Family Law and Divorce information for Ohio families looking for solutions
For lawyers and others interested in an excellent journal article on this subject.
Puppy Love: Providing for the Legal Protection of Animals When Their Owners Get Divorced by Heidi Stroh, 2 J. Animal L. & Ethics 231 (2007). The article examines pet ownership in divorce proceedings. Ms. Stroh concludes that the various states should adopt statutes providing clear guidance for pet custody decisions. It is available through Lexis and Westlaw.
In many divorce cases, custody or ownership of the beloved family pet is very important and the dispute can even become contentious. Sean Palmer, author of the Texas Family Law Blog, recently wrote an interesting article on the subject. It is very well written and I can’t quibble with any of it. My analysis of the subject, under a Ohio law, doesn’t appear to vary from his under Texas law. As barbaric as it sounds, pets are categorized under Ohio law as “personal property”. The court cannot treat Rover as a child, and award custody or shared parenting of him to the parties. But, I have seen Judges on rare occasions designate one party as the pet’s owner and permit the other to have access to the pet. Most domestic relations judges that I have come across are sensitive to the importance pet ownership may have and will patiently consider the facts. Some, on the other hand, are impatient and will tell counsel to just “flip a coin” to determine the owner. If the court is not inclined to consider all the facts and implications, scheduling … Read More... “Who Gets Custody of Rover?”
Here’s a news flash. The “experts” disagree! Many well-respected studies over the years have concluded that kids are often negatively impacted as a result of their parent’s divorce. However according to Allen Li, of the prestigious RAND Corporation’s Population Research Center in Santa Monica, California, most kids are not seriously affected by the divorce in the long term, but a divorce raises the risk that a child will have future problems. Li presented his findings in Chicago April 26, 2008, at a meeting of the non-profit Council on Contemporary Families.
The study by Li was based upon a large sample-6,332 children. His methodology differed from that which was used by others in the past. He didn’t measure children of divorced parents with children of married parents. Instead, he measured behavior problems such as crying, cheating or arguing frequently, in children ages four to fifteen before and after their parents’ split. He describes it as a “longitudinal approach”. Li found a slight increase in bad behavior on post-divorce children but excluded the finding because it was so slight. In the abstract to his study, Li concludes “that children … Read More... “New Study Concludes that Divorce is Neither Good nor Bad: May Not Cause Kids’ Bad Behavior”
Naturally Mother’s Day is a special day for families and especially for mothers. In this day and age however, there are often multiple females who may play a key role in a child’s life. Stepmothers and grandmothers raising their grandchildren as their own are now quite the norm. These women need to be recognized on Mother’s Day.
Stepmothers are often portrayed in a negative light. It is important to look at all sides, as a step mom often has to walk the tight rope. She has to carefully navigate the road so that she is an integral part of her new child or children’s lives, while still respecting the child’s need to honor and love their own mother. Grandmothers raising grandchildren as their own child has been an increasing occurrence in our society. Across the United States, more than 6 million children are being raised in households headed by grandparents and other relatives. In my opinion they should be nominated as saints! In addition to a child’s natural mother, a stepmother or a primary care giving grandmother can play a pivotal role in a child’s life.
False allegations of domestic abuse are not just a phenomenon that routinely occur in the United States. Family law attorneys in Canada are similarly complaining about the unfairness and damage caused when a warring parent falsely accuses a spouse of abuse. Whether it is for revenge, to punish a spouse, or to attempt to gain an advantage in a custody proceeding, I see this occurring all too often in my practice. While domestic abuse should never be condoned, unfortunately there are seldom any recriminations for the false accuser.
According to Sarah Hampton of Toronto’s Globe and Mail, these common occurrences end up leaving many black eyes in its wake: for the accused, the justice system and especially the kids. She opines that the parent considering making a false allegation should give much more thought in advance about how it will detrimentally affect the children. The story, published on April 24, 2008, is an interesting read. Check it out.
Source: Divorce’s atomic bomb: false abuse allegations, Toronto Globe and Mail
Resiliency is a topic that I find myself discussing often with my divorce clients. I recently came across an interesting article on that subject which prompted this post. Resilience can de defined as the human ability to deal with, learn from, overcome and even be changed by the unfortunate but unavoidable adversities that life throws our way. Dr. Edith Grotberg, a developmental psychologist, has done extensive worldwide research on the subject of fostering resiliency. In a recent interview in the Palo Alto Daily News, Heath Matters: Resilience Can Be Improved Upon, by columnist L.J. Anderson, Dr. Grotberg stated that people are born with the capacity to be resilient, but the challenge should be to continually work to increase ones ability to be resilient so that when adversities present themselves, an individual is able to handle the situation. She believes that the capacity for resilience can be strengthened in both adults and children. She challenges parents and other resilient adults who work with children to help foster children’s resiliency.
Dr. Grotberg became interested in the study of resilience while teaching at the University for Women in Sudan, … Read More... “Improving Resiliency”
After a termination of the marriage of a man and woman, the newly divorced man or woman often fails to consider reviewing and updating his or her estate planning documents a top priority. In the past, this sometimes resulted in unfortunate and unintended consequences. It is long-standing statutory law in the State of Ohio that if after executing a will, the individual executing the will is divorced, obtains a dissolution, has a marriage annulled or obtains a legal separation, any conveyance of property in the will to the former spouse or to a trust available to the former spouse or any nomination of the former spouse as executor, trustee, or guardian is revoked, unless the will expressly provides otherwise. However, until recently, Ohio statutory law did not address the effect of the termination of a marriage on previously executed designations of the ex-spouse as power of attorney, trust beneficiary, death beneficiary or joint property owner. For example, until recently, an ex-spouse named as beneficiary on a life insurance policy would still receive the insurance benefits unless the owner of the policy had changed the beneficiary designation after … Read More... “Estate Planning After Divorce, Statutory Protections Against The Ex-Spouse”