Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Daughter doesn't want to come home

First off, please stop taking legal advice from a fifteen year old. Especially when the advice is wrong. Your fight is not with your daughter, it is with your ex for allowing this to happen, if not encouraging it.

If you are near Spokane, please contact Peter Karademos and ask him to represent you.

Mr. Karademos may be able to bargain with your ex, but if that isn't possible, he'll put together a contempt action which compels your ex, at threat of a great deal of money and potentially jail time, to follow the parenting plan.

Your ex would be served with an order to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for his disregard of the plan and also failure to pay support. If he fails to show up, a bench warrant can and likely will be issued.

If he shows up, the Court will quite likely give you the relief you request - make up time, civil fines, costs and attorney fees and a judgment for unpaid support, maybe more.

The facts you are describing are an unfortunate reality for many parents. If you do not stand up and object to what he's doing, it will not stop.

This is not self-help law. Put together a retainer and go have a consultation and get it dealt with.

The next stage is to ask the Court to issue a writ of habeus corpus asking the Hawaii police to go fetch her. This is more problematic - likely you would want to go there so she would not wind up in foster care, so it is not the first step.

Then it becomes parental kidnapping. But if you were to ask for police assistance right now, they would tell you this is a civil matter and they would be right. You need to lawyer up.

If you start now, she'll be home in time to start school on time.

Hope this helps. Elizabeth Powell