This news story was reported all over the country and I found a comprehensive report of the story published in the Chicago Tribune by reporter Julie Deardorff. Briefly, a mom of two children, eleven year old daughter and 5 year old son, lived with her children in North Carolina while the father of the children moved to Illinois when he was hired by a company there. The father filed a motion in the North Carolina court seeking custody of the children, and seeking an order that the children would relocate to Illinois to live with the father. In the San Diego Superior Court this is known as a child custody move away motion or a child custody relocation motion.
As a San Diego Certified Family Law Specialist lawyer, I am very familiar with these motions. My office handles many move away custody cases; especially at this time of year in The Family Court as parents who are seeking a move-away custody order want to reestablish themselves in the new area and enroll the children in the new school prior to September. The reported reasons that the father used in this case is probably what caused this case to make the news all over the country. Reportedly, the father said that the children should be removed from their mother in North Carolina because the mother has stage four breast cancer; and, that he (recently hired) had a job whereas the mother was unemployed.
Not surprisingly, the national news exploded with this story when a North Carolina judge agreed with the father. Losing custody of your children, and having your children moved to another part of the country because you have cancer? Or that you are unemployed? However, a North Carolina attorney states that there are reasons for the change of custody other than the illness or the employment status of the mother. The point of the story to me is that every child custody case is unique. Every case has a wide range of facts and each case requires the skill, training and experience of the family law attorney to discern which facts will enhance the likelihood that the child custody motion will be granted. The mom's family posted the below video on You Tube. This blog takes no position as to the outcome of the case.
However, the North Carolina judge, who granted the move-away order, told ABC News that the factors of the mother’s health and the mother’s unemployment were factors in her decision to modify custody and grant custody of the children to the father. The mother claims that prior to the change of custody, the father was “at best” a weekend dad. There are many principals in my La Jolla family law office and one is that you cannot underestimate what might happen in court. Too often someone will call my office and state that they don’t take the pending motion seriously as, to him/her, it is obvious what the court will do. This assumption is a big mistake.
The San Diego divorce attorneys at the Law Office of Thomas M. Huguenor handle divorce, family law and child custody move away cases.
