It can be a helpless feeling to know that your co-parent has violated some aspect of your child custody orders. You both agreed to certain orders after your divorce or child custody case. Now that the two of you are living your lives after the case there is a certain amount of trust which needs to be maintained. When your co-parent violates your trust she not only harms you but also your children. What can be done to enforce your order and hold your co-parent accountable?
That is what we will be discussing in today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Our blog today is tailored towards helping parents like you make good decisions in a post-family law case scenario. Not having the court be able to walk alongside you after a case is over can be intimidating. Your co-parent may be looking for every opportunity to take advantage of the rules and push the envelope associated with your rules.
This is when having the advice and perspective of an experienced family law attorney matters. The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan are helpful and accountable to our clients. A free-of-charge consultation with one of our experienced family law attorneys is just a phone call away.
What is an enforcement case?
An enforcement case is the mechanism by which families hold their co-parents accountable for their actions in violating a court order. For today’s blog post, we will consider two kinds of violations. The first is a violation of child support orders. This would be a scenario where your co-parent fails to pay child support on time, in full, or both. Unfortunately, issues paying child support are extremely common. Not paying child support puts your child in an unenviable situation.
Next, your child may deal with a situation where your co-parent violates the visitation/possession orders. Parents need to be able to work together to coordinate on these subjects. Families that can look past their disagreements and communicate through them end up in a good place together. However, families that have difficulty doing so typically find themselves in positions where violations of the court order occur with greater regularity. Again, the children suffer most acutely when a court order is violated.
When a violation happens in a family law scenario that does not mean that an enforcement case needs to be filed. Rather, there are often explanations or defenses for the violation. However, when violations become more common that is when an enforcement case must be considered. Unlike in a divorce case, an enforcement petition is much more specific in what it must include. Here are more details on the enforcement petition and its necessary contents.
What must be included in an enforcement petition?
A petition is the initial filing in a family law case. To petition a court means to ask a court for something. The relief you seek from the court depends upon the nature and type of violation. You may ask for different relief in a possession case than in a child support case. Common types of relief asked for in enforcement cases include make-up visitation time, monetary penalties, back child support, and monetary fines. Consult with an experienced attorney with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan to find out more about the available relief in an enforcement case.
The enforcement petition needs to include specific references to the violations that have occurred. This cannot be a situation where you refer generally to what you remember about a violation. Let’s take a child custody circumstance to illustrate this point. Suppose that your co-parent has dropped the kids off late every Sunday for the past four periods of his weekend possession. This throws off the kids’ schedule in getting ready for bed on a school night. It is also in conflict with the court’s orders outlined in your Final Decree of Divorce.
If you intend to file an enforcement case against your co-parent you must document each incident. The date, time, and location of each. The nature of the violation. Also the specific segment of the court order which has been violated. Any other details that the court needs to be aware of? Cite this within your enforcement petition. General language is not good enough in this instance.
Child support violations- how to be specific in an enforcement petition
Now let’s consider child support violations and how they need to be specified in an enforcement petition. Let’s suppose that your co-parent has failed to pay child support in full for the past three months. First, become familiar with your court orders. Many people file enforcement cases without first attempting to learn their court orders. This is an issue because court orders tend to be difficult to understand. A difficult-to-understand court order can be misinterpreted.
Before you hire a lawyer and start to file your enforcement case you should go through the order. Make sure that you can identify a specific provision of the order which has been violated. Simply “feeling” like the court order has been violated is not good enough. You must cite the page and provision in your court order that your co-parent has violated. Thus, reading the court order regularly puts you in a position to do so.
Next, figure out what you need to receive in the enforcement case. Assuming that you are successful, what are the main elements you are seeking to receive back? Back child support is a good start. Penalties from your co-parent? Interest on those back child support payments? Begin working with an experienced family law attorney so that you can be better prepared to ask for what you deserve back.
The importance of a well-drafted court order
One other important element of this discussion is making sure that your court orders are well drafted. It is too late to worry about this after the family law case has ended. Rather, the best time to handle this type of situation is during the family law case itself. You can approach your case from the perspective of someone who wants to ensure success in the future. You don’t need to approach this issue as someone who anticipates a need to go back to court.
A well-written court order provides clarity for you and your family during good times as well as bad. Everyone should understand their responsibilities under a court order. This is as opposed to both you and your co-parent constantly scratching your heads about what your responsibilities are. Having a court order that is well constructed means being able to anticipate what you need to do in a given situation. Gone are the days when you and your co-parent can do what you want when you want it.
Working with an experienced family law attorney during your child custody case is the way to get the well-drafted orders you need. There is no telling how you and your co-parent will draft orders yourselves. This does not mean that the two of you are incapable of drafting well-written orders. It is just much less likely that you can compare to an experienced family law attorney.
Trying to work with your co-parent before filing an enforcement lawsuit
One important aspect of this situation is that you do not have to immediately file an enforcement case when a violation occurs. Many times you can talk the situation through with your co-parent. Reach out to him or her if that is possible. Address the situation directly. Be clear about what has happened and ask for your co-parent’s explanation. You can tell a lot about the situation based on their reaction. Sometimes you will find that the other person made an honest mistake.
This has happened to a client of the Law Office of Bryan Fagan on more than one occasion. For example, a client of ours came to us a few years ago with a problem. Her ex-husband stopped paying child support for his daughter in the middle of her senior year. It seemingly came out of nowhere. So, our office sent a letter to him to address the situation. He was also not returning the phone calls of our client.
