Warren S. Hecht

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To help ensure that parents take responsibility for their post-divorce conduct, they should equally share the costs of a parenting coordinator appointed to help implement the custody and visitation provisions of a divorce judgment.

So held the Appellate Division, Second Department, in its May 11, 2016 decision in Headley v. Headley, when it affirmed Queens County Supreme Court Justice Lenora Gerald.

The parties were married in 2005, and had one child the following year. The couple was divorced in 2008. The judgment of divorce incorporated, but did not merge a settlement stipulation pursuant to which the parties had agreed to joint legal custody of the child. The mother had residential custody and the father had substantial visitation.

In August 2011, the father filed a petition alleging that the mother violated the stipulation by denying him visits and phone calls with the child. In August 2013, the father moved to modify the judgment of divorce to award him physical custody of the child. A lengthy hearing was held over the course of 10 hearing dates. Justice Gerald heard testimony from, among others, the parties, the mother’s new husband, a forensic evaluator, and a court-appointed visitation supervisor.Continue Reading Mother Must Equally Share Costs of Post-Divorce Parenting Coordinator

It is common for a divorce settlement agreement to provide that a child will be emancipated if he or she leaves the residence of the custodial parent. The result is the stated reduction in child support payments to the custodial parent. However, if the child not only leaves the custodial parent, but moves in with the non-custodial parent, may that parent obtain child support from the former custodial parent? That will depend on the language, or more particularly, the lack of language of the parents’ agreement.

Such is the lesson of the July 10, 2013 decision of the Appellate Division, Second Department, in Samuelson v. Samuelson. In that case, the parties were divorced in January, 2011. The divorce judgment incorporated the parties’ 2009 surviving stipulation of settlement.

Under that agreement, the father agreed to pay the mother basic child support of $1,150 per month for the parties’ two children until the occurrence of an “emancipation event,” defined to include a “change in custody.” The stipulation further provided that in the event one child was emancipated, the father’s basic child support obligation would be reduced to $846 per month.

Two months after the divorce judgment was entered, the parties agreed to transfer custody of their son from the mother to the father. Several months later, the father moved for an award of child support from the mother, to be “credited against my child support payments re our minor daughter.” The father claimed he was on the verge of personal bankruptcy.

Supreme Court Queens County Justice William Harrington denied the father’s motion, accepting the mother’s argument, and finding that the parties’ obligations were set by their agreement. The father failed to establish an unanticipated and unreasonable change in circumstances, or that the child’s needs were not being met.

The Second Department affirmed. The parties’ agreement was binding. Since the stipulation set forth the plaintiff’s child support obligation in the event of a change of custody of one of the children, a change in custody of one of the children could not be considered unanticipated.Continue Reading Child Support: When One of the Children Switches Homes