Australia: Two sisters decided to dispute their brother’s favored position in a farm inheritance. Result? “the sisters spent [A]$450,000 in legal fees to get [A]$360,000. And the total cost of battling out the inheritance came to $605,000.” (Vanda Carson, “The lawyers will win”, The Australian, Oct. 21).
Posts Tagged ‘family law’
Ind. lawmaker withdraws permission-to-procreate bill
Following a public outcry, an Indiana state legislator has pulled back for further study a piece of proposed legislation that would have sharply limited the use of assisted reproduction medical technologies by married couples, and banned them for everyone else. “State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: ‘The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.’ … Under her proposal, couples who need assistance to become pregnant — such as through intrauterine insemination; the use of donor eggs, embryos and sperm; in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer or other medical means — would have to be married to each other. In addition, married couples who needed donor sperm and eggs to become pregnant would be required to go through the same rigorous assessment process of their fitness to be parents as do people who adopt a child.” (Mary Beth Schneider, “Legislator drops controversial plan”, Indianapolis Star, Oct. 5).
The bill would have criminalized doctors’ as well as parents’ participation in assisted reproduction except as provided in the rules. Among details of the adoption-like procedures that would be contemplated for married couples under the bill:
A doctor can’t begin an assisted reproduction technology procedure that may result in a child’s being born until the intended parents of the child have received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill.
The assessment is very similar to what is required for infant adoption and would be conducted by a licensed child placing agency in Indiana.
Some of the required information includes the fertility history of the parents, education and employment information, hobbies, personality descriptions, verification of marital status, child care plans, letter of reference and criminal history checks.
A description of the family lifestyle of the intended parents is also required, including individual participation in faith-based or church activities.
(Niki Kelly, “State bill would limit procreation assistance”, Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Oct. 4). For critical comment, see MedPundit, Oct. 6, and Nobody’s Business, Oct. 6. For favorable comments on the draft bill, some of which were sorry it didn’t go even farther, see various commenters at the Institute for American Values’ Family Scholars Blog (Oct. 4). (& welcome Andrew Sullivan readers).
More: David Giacalone comments (Oct. 11):
After representing hundreds of children in Family Court, I am well aware of the difficulties that arise in single-parent families (as well as in both “broken” and intact married families), but this legislation is far too broad and far too intrusive to be a valid response to those problems. Ironically, many who would support such restrictions do so in the name of the most famous child ever artificially conceived by an unmarried mother.
Wesley Snipes exonerated
Lanise Petits, alleged to be a delusional crack addict, filed suit accused actor Wesley Snipes of fathering her baby in a Chicago crack house, and successfully persuaded a court to require Snipes to submit to a paternity test. Snipes refused out of principle, noting that he had never met Petits, much less slept with her; moreover, Petit had filed various lawsuits with various accusations against Bill Clinton and Oprah. For his trouble, arrest warrants were issued, and Snipes suffered more adverse publicity. However, the child’s real father came forward, and the paternity suit has been dismissed. Snipes is suing the woman, albeit in the wrong forum, for the embarrassment. (AP, Oct. 7.)
Not that Snipes is innocent of legal abuse. In 2001, Snipes tried to obtain a $7 million federal tax refund using a bogus tax protester scheme.
Married man posed as single
And so Tiffany Wang and Jing Huang, who fell for Dr. Khaled Zeitoun’s online sweet-talk, want cash damages for infliction of severe emotional distress. Their lawyers are suing in Manhattan Supreme Court. (Kerry Burke and Helen Peterson, “Doctor real strange love”, New York Daily News, Sept. 9).
Religious disbelief and child custody
Eugene Volokh (Aug. 29) finds particularly egregious — and at odds with the First Amendment — the practice of courts in various states of “discrimination in favor of religious parents and against irreligious ones, or in favor of more religious parents and against less religious ones, in child custody cases, on the theory that it’s in the child’s ‘best interests’ (that’s the relevant legal test) to be raised with a religious education.” For more on civil disabilities of freethinkers, see Jan. 21-23, 2000.
P.S. Reader John Steele Gordon writes to say, “It seems to me that the ACLU could much more profitably direct its jihad against religion at these cases, which do a great deal of harm to real people, than at carvings of the Ten Commandments on public property, which do not.” And here’s quite a bit more from Eugene.
