vaccination

Subscribe to vaccination via RSS

The mother had refused to agree to the vaccination of the children, resulting in one child being prohibited from school. In a March 30, 2022, decision in Matter of Soper v. Soper, the Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the modification of a custody stipulation to give the father sole decision-making authority with regard to the children’s medical care.

The parties were the formerly-married parents of three children. Pursuant to their 2018 custody and parental access stipulation that was incorporated but not merged into their 2019 judgment of divorce, the parties agreed to joint legal custody of the children. They agreed to defer medical decisions for the children to specified pediatricians.Continue Reading Refusal to Vaccinate Children Results in Change of Decision-Making

Is resolving a disagreement between parents as to whether to vaccinate a child against Covid too “political” to be decided? Three recent decisions tackle this issue. The Court may shield itself from making the bottom-line decision by deciding which parent should decide.

Should deciding who will be the decision-maker be the rule when parents disagree; or should parents be able to turn to the courts for the answer to one question without changing how they will make decisions on other questions in the future?

In other contexts, judges have been tasked with making literal life-and-death decisions. On occasion, they must decide whether to override the parents’ decision to discontinue life-sustaining treatment of their terminally ill minor child. See, Matter of DH,  15 Misc. 3d 565, 834 N.Y.S.2d 623 (Sup. Ct. Nassau Co. 2007). In Matter of Matthew V. (Lynette G.), 59 Misc. 3d 288, 68 N.Y.S.3d 796 (Fam. Ct. Kings Co. 2017), the Court transferred decision-making authority from the mother of a 14-year-old child to the child services agency for the purpose of consenting to chemotherapy treatment to which the mother was opposed.

However, there seems to be a different approach to resolving parental conflicts because of the current political climate.Continue Reading To Vaccinate Or Not To Vaccinate — That Is The Question . . . But Will A Court Answer It?

It is in the best interests of a three-year-old daughter for the father and anyone regularly supervising his access to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or else undergo regular testing. So held New York County Supreme Court Justice Matthew F. Cooper in his October 7, 2021 opinion in C.B. v. D.B, directing that the father’s in-person parental access with the child be suspended until such time as he did so.

The Court noted that historically vaccines almost universally embraced as a means of protecting ourselves and our children from deadly or debilitating disease. With Covid-19, most people, heeding expert medical opinion, have availed themselves of vaccines that promise not only to protect them and others from the ravages of the disease, but ultimately to completely vanquish the virus. Unfortunately, for Justice Cooper, a sizeable minority, incomprehensibly seizing upon misinformation, conspiracy theories, and muddled notions of “individual liberty,” have refused all entreaties to be vaccinated.

In this divorce action, the issue was not one of whether the child should be vaccinated; she is still too young to receive any of the vaccines. Nor was it one of whether the Court could require an adult to be vaccinated; to do so would stretch the authority of a matrimonial court to unprecedented lengths.

Here, the parties were married in 2015, and their child, a daughter, was born in 2018. The parties’ high-conflict divorce action was commenced by the wife in 2019. Based upon the wife’s allegations of the husband’s history of substance abuse and untreated mental health issues, and significant periods where he had not seen the child at all, Justice Cooper directed that the husband have daytime access every other weekend visitation, but supervised, first only by Comprehensive Family Services (CFS), but later by his parents.Continue Reading Dad’s Visits Conditioned on Covid Vaccination or Testing

Is a divorce settlement agreement that mandates that the children attend school within a particular school district satisfied by the children being home schooled within that district? Maybe, held the Third Department in its June 17, 2021 decision in Matter of John U. v. Sara U.

The parties were the divorced parents of two children (born in 2010 and 2012). They entered a separation agreement in October 2017, which was modified in September 2019. The agreement provided for joint legal custody and shared physical custody of the children. As is here relevant, it contained a provision that:

[s]o long as the [father] maintains a residence in [a certain school district,] the children shall continue to attend school within [that school district] unless both parties expressly agree in writing to change the schools of the children.

Prior to the 2019-2020 school year, the children had attended a certain public elementary school in that school district. The children had a religious exemption from vaccination. After a June 2019 change in state law eliminated such religious exemptions for students (see Public Health Law § 2164), and after the district’s denial of the mother’s requests for medical exemptions, the unvaccinated children were removed from their school in September 2019 and the mother began home schooling instruction at her home.Continue Reading Is Home-Schooling “Attending” School?