To everyone’s surprise, the child support issue was a mistake on his part. He acknowledged not paying child support because he thought the obligation to do so ended when his child turned 18. Rather, the obligation ended at her graduation from high school. He was more than happy to develop a payment plan to get everything back on track. No hearing was needed. A simple court order was created based on their agreement. Everyone was as happy as could be.
Document your steps and collect evidence
The key to winning any family law case is having the evidence to back up your assertions. You cannot simply tell a court that your ex-wife withheld custody from you. Rather, you need to make sure that there is evidence to back up your claims. For a missed weekend of visitation, you would need to turn over some kind of evidence to show that the visitation period was missed. This could be something as simple as a text message from your ex-wife telling you that you would not be seeing the kids that weekend.
Or it may need to be something more creative. Say that you received that text message from your ex-wife in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday. In your mind, you were already creating an event schedule with your children for that weekend. However, your ex-wife texted you to say that you would not be seeing the children. No explanation was given, just a very matter-of-fact text message. Now, the question you need to ask yourself is whether you need to do more to prove the denial.
The answer to this question is a resounding “yes.” You would need to be denied visitation for the enforcement case to proceed successfully. This means that if you do not show up to her house on time that day then visitation would not be denied. You would simply be a dad who failed to arrive to pick up his children for weekend visitation. It sounds silly in a way because you know that the kids would not be there to greet you. However, the law says you need to be present at the correct time and location for the denial to have occurred.
Be prepared to go to court
Another reason why working with an attorney is important is that going to court for an enforcement hearing is no small matter. These are trials even if it is not called a trial. Taking the information contained in an enforcement petition and arguing it in court is difficult. Referencing information in the petition, offering evidence into the record, and responding to objections. Again, this is not something for the faint of heart.
An attorney should have experience taking an enforcement case to a hearing. That does not mean that your case is going to a hearing. We have covered how it is very possible to settle your case outside of court. However, the last stage of an enforcement case may be a trial, so your attorney needs to have done it before. Asking an attorney what their level of experience is in enforcement cases specifically makes a great deal of sense.
Many attorneys will have tried a divorce case or two and then bill themselves as family law attorneys. The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan work tirelessly on behalf of our clients in family law cases. We don’t just talk the talk, however. Rather, we have the sort of experience you need in enforcement cases to see your case through to the end. Going to court or in negotiation, the Law Office of Bryan Fagan is here for you.
Don’t expect a co-parent to change their behavior on their own
If you are in a position where your co-parent has repeatedly violated a court order then you need to consider this a trait of theirs. It is not something that you can expect him to change on his own. This is where an enforcement case comes into play. You can force his hand and show him that you are not going to be walked over. For many parents, your concern and focus are so heavily on your children that you are unable to see how the actions of your parents are setting a negative tone for your relationship.
By communicating your expectations to your co-parent you are not bending to his whims. Some people will push boundaries to see how far they can go. This is not a good position to be in. However, by pushing back and standing your ground you protect your child and yourself. This does not mean that you have you puff your chest out and act out of character. What it does mean is that you need to establish appropriate boundaries with a co-parent.
Working through an enforcement case means developing a new way to relate to your co-parent. Using whatever method of communication that you had become accustomed to previously does not work. You are facing a challenge when you consider an enforcement case. Looking at it from the perspective of someone who needs to accomplish something for their children is a smart approach. Do not think of the enforcement case as something you are doing for yourself. Rather, look at the case as someone who wants to do something positive for his children.
The Law Office of Bryan Fagan is here to serve our clients
When it comes to hiring an attorney for your enforcement case the Law Office of Bryan Fagan is second to none. We pride ourselves on the service we provide to our clients. It means the world to us when a client can accomplish their goals in a family law case. Whether it is inside or outside the courtroom the Law Office of Bryan Fagan works tirelessly to support our clients.
Thank you for joining us here on our blog today. Did you know the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan post unique and informative content every day of the week? We want to be a resource to our community. That way when you have a question that needs answering you know exactly where to go.
With so much information on enforcement cases online it is easy to get confused as to what matters in a case. We at the Law Office of Bryan Fagan hope that the information shared on these pages is helpful to you and your family moving forward.
Questions about the material contained in today’s blog post? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan
The attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan offer free of charge consultations six days a week in person, over the phone, and via video. These consultations are a great way for you to learn more about the world of Texas family law. Before signing a document or negotiating on a subject you do not know well, contact our office. We look forward to the opportunity of serving you during an important part of your life. The Law Office of Bryan Fagan is on your side.
Evan Hochschild was raised in Houston, TX and graduated from Cypress Creek High School. He went on to graduate from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX with an undergraduate degree in Political Science. While in college, Evan was a four-year letterman on the Cross Country team.
Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle before him, Evan attended law school after he completed in his undergraduate studies. He graduated from St. Mary’s University School of Law and has practiced in a variety of areas in the law- including family law.
Mr. Hochschild is guided by principles which place the interests of clients first. Additionally, Evan seeks to provide information and support for his clients with the heart of a teacher.
Evan and his wife have four small children together. He enjoys afternoons out and about with his family, teaching Sunday school at his church and exercising. A veteran attorney of fourteen years, Mr. Hochschild excels in communicating complex ideas in family law simply and directly.
