Legal Question in Family Law in Michigan
Children's Right to Breathe Clean Air
What is current Michigan Law as it pertains to minor children forced to live with a parent that smokes constantly and has a very poor lifestyle?
One of the children wrote a letter to the family court judge stating that he could not breathe and his stomach hurt because of his father's constant smoking. Other evidence was presented as to the father's lifestyle (drinking, pornography, leaving 9 year old children alone, profanity, calling their mother unprintable names,etc).
Their mother does not smoke, drink or participate in the life style of the father. She has never had a problem with the law.
This is in a small town in Western Michigan where the father's family has lived for generations and is very influential.
My grandchildren were taken from their mother and given to their father after the father walked out on them and used the local court system to take them from their mother. They do not want to live with their father.
Their mother, an Air Force veteran and stay-at-home mother of four, is now in jail because she defied the judge by hiding her children from their abusive father. She did this after two years of trying to get justice in the local court system.
This is a small part of a very sad case.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Children's Right to Breathe Clean Air
While Mom may have felt compelled to take matters into her own hands to protect the children(keeping them, despite a court order), it was probably the worst thing for her to do. She is now at a legal, strategic, and moral disadvantage. She should pursue a domestic relations appeal of the judge's decision regarding custody. How long is she in jail for? For more info., Please contact my office at (248)851-3171.
Re: Children's Right to Breathe Clean Air
Given the ways things often work outside of teh large cities, this is a common story. What your daughter should do is make sure that regardless of what the courts allowed her to do, she is there for the kids. She should gradually step up her campaign to ensure that the kids know she is there for them. If it means spending a superhuman amount of time with them when they are with her, that's what she is going to have to do. When the kids reach 14 or so, they will be given more of a say. until then, especially when teh court is biased, it's hard to get judges to see the damage being done without an outside opinion.
Explore getting the kids into therapy when they are with their mother, That doesn't take the father's co-operation at all, or even his knowledge. Then, if you have an objective professional opinion, it's much harder for the court to ignore it,m because it looks bad on appeal for the judge to rule against a mother who has outside opinions that the father is harming the child. Until then, it's her word against the fathers, and clearly she has been losing, so you have to change the game by re-writing the rules. This takes time, patience and above-all stick-to-itness. Don't try to involve the kids in this plan, this is adult business. Plotting with your kids is always a bad idea anyway, because they have a tendency to tell the other spouse what's happening. Keep it to yourself, make a plan and stick to it: the kids will be better served than if your daughter keeps banging her head up against the same wall. her credibility with her kids is re-flushed every time.
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