Enforcing Custody Order/Question

emme022 · October 2012

Hi,

My SO asked me to write a post for some opinions/advice. His custody order was finalized in August and in the order it says that the parents will share transportation equally. It says that the father will transport the child at the end of his parenting time and the mother will transport the child at the end of her parenting time, (they have 50/50 custody) At the time the custody order was written his ex was claiming she did not have any access to a vehicle so it was written in that the Father would do all of the transportation until the Mother had regular use of a vehicle. My SO knew that she actually did have use of a vehicle so at every pick up and drop off he has photographed the car being there for the past 2 months and documented that the 2 times the car was not there was when his ex was also not there, she lives with her mother so he picked her up from her. So he told his Ex that starting next week he feels they should start following the custody order since he has proof she has a vehicle. She said that she would not be picking her daughter up and if he did not drop her off she would call the police and he would be arrested for kidnapping. He plans on going to the police station to ask about this, both the police station in our town and his, but I wanted to know if anyone knows anything about this. I am assuming he shouldn't get in trouble since she is the one violating the custody order but wanted to hear from others.

EDITED to clear things up: So my SO were realizing that he had things backwards as far as who drops off/who picks up while I was writing this so what I wrote is confusing. When he talked to his ex he thought they were each responsible for picking up at the start of their parenting time but then after found out that it is the other way around and that they each are supposed to drop off the child at the end of their parenting time. This obviously makes it harder for my SO to enforce but we will see but anyways sorry for the confusion.

odear · October 2012

Can he tell her that in writing (email) or send a certifed letter? If he emails will she be dumb enough to respond that she will not pick her daughter up and will falsely accuse him of kidnapping?

FutureMrsWittig · October 2012

I agree with PP. Try to get it in print that she plans to falsely accuse him of kidnapping. And the first time she doesn't drop DD off file contempt. He can file contempt even if he goes to pick her up, so he still gets his parenting time. She's violating the CO.

Phantomgirl · October 2012

humm - its a pity that it is not the other way around, as in they pick up for their visit. The way it is written kinda makes it tougher. He MAY have to forgo a visit or several in order to enforce it. As in, BM will not drop SD off for his visit and he wil have to file comtempt charges on her. He can then present his pictures/proof.

Sucks!

MrsJumbo · October 2012

We were told that the police have no grounds in civil issues and that if there is an issue, we would need to go to court. Because this is in your c/o that your s/o has custody of the child on such and such days, and she is supposed to pick up her daughter, I think it doesnt hurt to go to the station and ask. They tend to have no desire to meddle with divorce issues.GL

Littlejen22 · October 2012

I am confused, you said he wants to enforce the CO and then said if he does not drop off SD she would call the police. Well if he does not drop off SD he is in violation according to what you said, that is not enforcing CO. Enforcing the CO would be him not picking her up, he can always threaten to call the police on HER, but I would not do it is writing.

emme022 · October 2012

odear:
Can he tell her that in writing (email) or send a certifed letter? If he emails will she be dumb enough to respond that she will not pick her daughter up and will falsely accuse him of kidnapping?

He did send it as an email but she ignored it. She told him in person that he better "retract" the email, whatever that means, because she will not be doing any of the driving. When it got to the point that she was screaming at him in front of there daughter he walked away so it would not get worse

emme022 · October 2012

Littlejen22:
I am confused, you said he wants to enforce the CO and then said if he does not drop off SD she would call the police. Well if he does not drop off SD he is in violation according to what you said, that is not enforcing CO. Enforcing the CO would be him not picking her up, he can always threaten to call the police on HER, but I would not do it is writing.

I probably wrote part of it wrong since as I was writing it he realized he had things backwards. He thought, and he is pretty sure his ex also still thinks, that it is written that they are each responsible for picking up the child when there parenting time begins. It is actually written that they are supposed to drop the child off when there parenting time ends. When she said she was going to call the police it was because he said she needed to pick up there daughter from him when her parenting time began, which is what they both thought the CO said. So she would be the one violating the CO since she was supposed to be picking her up. But anyways now that it is the other way around it really works against him because she will just refuse to drop off his daughter for his parenting time and he does not want to miss any of his parenting time. I edited my post to make things clear, I'm sorry about that

emme022 · October 2012

Phantomgirl:
humm - its a pity that it is not the other way around, as in they pick up for their visit. The way it is written kinda makes it tougher. He MAY have to forgo a visit or several in order to enforce it. As in, BM will not drop SD off for his visit and he wil have to file comtempt charges on her. He can then present his pictures/proof.

