Month: November 2023

Grandparent Visitation and Remarriage

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

In Ohio, an order granting grandparent visitation comes into question after the remarriage of the child’s father. Does the father’s remarriage, and the adoption of the child by the new stepmother, cut off the grandmother’s court ordered visitation rights?

Grandparent Visitation

The Heart of It All

The child. L.S. was born in 2014, to unmarried parents. In 2019, a court awarded John Snyder – the child’s natural father – legal custody. At the same time, Zadunajsky, L.S.’s paternal grandmother, was granted companionship rights with the child.

Then in 2021, Snyder filed a motion to terminate or modify the grandmother’s visitation order because the child has now been adopted by his stepmother, and there is an intact family. The lower court granted the Father’s Motion for Termination without any hearing or the proffering of any evidence.

Instead, the magistrate ruled as a matter of law that in Ohio:

Once the adoption took place, the Paternal Grandmother no longer had standing to seek visitation. Once an adoption order has been entered, all grandparent visitation rights are terminated.

The lower court held there was no case law in Ohio that allows a court to grant or maintain established visitation once an adoption is granted. The legislature has not provided grandparent visitation in the case of an adoption.

This legal reality is very frustrating to courts because the main issue should be what is in the best interest of the child. The lower court also held that the Paternal Grandmother would only have standing to seek visitation upon the death of Father or the divorce of the stepmother.

The grandmother appealed arguing that an adoption by the step-mother of the child was a proper basis for terminating the pre-existing visitation of the paternal grandmother.

Florida Grandparent Visitation

Under current law in Florida, a grandparent may be awarded some visitation rights in very limited situations, such as when the child’s parents are deceased, missing, or in a permanent vegetative state. If only one parent is deceased, missing, or in a permanent vegetative state, the other parent must have been convicted of a felony or a violent offense in order for a grandparent to be able to petition for visitation.

Additionally, a Florida court has to also find that the grandparent has established a prima facie case that the surviving parent is unfit or poses a danger of significant harm to the child. If that burden is not met, the court must dismiss the grandparent’s petition.

In 2022, Florida amended the grandparent visitation law as a result of the murder of FSU Professor Dan Markel. Supporters of the amendment call it the “Markel Act.” Professor Markel was shot to death in his driveway by hitmen hired by his ex-brother in law. His ex-mother in law was recently arrested at Miami International Airport after attempting to board a one way flight to Vietnam.

The new law creates a rebuttable presumption for grandparent or step-grandparent visitation, but only in cases where one parent has been found criminally liable for the death of the other parent, or “civilly liable for an intentional tort causing the death” of the other parent.

The presumption may be overcome only if the court finds that visitation is not in the child’s best interests. The bill does not distinguish between biological grandparents and step-grandparents.

Somewhere in Ohio

The Ohio appellate court agreed with the grandmother and reversed. The opening words of the statute exempt a spouse and the relatives of the spouse from the effects of a final decree of adoption. As Snyder was spouse of the adopting stepparent and Zadunajsky was a relative of Snyder, they are exempt from those effects.

The Father also argued that previous cases affirmed divesting biological grandparents of their visitation and companionship rights. However, the legislature’s intent was to find families for children. The legislature was concerned that if adoptive parents are forced to agree to share parenting responsibilities with people they don’t know, potential adoptive parents will be deterred from adopting. But that legislative intent did not apply to the relatives of the spouse/biological parent in a stepparent adoption.

On remand, the family court may consider whether the continuation of Zadunajsky’s companionship rights is in the best interest of the child in light of the stepparent adoption.

The opinion is here.

International Child Custody and the Death Penalty

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Whether a U.S. state court will have subject matter jurisdiction over a foreign order in an international child custody case turns on whether a parent is subject to the death penalty in the country originally granting child custody. That painful issue is addressed in a recent appeal from the state of Washington.

Custody Death Penalty

Desert Heat

The Father, Ghassan, appealed a Washington state court’s jurisdiction and award of custody of his child, ZA, to the Mother Bethany. Ghassan and Bethany married in Saudi Arabia in 2013. Bethany is a U.S. citizen, and Ghassan is a citizen of Saudi Arabia. The couple had one child, ZA, in Saudi Arabia.

In 2017, Bethany filed for divorce in Saudi Arabia. In January 2019, a Saudi judge granted the divorce and custody of ZA to Bethany. But then in April, the father sued for custody of ZA on behalf of the paternal grandmother. The parties had a bitter custody battle in which the father accused Bethany of gender mixing, adultery, and insulting Islam.

The father presented damning evidence in the Saudi family court, including photographs of the mother in a bikini in the U.S., and a video of her doing yoga.

Adultery, insulting Islam, and insulting Saudi Arabia are crimes in Saudi Arabia which carry the death penalty. The Saudi judge derided Bethany as a foreigner, who embraced western cultural traditions, and even worse, lamented the child spoke fluent English!

