Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

modify visitation

Among a long list of indescretions the mother of my husband's daughter has recently told her that he & his parents ''told me to give you up for adoption'' putting negative spin that adoption means you don't love your child.She discusses court matters with her, child is only 6 & asks her to keep secrets from us.On her most recent visit she took the child to a Dr (not the child's Dr) without consent/notification & filled an Rx then lied to my husband about its purpose.She just got visitation back after not showing to court, and this past visit was the 2nd in 4 months.My husband is interested in filing for supervised visitation.We are afraid in filing that she may end up with more time - because the current plan was uncontested (didn't go to court) very unusual (three one week visits per year) & we all live in the same city.She has shown us that this agreement was a bad idea.What are the odds that with the listed information my husband would be successful?The mother has been erratic with parenting duties and communication the child's entire life & only gets involved when a court date nears.Comm logs have been kept for 3 years, but never used in court.She recently tried to get more time but it was dismissed due to improper filing.


Asked on 4/29/08, 8:20 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Amir John Showrai The Pacific Law Firm, PLLC

Re: modify visitation

If I understand your questions correctly, one is, if you do go to court to further restrict mom to supervised visits, is it possible that you may wind up with something giving her more time, rather than more restrictions? The short answer is yes.

Your other question, if I understand you correctly, is whether your husband will prevail if he asks the court to impose supervised visits in lieu of the 3 one week visits the mom already has?

This is a complicated question, and to really be able to give you a good set answer, I would need to sit down with your husband and go over the details of how the relationship soured, and what has happened since then before I can really answer that question in detail. Having said that, as a GENERAL proposition, without proof of harm or imminent danger to the child, I am not sure that you have enough information in your question to give a judge enough reason to further restrict an already restricted Parenting Plan.

More to the point, I'd have to know what drug the prescription that was obtained contains, and what are the possible harmful effects to the child. While parents are strongly advised not to speak with children, unless they admit doing so in court, or there are third party witnesses without agendas or biases who have seen such comments, then this argument will likely go nowhere fast.

As for adoption, that too is a huge no-no for discussion with children, given how devastating it can be for them.

I hope this helps. If you need more help, feel free to e-mail me or call by clicking on my name below for my phone number.

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Answered on 4/29/08, 8:42 am


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