Abandonment, Monies Owed, Temporary Custody

**Phil Z** · 09-04-2009, 05:33 PM

My question involves child support in the State of: California

Honestly I am trying to help a non-computer literate friend and I am posting for him.

My friend gets divorced and the Judgment of the court is that he has joint custody, he is the custodial parent, the child is to live with him during the school year with visitation every other weekend, split holidays and time during the summer. His ex-wife was to provide Medical/dental coverage for their son at her expense. Additionally no support was ordered on either side. However their child’s expenses (i.e. School expenses, sports, etc) were to be split equally.

The court date was June 30, 2006 this was the last day the mother had any type of contact with her son despite his and familiys efforts. He has seen other members of her family when they have requested. The father is in no way preventing his son from seeing his mother, she is just flat non-respondent. She also owes the father in excess of $7,000 for school trips, sports, etc…

Well his son is now playing freshman football at the local high school and needed a copy of his medical card. As he can not reach his mother he contacted his grandmother to request her to reach his mother so he could obtain a copy.

Today the father received a certified letter with copies of e-mail (sent to the wrong account) that she wanted all of her son’s demographics prior to providing the school with his insurance information.

Due to the fact she has not even called her son in 44 months (Father is at same location of employment and had same phone number for 10 years) the father was rather annoyed and decided to file for a change to the custody order for full legal/physical custody.

While filing his documentation the clerk asked him why he was filing for a change order on an order that was only two weeks old!!! He was astonished that her attorney did not file documentation in a timely manner. The court minutes indicate he was to file the order with the court and obviously failed to do so.

Back ground over, now the questions:

1) Father filed for temporary full custody due to the abandonment while awaiting his hearing for full custody. Good idea or bad?
2) Is the father entitled to all the arrears monies from the date of the hearing (June 30, 2006) or from the date (Aug. 24, 2009) when the judge actually signed the order? My understanding that support issues are typically from the dated filed regardless of judgment/order dates.
3) The child also wants his step mother to adopt him, is this a stretch? The boys concern is that if his father was critically ill/injured or died for some reason that he would be forced back to his mothers.
4) Does he have any recourse on her attorney for his failure to file the documentation in a timely manner as indicated per the court minute or will the judge handle that?

Thanks for your time and knowledge,

Phil

**ANERA** · 09-05-2009, 07:20 PM

REGARDING THE ADOPTION: Dont think it would be neccessary, if dad has custody/primary residence he can assign the child to whom ever he pleases
check your court order. If it doesnt say specificly that the child will go to mom then father can set it up in his will that he want's the child to remain with step mom