Articles Posted in Child Custody

A recent Texas appellate case involved a child custody dispute that arose between a mom and her children’s paternal grandmother after their father committed suicide in 2014. After his death, the mother asked the trial court to appoint her managing conservator of the kids. The kids’ paternal grandmother cross-petitioned for the same appointment.

Before his death, the father had been CFO for a multinational corporation. His job required him to travel outside the country often. He met the mother in Mexico and became romantically involved with her. She immigrated to the United States, gave birth to three children, and married the father. While pregnant with the fourth child, the mother took a quick trip to Mexico to get a United States visa.

The immigrant officials denied her request for a visa on the ground that she’d previously been illegally present in the country for one or more years. For that reason, she had to stay in Mexico for 14 months waiting for a visa. Her kids stayed in the country with the father.

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Many people assume that emotional abuse is not as serious as physical or sexual abuse. This is not the case in parental rights and child custody matters in Texas. In the Interest of SD and GD concerned the termination of a parent-child relationship between a Texas mother and her two children. The father and mother had married in 2003 and had two children. The father divorced the mother in 2010. Shortly thereafter, the mother accused the father of physically and sexually abusing one of the kids and physically abusing the other. She made several allegations of abuse that caused Child Protective Services to investigate the father. Each time, they found there was no abuse.

Since she’d made multiple unfounded allegations of abuse, CPS investigated her for emotional abuse of one of the children, S.D. They determined she’d coached her daughter to allege abuse against the father and found the mother had been emotionally abusive.

The court granted a divorce but appointed both parents as joint managing conservators. Although it found there was evidence the mother had a history of emotional abuse, it determined she should have a modified possession order. The mother was supposed to see a therapist who specialized in anger management and false memory syndrome. She had to give the father a written verification she was seeing the therapist in order to have certain times of unsupervised possession. The modified possession order further provided that as the mother completed additional therapy, she’d have more unsupervised possession. She was also supposed to pay child support, although this was delayed so that the mother could complete the therapy.

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In Davenport v. Davenport, a mother and a father each appealed from a trial court’s order related to their counter-petitions to modify the parent-child relationship. The couple was divorced in 2005, one year after their daughter was born. Ten years later, the mother filed a first amended petition to modify the parent-child relationship, hoping to modify a prior modification order rendered in 2012.

In the prior order, she and the father were appointed joint managing conservators of the daughter, but the court didn’t grant either the exclusive right to designate her residence. The order also granted both parents independent rights to make decisions about the daughter’s medical and psychological care and education as long as each first conferred with the other. Neither had to pay child support, although the father had to provide the daughter with health insurance. The parents were granted weeklong periods of possession during the school year and alternating two-week periods of possession during summers.

The mother asked to be appointed a sole managing conservator of the daughter or a primary joint managing conservator with the exclusive right to designate a primary residence, to make legal and educational decisions, and to consent to health care treatments for the daughter. She asked that the father have access through a standard possession order and that he pay monthly child support. The father counter-petitioned to have the rights that the mother wanted.

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There is a strong presumption that a child’s best interest is served when a natural parent is awarded custody in Texas. This presumption puts a heavy burden on someone who is not a parent who wants conservatorship of a child. The non-parent will have to prove to the court that appointing a parent as managing conservator would harm the child’s physical or emotional wellbeing.

Under Texas Family Code §102.003, there are 14 different categories to which someone may belong in order to bring a SAPCR (Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship). A child or parent has the right to file a case. Moreover, so do certain other people who care for a child for a minimum of six months, as long as the six-month period ends less than 90 days before the date they file a petition.

In Re HF is a recent Texas appellate proceeding involving a grandmother’s plea in intervention in a lawsuit that affected the parent-child relationship. The case arose when the Attorney General brought a SAPCR proceeding to establish conservatorship over a mother and father’s child. The judge signed an agreed order, and the father appealed it. On the same day, the child’s grandmother petitioned to intervene in the SAPCR proceeding.

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In the Interest of NFM is a recent Texas appellate case involving a lawsuit altering the parent-child relationship. The case arose when NFM was born in 2009. The mother and father were teens and lived with the father’s family during the mother’s pregnancy. After the baby was born, they moved out and lived together for a few months before breaking up. They created an informal agreement as to the child’s custody, rather than seeking the help of the court or getting a paternity order.

The mother later had a child with someone else. CPS became involved with the family, due to family violence, and the mother separated from that person, who completed a battering intervention and prevention program. The mother was later admitted to the hospital after ingesting up to 14 pills. A CPS caseworker concluded that the mother had tried to commit suicide. However, her doctor didn’t recommend that she get psychiatric treatment but only that she not mix liquor and pills.

The mother signed a CPS child safety and evaluation plan. This provided that both children would stay with the father, and the mother would have supervised visits. The mother complied with all of the orders. The father filed an action asking the court for sole managing conservatorship of the child. He asked that the mother’s visits be supervised.

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In Philips v. Filla, a couple married in 2004 and divorced in 2007. They had one child. When they made their initial custody arrangement during the divorce proceedings, the mother had the exclusive right to designate the child’s primary residence. In 2010, however, they agreed to modify the divorce terms and agreed that the father would have the exclusive right to designate the child’s primary residence.

In 2010, the mother told Child Protective Services that the father was abusing the child. While an investigation was pending, the court rendered the modified order according to the settlement agreement, giving the father the exclusive right to designate the child’s primary residence. CPS ruled out the mother’s allegations that the father had abused the child and also expressed that it had a reason to believe the mother was emotionally abusive by possibly coaching the child to make abuse allegations against the father and putting the child through many intrusive medical exams connected to the allegations.

The father petitioned to modify the earlier order and asked for temporary and permanent orders that the mother have only supervised visitation with the child. The wife counter-petitioned to modify the order, again alleging the father’s abuse and asking she be awarded the right to designate a primary residence for the child. The trial court ordered that her visitation with the child be supervised and ordered the mother to begin therapy and undergo a psychological evaluation.

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In the 2016 Texas case In re Morris, an appellate court considered a father’s request for a writ of mandamus after the mother and he agreed to the rendition of an order terminating the mother-child relationship. The adjudicated father of the child asked the appellate court to compel the lower court to vacate its order, which refused to render judgment in accord with the parents’ agreement to terminate the parent-child relationship between the mother and the child. He also wanted the court to render judgment according to their mediated settlement agreement.

In 2004, the trial court named the father and mother of a child the joint managing conservators of the child. In 2014, the child’s mother signed an affidavit voluntarily relinquishing her parental rights. She claimed that the termination of her relationship with the child was in the child’s best interests, but she didn’t provide facts in support. The mother didn’t expressly state she relinquished her parental rights.

In 2015, the child’s father filed a petition to terminate the parent-child relationship between the mother and child on the grounds that the mother had executed an irrevocable affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights and that termination was in the child’s best interests.

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