Nassau County

Published on: September 8, 2012

Defendant Claims Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

by Stephen Bilkis

The parties met in New York, while the defendant (husband) was on a vacation from his employment as a diplomat with the United Nation particularly, a Deputy Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip. At that time, the plaintiff (wife), was newly admitted to the New York bar and employed as an attorney with a law firm.

A New York Family Lawyer said that the defendant transferred to Jerusalem as Director of UNRWA operations. A New York Divorce Lawyer said that the parties maintained a long-distance relationship for a year until the plaintiff terminated her employment in New York and joined the defendant in Jerusalem, where she became a Lecturer and Program Supervisor. For over a year of living together, they married each other at the British Consulate in Jerusalem.

Thereafter, defendant was transferred to Lebanon while the plaintiff had been a working with the United Nations Development program in Jerusalem and continued for a few months more before joining defendant in Lebanon. The parties’ child was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

Published on: September 7, 2012

Court Decides Petition for Relocation

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

Petitioner and respondent are the natural parents of a 7-year old child, born on 11 October 2002, who has lived continuously with the mother. The parties were never married and the mother is currently married to another. The mother also has a 1-year old daughter, born on 14 December 2008.

A New York Family Lawyer said the mother and father lived together for approximately three to four years before he left the household when the child was approximately three years old.

Published on: September 6, 2012

Court Examines Visitation Issue

by Stephen Bilkis

When the parties entered into their divorce settlement, the petitioner, the respondent and the child resided in Clinton County, New York. Petitioner has continued to reside in New York since the parties separated. Respondent relocated to the State of Connecticut approximately eight years ago. A New York Family Lawyer said that after the relocation, the parties arranged informally for the petitioner to visit with the child for an extended period in New York over the summer and during some of the child’s spring, winter Christmas school vacations. In July of 2008, respondent informed petitioner that if he wanted to exercise any visitation with the subject child he would have to come to Connecticut. The only explanation respondent gave petitioner for her new position was that the subject child has an attitude when she comes home and that petitioner and his family are a bad influence.

Petitioner filed a Petition seeking the modification of the parties’ New York State Judgment of Divorce dated February 25, 1999, regarding petitioner’s visitation with the parties’ child. The respondent filed a Notice of Motion seeking the dismissal of petitioner’s petition arguing that the State of New York (where the petitioner resides) lacks exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over custody proceedings concerning this child. In the alternative, respondent requests that this Court decline jurisdiction in favor of Connecticut (where she and the child reside).

Respondent alleged that in the eight years that he and the child have resided in Connecticut, petitioner’s visitation has been sporadic, averaging approximately three weeks in the summer with an additional week during the year over the last three years. In at least two of the years since the child moved to Connecticut, the visitation has been a total of less than one week. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the overwhelming evidence concerning the child’s care, protection, training and personal relationships is in the State of Connecticut and that it would be very inconvenient for the child and respondent to litigate the matter in New York.

Published on: September 5, 2012

Visitation Sought by Non-Biological Father

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

Respondent is the biological mother (herein the respondent-mother) of six-year old boy (the subject child or the child) conceived through artificial insemination and born in December 2003. A New York Family Lawyer said the respondent-mother and petitioner met in 2002 and entered into a civil union in the State of Vermont in November 2003, the month before the subject child’s birth. The respondent-mother repeatedly rebuffed petitioner’s requests to become the child’s second parent by means of adoption.

Sometime in the spring of 2006, the relationship between the respondent-mother and petitioner soured and they separated. Thereafter, respondent-mother allowed petitioner to have supervised visits with the child each week on a Sunday, Wednesday and Friday for specified periods of time, as well as daily contact by telephone. However, sometime in the spring of 2008, respondent-mother began scaling back the visits. By early May of 2008, she had cut off all communication between petitioner and the child.

Published on: September 4, 2012

Court Discusses Social Services Law

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

The subject child was born on 30 October 2000 and was placed in the care and custody of the Administration for Children’s Services (hereinafter ACS) in February 2002 as a result of neglect allegations against her mother, the appellant (hereinafter the mother). Sometime in June 2002, the mother also gave birth to a son who is not the subject of this proceeding but was also placed in a separate foster care home soon after his birth.

A New York Family Lawyer said after the commencement of the aforesaid neglect proceeding, ACS placed the subject child with New Alternatives for Children, Inc. (hereinafter NAC), a New York-authorized foster care agency. NAC placed the child in the non-kinship foster home of a foster mother (hereinafter the foster mother).

