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Full-Text Articles in Law
Failure To Protect From Domestic Violence In Private Custody Contests, Leslie J. Harris
Failure To Protect From Domestic Violence In Private Custody Contests, Leslie J. Harris
Leslie J. Harris
All 50 states and the District of Columbia require courts to consider domestic violence committed by one parent against the other in resolving a custody or visitation dispute between the parents. A significant number of states also have statutes or case law that requires courts to consider the occurrence of violence in a child’s household or proposed household in resolving such disputes, regardless of who commits the violence or at whom it is directed. This kind of law may be used against a parent, often a victim, who fails to protect a child from being exposed to the violence. This …
The Basis For Legal Parentage And The Clash Between Custody And Child Support, Leslie J. Harris
The Basis For Legal Parentage And The Clash Between Custody And Child Support, Leslie J. Harris
Leslie J. Harris
In the United States today, we have two legal bases for parentage, biology and function. Biological parenthood is usually controlling when the issue is liability for child support, and functioning as a parent is considered, if at all, only when the primary issue is custody or access to a child. These two strands of parentage law derive from what Jacobus tenBroek called the dual system of family law. While the divided law that ten Broek describes is centuries old, until fairly recently, the two strands ran in parallel and did not have much impact on each other. However, in the …
Family Law Armageddon: The Story Of Morgan V. Foretich, Leslie J. Harris
Family Law Armageddon: The Story Of Morgan V. Foretich, Leslie J. Harris
Leslie J. Harris
This book chapter tells the story of the contempt case brought against Elizabeth Morgan, a Washington, D.C., doctor imprisoned for her failure to produce her daughter for extended visitation with the ex-husband she accused of sexual abuse. The chapter sets the stage for the proceeding in terms of the shift in custody law in the mid-eighties from the maternal presumption to a preference for shared parenting and the discovery of and almost immediate backlash against allegations of childhood sexual abuse. It also details Morgan's parents' flight with the child to New Zealand and provides an update of what has happened …