Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Abandonment by Custodial Parent

Assuming that there are no issues to be raised by the mother against your boyfriend, and that your boyfriend has neither kidnapped nor hidden the child from the mother, your boyfriend has a reasonably good chance to get legal custody of his son. Although the law is designed to prevent people from re-hashing the question of custody, under the belief that the custody fight in an of itself is harmful to children, the law does allow a non-custodial parent to modify a final custody order under certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when a child is living with the non-custodial parent beyond what is provided for in the current custody, but only if the custodial parent has agreed to allow this to happen. When you combine this provision with the facts you've provided, i.e. that the mother has disappeared and abandoned her son, the case for modification is particularly strong.

It sounds as though the main problem will be getting the mother served with the papers. Although there are methods of obtaining service on a person when the person cannot be located, it is a little bit more complicated. Talking directly with an attorney, at least about this requirement, would be very helpful to you. Basically, you will have to ask the court's permission to serve her by publication in a newspaper. The form for doing this, as well as to start an action to modify an existing custody order, should be available at your local courthouse for a nominal charge.