Legal Question in Family Law in California

Both my ex-wife and I live in southern California. Since separating about 8 years ago, we have lived within a few miles of each other so as to stay in our son's school district. However, following a series of mental breakdowns on the part of his mother, our son last year moved full-time with me (he is now 17 1/2). Despite this, I continued to pay child support to his mother as if we were still sharing 50/50 custody just to avoid any court custody fight this late in the game, and our son would visit her every odd weekend or so. At NO point in this last year, though, has his mother provided ANY care beyond the occasional overnight stay. Last week, though, I found out from our oldest daughter that my ex-wife up and moved far out of town (apx 35 miles away) about 2 weeks ago. Needless to say, she is now in NO position to provide any sort of care to our son, and I've told her I'm ending the support payments. She is threatening legal action. MY QUESTION: is there anything in the California Family Code, or law in general, that specifies a "distance" a parent has to remain to a child's school district and/or to the other parent? Our original divorce stipulation stated clearly that if moving, the other party had to be notified at least 30 days beforehand and approve of such. She clearly violated that provision, but I'm wondering if there's additional legal defenses I can cite now that she's 30+ miles away?


Asked on 11/19/12, 6:03 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

No. I'm afraid you don't have a legal leg to stand on in the position you want to take. The court order is the court order and the support portion of the order is treated as legally walled off from any misconduct or other issues on her part, unless or until you go into court and get a new order. Furthermore, there is no such law as what you are looking for anyway. The provision you cite in your stipulation is to give you a chance to go into court for a modification based on her move before it happens. It already having happened, that becomes a toothless infraction. 30 miles is a meaningless number to the best interests of the minor. That distance can have a big impact or nearly no impact on the child's life. In a 90*** zip code, it's probably a big deal. In Barstow it's probably not. The point is that it wouldn't make any sense for there to be a hard rule put into law. A family law judge needs to make appropriate orders based on all the circumstances, not some arbitrary rule about distances. It sounds like you have a good case for modifying custody to what you've actually been doing, and adjust support accordingly. But you have to think in "whole picture" made up of various details in order to win. You will not find a bright line rule to support you.

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Answered on 11/19/12, 7:14 pm
Zadik Shapiro Law Offices of C. Zadik Shapiro

You would be best off going into court and modifying the child support order. If she goes into court the court may well modify the order in your favor but it will not be retroactive to the point that you cut off support

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Answered on 11/19/12, 8:25 pm


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