Published on: September 3, 2012

Plaintiff Petitions Court for Divorce on the Grounds of Abandonment

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

On 16 January 1981, plaintiff and defendant were married in New York. On 10 September 1983, their daughter was born.

A New York Family Lawyer said the defendant claims that she, plaintiff, and their daughter moved to Israel in about 1987, with the intention of living there permanently. On the other hand, although they purchased an apartment in Israel, plaintiff claims that he had no intention of permanently relocating there and had applied for permanent residency in that country only to obtain government benefits for defendant and their daughter.

Published on: September 2, 2012

Court Decides Jurisdiction in Custody Battle

by Stephen Bilkis

The Facts:

The parties were married in 1966 and lived together with the children in Schenectady until they physically separated in 1973. Sometime in January 1974, they entered into a formal separation agreement and the mother was given custody. A New York Family Lawyer said sometime in March of 1974, the agreement was incorporated but not merged in the divorce decree dissolving the marriage granted in the Supreme Court, Schenectady County. The separation agreement contained a provision under which the mother agreed not to remove the children from Schenectady without the consent of the father. The mother soon remarried a man who was then in the military service. Sometime in August of 1974, she sought and received permission to leave Schenectady with the children to accompany her husband to Texas where he was stationed. That marriage was dissolved in 1975 or 1976 and she then moved to the State of Florida. While there, she met and married again. Sometime in January of 1977, she, her new husband and the children moved to Mississippi, where he was attending college. The father resumed contact with the children in Florida in January of 1976 and had them for mutually agreed upon periods of visitation in Schenectady during the summers of 1976 and 1977.

Sometime in the spring of 1978, serious marital difficulties arose between the mother and her husband, leading to the initiation of a divorce action by her in May of 1978. Apparently in an effort to avoid exposure of the children to the domestic turmoil and particularly to alleged harassing conduct of the new husband toward the mother, the parties agreed that the children would start their visitation earlier than usual, after the school year ended in Oxford in May. Thereafter, a New York Criminal Lawyer said the father retained the children and then commenced the instant proceeding to change legal custody.

Published on: September 1, 2012

Court Rules on Petition to Relocate Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This is a case where the court granted defendant mother’s motion for relocation to North Carolina with her ten year old daughter alleging that the circumstances have changed.

Because her parents’ marriage had failed even before she was conceived, the subject child has been raised by her mother since birth. The defendant is and has always been a good and devoted mother to the child.

A New York Family Lawyer said the child’s mother had struggled to make ends meet in New York, taking on as many as three jobs at once while attempting to make a home for her child. For most of her life in New York, the child lived in a home consisted of a shared room with her mother in a house owned and occupied by another family. Due to the damage to the house, mother and child were forced to move into a home with the child’s maternal aunt where living conditions were cramped and crowded.

Published on: August 31, 2012

Parent Seeks to Relocate Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This case arose from a divorce proceeding which was commenced in Massachusetts. Respondent’s physical custody of the two minor children was initially pursuant to the parties’ May 21, 1993 separation agreement. A New York Family Lawyer said that agreement provided for joint custody, with primary physical residence with respondent and liberal visitation with petitioner. It further provided that petitioner would pay child support to respondent in accordance with the Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines, and that “[t]his Agreement shall be construed and governed according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

A judgment of divorce incorporating the separation agreement was entered in Massachusetts on April 13, 1994.

In 1995, Respondent relocated to Buffalo, New York with the parties’ two children in accordance with an agreement entered in by the parties in a Massachusetts Proceeding which sought the court’s authorization to relocate the children to Buffalo, New York. The said agreement further provided that “Massachusetts will retain jurisdiction over the children and the parties to the extent otherwise consistent with law and for so long as petitioner remains a resident in the Commonwealth.”

Published on: August 30, 2012

Mother Wants to Relocate with Child

by Stephen Bilkis

This involves an appeal pertaining to the custodial parent’s request to relocate with the parties’ child. The appellate division granted the child’s custody in favor of the mother.

Petitioner mother and defendant father married in January 2004. A New York Family Lawyer said they were divorced a year and a half later. During their marriage, they had a child whose custody is the subject of this petition. The stipulation settling the divorce case granted the mother legal and physical custody of the child. The defendant father has had a history of irregular employment and is currently not employed.

The mother met her future husband on Match.com. The husband was retired from the Air Force, lived in North Carolina and was then involved in a nation-wide job search. Ultimately, Bonnar took a job with Northrop Grumman in San Diego. He had requested to work at Northrop Grumman’s Long Island branch, but the company could not accommodate his request. The mother and the future husband became engaged in May 2008.