The Saudi court awarded custody to the paternal grandmother who lived with the father. Bethany wisely reconciled with her ex, and convinced him to give her custody rights in exchange for her forfeiting child support. With the father’s permission to travel to Washington for a visit with her family, the mother and daughter left the sand dunes of Arabia for the Evergreen State.

The Battle Near-ish Seattle

Bethany filed a petition for temporary emergency jurisdiction under the UCCJEA and then a permanent parenting plan and child support. The father moved to dismiss for lack of personal and subject matter jurisdiction. In the alternative, he asked the court to enforce the Saudi Arabia custody order and waiver of all financial rights.

The family court denied enforcement of the Saudi order and the mother’s waiver of child support. The family court ruled that Washington had jurisdiction in a custody case if “the child custody law of a foreign country violates fundamental principles of human rights.” The father appealed.

Then in 2021, Washington amended its UCCJEA to add a provision that Washington need not recognize another country’s custody order if:

the law of a foreign country holds that apostasy, or a sincerely held religious belief or practice, or homosexuality are punishable by death, and a parent or child may be at demonstrable risk of being subject to such laws.

On appeal, the Washington Court of Appeals applied Washington’s new amendment to the UCCJEA. The Court of Appeals ruled that a Washington court need not enforce the Saudi child custody decree, and may exercise jurisdiction over custody, because Saudi Arabia punishes “apostacy” by death.

The Court of Appeals found that ample evidence supported the family judge’s ruling that the mother faced a death sentence if she returned to Saudi Arabia for her religious and political beliefs. Additionally, the father did not dispute that Bethany could receive the death sentence on her return to Saudi Arabia.

The unpublished opinion is here.

Parental Relocation Update

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

When a parent moves 50 miles from a principle residence, parental relocation is involved. There is a little known update to the law on how we modify custody and time-sharing orders in Florida. And in follow-up to a long standing investigation, police are closing in on the murder-for-hire ring involving one parental relocation.

Relocation Murder

Intrigue in Tallahassee

Tallahassee is the center for political intrigue, but not so much for big murder cases. Many groups have been pushing for alimony reform for years. This year, as part of the alimony reform bill, the governor signed a comprehensive law which impacts relocations of parents from their principle residences.

Timesharing with a child has always been subject to modification by the court.  After a final judgment of divorce or order about timesharing, either parent may seek modification of the timesharing on the grounds of a substantial change in circumstances.

But the party asking for modification of a timesharing order always had to allege that circumstances had substantially and materially changed since the original custody determination, that the change was not reasonably contemplated by the parties; and the child’s best interests justify changing custody.

Effective July 1, 2023, Florida repealed the requirement that a parent must show that a change in circumstance was unanticipated to modify a parenting plan and time-sharing schedule.

Accordingly, if the parents of a child are residing greater than 50 miles apart at the time of the entry of the last order establishing time-sharing and a parent moves within 50 miles of the other parent, then that move may be considered a substantial and material change in circumstances for the purpose of a modification to the time-sharing schedule, so long as there is a determination that the modification is in the best interests of the child.

Miss Saigon

I have written about the Markel murder case before. Parental relocations can be very stressful. This week, the ex mother-in-law of a law professor who was murdered in his driveway, has been arrested at Miami International Airport.

Donna Adelson, 73, was arrested at MIA after she arrived at the airport where she and her husband had one-way plane tickets to Vietnam.

Her arrest came exactly one week after a jury convicted her son Charlie on all counts for his role in Markel’s murder. Charlie Adelson is a Fort Lauderdale dentist and the murder victim’s former brother-in-law.

Markel had been involved in a bitter divorce with Wendi Adelson, who filed for divorce in 2012. Markel later learned that she and their two children had moved to her parents’ home in Coral Springs.

In June 2013, a Leon County judge denied Wendi Adelson’s petition for relocation with the children to South Florida. A police affidavit stated: “Email evidence indicates Wendi’s parents, especially her mother, wanted Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing the relocation to South Florida”.

Early in 2014, Markel tried to enforce the judge’s ruling, claiming Donna made disparaging remarks about him to the children. He asked the court to limit the amount of time Donna spent with the children to prevent disparaging remarks. A hearing on the issue was postponed and hadn’t been rescheduled when Markel was murdered in the driveway of his Tallahassee home in July 2014.

One of the other defendants found guilty in the Markel murder had been receiving paychecks from the Adelson’s dental business. Investigators noticed “a significant increase in cash deposits” after Markel’s death.

Markel’s former wife, Wendi Adelson, testified that she didn’t think her brother had been involved in Markel’s murder.

She said that her brother gave her a television as a divorce present and that he joked it had been cheaper than hiring a hit man.

After Charlie Adelson was convicted, Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman told reporter that the investigation was ongoing.

The WPTV article is here.