Sucks!

When I first wrote this we had thought the CO said that each parent was responsible for picking up when their parenting time began, so if she refused to do her part of the driving it would mean she would not pick her up from him. As it turns out it is the other way around and as you said it really is unfortunate because she will just refuse to drop their daughter off to him for his parenting time.

I did not know if this was a good idea or not. There pick up/drop off time is 9am. If she is supposed to drop LO off to him and she does not as off like 11am and he then goes to her mother's house to pick her up, would she be considered to be in contempt since she did not drop her off? Atleast then he would not miss out on his parenting time. It is really unfortunate that his ex tries so hard to make even small things difficult but I guess it is what it is. He is going to continue to take pictures also and atleast they are time and date stamped on the camera, although it wont show up on the pics for some reason.

emme022 · October 2012

FutureMrsWittig:
I agree with PP. Try to get it in print that she plans to falsely accuse him of kidnapping. And the first time she doesn't drop DD off file contempt. He can file contempt even if he goes to pick her up, so he still gets his parenting time. She's violating the CO.

I missed this post before but I was wondering if he could still file contempt if he ended up going to pick her up so he would not miss out on his time. Thank you. He plans to send her another email saying he will wait until the end of the month and then the CO needs to be upheld. Hopefully she will just drop off DD, the less drama the better. Also does he need a lawyer or anything to file contempt?

blush64 · October 2012

Although she may well have use of a car all the time if the car isn't hers she could say she didn't have use of it. It may have been there but not working, not allowed to use it, didn't have the keys...etc Just having the car there doesn't mean she has access to it. I assume she is just doing this because she doesn't want to drive but if the car isn't in her name I would see if the pictures will really help.

twister22 · October 2012

FutureMrsWittig:
I agree with PP. Try to get it in print that she plans to falsely accuse him of kidnapping. And the first time she doesn't drop DD off file contempt. He can file contempt even if he goes to pick her up, so he still gets his parenting time. She's violating the CO.

The bold. If you're feeling nice, I would have DH send BM an email "BM, I have documented proof that for the past two months you have had a vehicle. As I have previously stated in both writing and verbally, we need to now be following the CO. If you do not drop SD off at the start of my next visit, I will be filing contempt with the court." Obviously, I would still go pick SD up, DH can still file contempt.

NDSalesGirl · October 2012

Our custody order is in Iowa, but we live in North Dakota. Our custody order states that BM and DH share transportation. BM kind of screwed herself on this, because she thought we would have to just split transportation 1/2 way, but according to the attorneys, if we go to Iowa to pick ss up then BM has to come to ND to pick ss up at the end of our time. She claims that she does not have a good enough vehicle to make the trip (and infact she does not) but she either has to find someone to make the trip or even the 5 1/2 hour trip and cannot use car troubles as a way to keep him from us, or she is in contempt of court. She has tried this twice and the Judge has sided with us every time.

MrsS81112 · October 2012

My DH has full custody now until BM submits to a psychological evaluation (she was ordered to do so back in April, so it doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon). However, when she did have visitations, she would get him every other weekend. She had to drive to our home to pick up SS for the visitation and DH was ordered to pick him up so that it would be 50/50. BM has multiple DUI's, no vehicle, and lives with her mother. The court order still stated that she had to pick SS up, her mother would do the driving for her.

It's hard to prove contempt we've been in the court battle for 2 years now, thankfully, DH has full custody now for the time being (well since last Christmas he has). However, there was times BM would have her mother drop her and SS off at a bar (farther away then her house) on Sunday, and we would have to drive there to pick SS up, so she would conveniently have a ride to the bar and when we would leave she would go inside. There was really nothing we could do.

Also, she was drinking and doing drugs around SS and the judge would say, "DO YOU HAVE ANY EVIDENCE OF THAT?" His 7 year old word didn't count. My DH also got a contempt, because her mother's home burnt down on Thursday before visitation and we didn't allow her to pick him up. Our lawyer sent BM's lawyer a letter stating that visitation would be canceled until she had housing and the judge still gave my DH a contempt for not sending him.

Another time when custody was suspended BM showed up to pick SS up, and called the police when we denied him leaving with her. The cops showed up and said they couldn't really do much. They read the court order and asked her to leave our property.

It can be very frustrating at times! So good luck, I'm not an expert by any means, but if you have any questions feel free to ask!!

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