Yet more: Reader Carl Fink, in response to John Gordon’s comment above, defends the ACLU:
The ACLU is just as likely to assist a religious person whose right to practice has been denied, as a nonreligious person whose tax money is being spent to promote a religion. To name one recent case, in State of New Jersey v. Lloyd Fuller, an ACLU attorney submitted a friend-of-the-court brief arguing for the rights of potential jurors to wear traditional Muslim (or by extension other religious) dress without being excluded from juries (see link).
What we object to is government enforcement of any religious policy, including religious EXCLUSION.
“Parents asked to pay alimony to son’s wife”
As New Jersey Law Blog summarizes the case (May 19): “Cynthia Idleman claims that after her husband [Douglas] lost his job and suffered a disabling medical condition his parents have supported their family for the last two years by giving them about $20,000 per month. She claims that by having done so, ‘they have stepped into the shoes of their son’ and, thereby, assumed a continuing obligation to support not only their grandchildren, but also her.” See “Divorce Case Focused On In-Law Support”, WINS, May 17; Lisa Brennan, “Lawyers Wince at Grandparental Alimony Claim”, New Jersey Law Journal, May 26. Among those commenting: Enlighten-NJ, Michael Capanzzi, and the Michigan Medical Malpractice blogger.
How Stella Lost Her Groove And $35,000 Or More In A Contra Costa County Superior Court Hearing
Terry McMillan, whose affair with a man half her age was dramatized her novel “When Stella Got Her Groove Back,” might have thought her prenuptial agreement, negotiated after five months with his attorneys, protected her against gold-digging, but her now ex-husband is challenging the validity of it in a threatened bid for the millions of dollars she’s earned as a writer during their six-year marriage, and has already punished her failure to give into the extortion by submitting embarrassing court filings, which the press has been happy to publicize. (And not only is he young and good-looking, but the Diablo Valley College drop-out knows how to use terms like “Hobson’s choice” and “de minimus [sic]” in a sworn affidavit!) To add insult to injury, a judge has ordered her to pay her ex-husband’s attorney’s fees of $25,000 so he can litigate the matter against her. (Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross, “Epilogue for ‘Stella’ author: a messy divorce”, SF Chronicle, Jun. 26; Ann Gerhart, “Terry McMillan’s Epilogue to ‘Groove’ Affair”, Washington Post, Jun. 29 (via Weiner)).
When you’re dead…
Who gets your ones and zeroes? (John Boudreau, “Pondering new puzzle: who inherits digital data”, San Jose Mercury News/Wichita Eagle, May 29)(via Denise Howell, Between Lawyers).
Jury raises eyebrow at lawyer’s $300K “success bonus”
A federal jury has disapproved a $300,000 “success bonus” that a Greenwich, Ct. divorce lawyer tried to charge his client following a high-pressure five-day divorce mediation. Noted lawprof ethicist Geoffrey Hazard, testifying for dissatisfied client Gary Zimmerman, said the extra charge resembled a contingent fee on the lawyer’s part and that contingent fees are supposed to be disallowed in divorce litigation. (Thomas B. Scheffey, “$300,000 ‘Success Bonus’ for Five-Day Mediation? Not So Fast, Says Jury”, Connecticut Law Tribune, Mar. 29). David Giacalone has more (Mar. 29).
Alienation of affection suits
The North Carolina Bar Association is pressing to abolish the state’s unusual cause of action for alienation of affection, a carryover from common law days in a few states which allows a wronged spouse to sue the other spouse’s paramour for having broken up the marriage. The law is still sometimes used, and in fact damage awards have been escalating briskly in the Tarheel State, reaching $500,000 (later reduced) in a 1990 Forsyth County case and $1.2 million in a case eight years ago in the same county. “Most of the time, lawyers said it costs as much or more to try these kind of cases than the injured party stands to win,” and Raleigh family law practitioner Lee Rosen says he often discourages clients from filing such a suit because by poisoning the atmosphere it “destroys the possibility of future cooperation” on, e.g., custody matters. (Amanda Lamb, “Some Want To Get Rid Of ‘Alienation Of Affection’ Lawsuits”, WRAL, Feb. 2). See Nov. 16, 2004; May 18-21, 2000.