Did you know that in a California domestic violence case, a judge may order either side to pay attorney fees? In San Diego, the Court of Appeal may that abundantly clear in a decision that it ordered published earlier this month. Ruling 3-0, the appeals court upheld a decision by the trial judge to award $5,000.00…
Even after you’ve been doing this for a while (and yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day I opened my practice), you can still be surprised by some of the things that happen in Family Court. For example, this past week, the California Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s order that the wife…
A surrogacy agreement, followed by an acrimonious divorce and ensuing lawsuits in three states, has led to a strange custodial assignment for one California infant. Sherri Shepherd, former panel member of daytime television talk show “The View,” entered into an agreement with a young waitress named Jessica Bartholomew for her to carry a child for…
How does a mother in southern California with primary physical custody of the parties’ eight year old daughter lose that custody? By behaving badly. At least that was the conclusion of a Riverside County judge who entered an order in August, 2013 awarding custody to the girl’s father, who resides in Idaho. And today, the…
One of the toughest decisions for a family law judge to make, here in California and probably anywhere else in the country, is whether to allow one parent to relocate with the minor children to a place significantly far away from the other parent. A California judge faced this situation recently in the case of…
Many people complain that dishonest spouses are never prosecuted for perjury or otherwise punished for their dishonest actions. Not this time. In a case called Verduzco v. Werner, the husband, who was a San Diego police officer, was forced to give up his entire Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), even though he ordinarily would have…
Instead of “Who’s Your Daddy”, the question in a recent San Diego Family Law case was “Do You Have a Daddy”? Yes, at least in this case decided by the California Court of Appeal based in San Diego. In a published decision (meaning a decision that may be cited for precedent), the three justices ruled…
Grandparents often play a significant and important role in their grandchildren’s lives, giving love, comfort and advice, and sometimes helping out substantially to care for the children while the parents are at work or on trips. Sometimes, however, parents may object to the role or level of involvement the grandparents want to take in the…
Can a couple be considered to be “living separate and apart” if they continue to reside in the same home? That is the question currently before the California Supreme Court in the case of In re Marriage of Davis. It sometimes happens that one or both spouses consider the marriage over and wish to divorce,…
California uses a computer formula to calculate child support. The formula takes into account each parent’s income, the number of children involved, and the percentage of time each parent has with the child or children. The income is usually based on what the parent actually earns, but divorce courts have authority to impute income to…
