblings to provide care for younger brothers or sisters.

In checking to see what brings people to my Blog, I note that in the past few days, parents from the following states have Googled to check on this issue, indicating a high level of concern about whether children are being neglected: I note visitors from TN, CA (many), IL, UT, NY, MI (many), NJ, TX, MS, KS, KY, PA, WA, ME, IA, GA, CO, MD, AND SC in the past several days.

It's time to check out the safety resources available to parents for babysitter training. You can read my earlier article here. Home Alone: Child care and babysitter issues

If your child lives in Michigan and you believe that a parent is leaving the child or children unsupervised, you'll want to review the Michigan Child Protection Act. Is the other parent's actions "neglect or abuse?" Does leaving a child alone, or leaving a sibling in charge of younger children, constitute "failure to protect?" For more information,  see my website.

Need help with a custody or parenting time modification motion?

Home Alone: Child care and babysitter issues

Questions frequently arise during the course of a divorce about about how old one must be in Michigan to be a babysitter, about how old a child must be in Michigan before she can be left alone without a babysitter or daycare, and about whether older siblings can babysit for younger ones.

An appallingly large number of children are left without care and supervision by their parents. See, Left Unsupervised: A Look at the Most Vulnerable Children, By Sharon Vandivere, M.P.P., Kathryn Tout, Ph.D., Jeffrey Capizzano, M.A., and Martha Zaslow, Ph.D., April 2003, published by Child Trends, a non-profit research organization based in Washington, D.C.

Shaking a baby shatters lives

 

 

 

"Shaking a baby shatters lives." That’s the message that Cathy Sanders has been trying to get across over the past seven years. She’s raised money through donations to her non-profit organization, Shaken Baby  Prevention, to pay for billboards and more recently to pay for large images that cover the back of public buses in Northern Virginia and in the Washington DC area. The images are shocking, which is just what Cathy wants.

Cathy Sanders is the mother of Ryan Sanders—a beautiful, beautiful boy who, at the age of 8 weeks, was shaken by his daycare provider. Ryan was shaken so violently that he was left permanently disabled. Ryan is now 14. He cannot talk, dress himself or brush his teeth alone. He has the cognitive abilities of a toddler.

Cathy has some incredible resources and also a photo album of her beautiful, beautiful boy on her website. http://www.sbsprevention.com/ 

To visit Jeanne Hannah's website for more information, click here:

Technorati tags: Shaken Baby Syndrome, child abuse

New Laws on Under-age Sex in Ireland

The Associated Press reports from Dublin on June 3, 2006 that Ireland has passed an emergency bill on under-age sex, and the Supreme Court ordered a man at the center of the controversy to be reimprisoned for having sex with a 12-year-old girl.

According to the report, these developments were the result of public outrage over a decision last week by the Ireland Supreme Court that declared a 1935 law governing statutory rape of minors unconstitutional on the grounds that the law did not provide men with a defense permitting men accused of having sex with girls aged under 15 to claim they thought the girl was older.

Reporting Child Abuse & Neglect

Child Protection Act: “Child Abuse” and “Child Neglect” Defined

Section 2 of Michigan's Child Protection Act, MCL 722.622, defines "child abuse" and "child neglect" as follows:

(f) "Child abuse" means harm or threatened harm to a child's health or welfare that occurs through nonaccidental physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, or maltreatment, by a parent, a legal guardian, or any other person responsible for the child's health or welfare or by a teacher, a teacher's aide, or a member of the clergy. 

(j) "Child neglect" means harm or threatened harm to a child's health or welfare by a parent, legal guardian, or any other person responsible for the child's health or welfare that occurs through either of the following:(i) Negligent treatment, including the failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.(ii) Placing a child at an unreasonable risk to the child's health or welfare by failure of the parent, legal guardian, or other person responsible for the child's health or welfare to intervene to eliminate that risk when that person is able to do so and has, or should have, knowledge of the risk. 

Contact Information: Children’s Protective Services

Typepad, the Internet Blogging service used to produce this Blog, does not support extended posts of complicated html material. Therefore, I've published this contact  Information for all Michigan Counties on my website, arranged alphabetically. The contact numbers for Adult protective services are also included.

To access these numbers, click on this link, then scroll to "Links to Information about Michigan Family Law" where you will find both Word and PDF files that you can read online or download to your computer.

To contact Jeanne Hannah with your questions or to view her Family Law website, click here.