Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

if not married, does the father of a child have visitation rights too

My Son was not married to his girlfriend and they had a Daughter together. They lived together for a short time and then they separated. His ex had a paper drawn up and signed by both stating the different visitations that they would do. My Son is very non confrontational and he signed without reading it, (dumb we know) and part of it said his ex would pick him up for visitation and take him to her house for 3 hours 2 times a week to visit with his Daughter. she wanted supervised visitation because she said he was a drinker. She decided that she would be the supervisor. When my Son was not seeing anybody else, the visitation went well, but when he was it just didn't happen. He wasn't very good at keeping with the 2 times a week because he said he got so tired of listening to her bitch while he was trying to play with his Daughter,(who is now 41/2)so he made the visits less often. He can't take her anywhere by himself and I can't pick her up for him to take her somewhere for them to visit. He now he can't see or talk to his Daughter at all. His ex doesn't say he can't, his ex says his Daughter is just too busy to come to the phone when he calls. He has not seen or talked to his Daughter for 9 months. How can he change this?


Asked on 10/29/06, 3:36 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Christopher Steuart IT Forensics, Inc.

Re: if not married, does the father of a child have visitation rights too

One thing you did not mention is whether your son and his former girl friend signed an Acknowledgment of Paternity, and filed it with Vital Statistics. If they have, and 2 years have elapsed (probable if child is 4 1/2 years old), he may file a petition to establish a residential plan. If both parties are on good terms and willing to work together he can do this without an attorney, if it is going to be a fight then he may want to consider having an attorney represent him on this matter.

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Answered on 10/29/06, 11:48 pm


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