Legal Question in Family Law in Washington
Thank you for taking my question:
In January the pp for my 7 yr old daughter was modified (I filed and represented myself. my ex had a lawyer) in the new plan my ex has residential custody of our daughter for the summer months. I have her for everyother weekend and one day a week. From the first week after school ended for summer break my ex would fight me on any request that I made to spend time with our daughter. For the last month and 1/2 (July/Aug) he used our vacation clause - which is two one week blocks and one two week block a year per parent - to keep me from seeing our daughter. He claimed it was their 'vacation' time even though he wasn't even with her for the majority of the time. He's a commercial airline pilot.
Now it's October - less than two months since the summer nightmare - and he wants to take our daughter out of school for a week to go to Sea World. I've denied the request to take her out of state, I requested that he go to mediation with me (it's stated in our pp that we mediate as our dispute resolution process) and he said no. He hired a new lawyer - she said that he doesn't have to mediate, and that if I don't agree to the vacation this month she'll 'take this to an ex-parte for relief from the judge' (I'm not sure what that means.)
My ex is also planning this vacation on my weekend and claiming the next weekend after as his giving him the next three weekends with her which is against our pp (neither parent will go more than two weekends without residential time with the child etc).
My question is this: How do I handle this at this point? I feel like the plan needs to be modified again due to him using the grey areas to withhold my time from our daughter, so should I file another modiification? Or a contempt order? Or am I way out of bounds and I should allow him to take her?
PS - there are several issues going on in his home with his new blended family and my daughter does not like to spend time with them. She has asked me not to make her go to Sea World with them.
1 Answer from Attorneys
The challenge in this is that I of course do not have a copy of the parenting plan to review. You have several options, and some are not exclusive of each other: do nothing and see if he tries to get an ex parte order (which will require a hearing generally within two weeks of the ex parte order); get your mediation proposal in writing (it was unclear if you told him on the phone or sent a letter), get his rejection in writing; unless there has been some change of circumstances or documentable difficulty with the current parenting plan you may not have a basis for seeking a modification of the parenting plan. It would not appear to be contempt if nothing overt has happened, contempt is not forward looking. Ex parte means that only one party appears before the judge/commissioner, generally if an ex parte order is issued a hearing has to be scheduled.
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