Glenn Sacks' Blog Fathers & Families featured an article authored by Robert Franklin, Esq on September 24th, 2009 that caught my eye. I frequently am contacted by fathers who are concerned about their parental rights in cases where the parents have never married. Franklin wrote about a biological father who opposed adoption of his child but the Texas court named prospective adoptive parents as "managing conservators" [in Michigan's parlance, the primary physical custodial parent]. Four years later, a Texas appellate court is sending the matter back to the trial court for a re-determination whether the biological father should have custody of his child instead of third parties.
Last week, while in court on another matter, I listened to oral argument in a case involving a father whose child has already been adopted -- a father who is hoping to overturn the adoption that had been granted because the mother failed to identify him at the time of the adoption in order to destroy his ability to have custody of the child she did not want, the child for whom she had arranged a private adoption.
Continue reading "Adoption fraud | Should third parties keep child?" »
News reports describe the Larry Birkhead / Howard K. Stern relationship as
very friendly and supportive. According
to the New York Post, Stern patted Birkhead on the back just after judges in
a Bahamian court ruled on April 27 that Birkhead was free to leave the Bahamas
with 7-month-old Dannielynn. The judges took less than one hour to rule on and
to deny Virgie Arthur’s unusual appeal that challenged a judge's ruling this
week that Birkhead could leave remove Dannielynn from the island nation.
According to reports, the members of the three-judge panel opined that the
custody battle between Birkhead and Anna Nicole Smith's mother would likely be
settled in a U.S. court and saw no reason to keep the Los Angeles photographer
from leaving with his daughter. There is still another hearing in the Bahamas on
June 8—undoubtedly to resolve the issue of jurisdiction over the custody battle
itself. My guess is that the Bahamian court will rule that the custody battle
should occur in California on the grounds that it is a “more convenient forum.”
Given the Bahamian court’s glacial treatment of Virgie Arthur’s earlier legal
maneuvers, one might imagine that she’d turn to another court for relief. It’s
pretty obvious that she’ll get nowhere in the Bahamas.
The judges ruled that Virgie’s appeal was without merit because she had cited
no reasonable proof to support her argument that Birkhead would not return to
the Bahamas for the June 8 hearing. The court then ordered her to pay $3,000 in
attorney fees for the frivolous appeal. Perhaps that is just the first of some
coming “reality checks” for Virgie. We’ll see just how far she will go in her
attempts to wrest custody from Birkhead or to get an order for joint custody of
the infant. My review of California law indicates that she lacks standing there
to seek custody of Dannielynn.
Continue reading "Two Men & a Baby | Daniellynn's Soap Opera Continues" »
On January 12, 2007, Maryland’s highest court considered a constitutional challenge of that State’s grandparent visitation statute. The Court ruled in favor of protecting parents against Intrusion by grandparents. Overruling 14-years of state judicial precedent, the court held that absent exceptional circumstances or parental unfitness, and detriment to the grandchildren, grandparents have no right to demand visitation with grandchildren when the parents are oppose contact.
As with all instances in which grandparents feel compelled to seek court intervention in order to maintain a relationship with their grandchildren, this case involved a bitter familial conflict the origin of which went back many years. When Glen and Andrea Koshko opposed demands for visitation by maternal grandparents John and Maureen Haining, the Hainings filed suit and demanded that the court order the parents to give them more time with the grandchildren.
Continue reading "Maryland's Grandparenting Time Statute Ruled Unconstitutional" »
In Eljahmi v Elgarmi, Docket No. 270848 (Unpublished, decided November 30, 2006), the Michigan Court of Appeals found error where the trial court set aside an ex parte order granting custody to Elgarmi (the child’s biological father) and permitted the maternal grandparents to intervene and to retain custody of their grandchild who had resided with them since birth.
The mother was the victim of a fatal drive-by shooting. The father was “a person of interest” in the investigation. The grandparents sought a guardianship, but the father, who had only parenting time under the existing custody order obtained the ex parte emergency order a day prior to the hearing on the guardianship matter.
Once the trial court set aside the ex parte order and allowed the intervening grandparents to retain custody, it also suspended the father’s parenting time until such time as he might be cleared in the ensuing investigation of the mother’s death. The father appealed.
Continue reading "Grandparents with standing to intervene upon death of mother" »
