30/11/02
The
Hidden Hardship in Family Law
By:
Mark A. Peterson
What do Microsoft
and the practice of Family Law have in common?
Both are in
industries that make a lot of money for attorneys feeding from
their offal.
Last year, over $8
billion was paid to attorneys who practice Family Law.
Jilted spouses and
abandoned plaintiffs will readily concede that they were worth
every dime. Who can argue when the battle is joined in the
interests of providing for the reasonable needs of the marital
children?
The conflict is
often a titanic struggle. To the victor goes the spoils.
Lawyers skilled in
the fine art of discovery lay open the financial affairs of
private individuals and arrange them on a platter with all the
flair of a master chef. Opposing attorneys agree to argue, for an
advance retainer, the benefits of orthodontics, the requirement of
psychological counseling, the long-term effects of fecal-retention
syndrome, and the doubtful merits of Missy’s horseback riding
lessons.
Before you know it,
you’ve run up a hefty six figure legal bill and a visitation
schedule that is more complex than the 1991 battle plans for
“Operation Desert Storm”.
I should know. My
ex-spouse’s divorce tagged me for nearly $120,000 in legal and
professional fees. It destroyed two professional practices and
cost me my job at a third. The action followed me for six years
from North Carolina to California then back to Pennsylvania. It
froze my bank accounts, my investment accounts, my pension
accounts, and resulted in the cancellation of $1.2 million in life
insurance trusts for the benefit of my children.
Much to their
misfortune, those events are going to adversely affect the welfare
of my children for the rest of their lives.
It is a system gone
badly awry.
The tactics
long-employed by pugnacious law firms but previously reserved for
drug cartels have become so effective in Family Court matters that
they were recently adopted by the United States government in
order to apprehend high-profile corporate criminals and foreign
terrorists.
Somebody ought to
put the interests of the family back in Family Law.
That’s hard to do
in states where Attorney Generals are stumping for re-election,
where the legislators in many states are attorneys, where member
firms support the local legal society, where judges who were once
attorneys at these member firms establish case law and precedent,
and when there’s so darn much money to be made.
It is a regular
feeding frenzy. The participants in Family Court actions are not
only viewed as cannon fodder but also as a recurring source of
legal fees. Are you an attorney looking to buy another vacation
home? Just file half-a-dozen motions this afternoon. Are private
school tuition payments due for your children? Pull out your
“out-of-state dads” file and go for a few default judgments.
The stock boom of
the 1990’s did more than increase the size of many marital
estates. It also increased the motivation of parties in this now
flagging economy to defend a right to their fair share of the
spoils. Even if the spoils no longer exist.
Although the stock
market Crash of 2000 may likely be remembered for the torrid cash
burn rates that preceded the Internet Bubble’s “busted
flush”, the practice of Family Law appears to be flourishing. In
fact, it has become a veritable billing field.
The children are
the innocent casualties.
Parenting, as I
knew it before my divorce, was a shared responsibility. It still
is. Somewhere along the way, the courts appear to have ruled that
only a father had the responsibility to support the children. This
seems odd, particularly when college-educated, income-producing
women often play an active role in managing the fuse on their
biological clocks.
When a mother who
has neatly painted herself into the “I am a victim of the other
woman” corner goes to court, at what point does she become
responsible for financially supporting the children and
accountable for carrying out a legal vendetta that results in the
total destruction of the family father figure?
Justifiably, some
deadbeat dads need to be drawn and quartered. Their children will
one day become future citizens, taxpayers, and more likely than
not, parents of the same. Somebody needs to discipline these dads
about their financial responsibilities. If you can’t support
your children, you shouldn’t have them.
The same goes for
women.
The recent perp
walks by deadbeat dads and their public spanking not only
reinforced the notion of the FBI’s mastery in solving domestic
crime, but it also made moms everywhere feel good.
The return to
“family values” momentarily appeased even those who were
disappointed in the efforts of the CIA, NSA, FBI, and combined
United States Armed Forces to locate and apprehend Osama bin
Laden. Victimized spouses short on shopping funds and long on
their credit cards agree that nailing those domestic terrorists
masquerading as deadbeat dads was good for the country.
And it taught all a
lesson that American soccer moms, comfortably ensconced in their
SUV’s and standing firmly behind their bulldog attorneys at
local Family Courts, are not to be trifled with or taken lightly.
I had no idea of
any of this in 1962 as I fervently recited the “Pledge of
Allegiance” in Mrs. Reed’s 4th grade class. Even those “get
under the desk, close your eyes, and turn away from the window”
drills for that extra margin of safety in a nuclear blast provided
no hint of the scorched earth tactics that would be used against
me during my divorce thirty-five years later.
These days, a new
legal landscape has been carved out of the heart of this once-fine
country.
I asked my mom, now
age 77 and who single-handedly raised five children after my dad
died of a heart attack after nine years of battling kidney
failure, how she would have faired if the specter of legal blather
from Family Law attorneys were added to her pile. She replied,
“Honey, the Family Law industry didn’t exist when your dad and
I were married. We never knew anyone who needed the counsel of an
attorney in handling a divorce. That’s what friends were for.”
My, how times have
changed.
Today I am nearly
penniless and barely breathing after the nightmare of the last six
years. Even the U.S. government’s legal spat with Microsoft’s
ambition of owning the computing world was resolved in less time.
The results of my
seventeenth hearing in the North Carolina Family Court system on
August 5, 2002, now attorney “pro se” because I can no longer
afford to pay for one, left me feeling as though I’d been
teleported to a pro-Taliban high counsel in Kandahar wearing an
American flag and a “kick me” sign.
These days, a
totally different dynamic is in place in most family court systems
where any semblance of justice has been tainted by biased judges,
greedy attorneys, and intractable ex-spouses. Can anyone explain
to me how the tactics of these individuals are different from al
Qaida who have pledged Jihad?
Although the
scandal within the Family Court system erupted a long time ago,
the results currently meted out by some Courts have become more
lop-sided than a Duke University v. Radnor High School basketball
game and nearly as predictable as Big Ten officiating.
It is no surprise
that the stink in some courtroom decisions suggests the process
has even become more corrupt and dirtier than politics.
Yet these metaphors
do not hold a candle when describing the “home court”
advantage afforded Wake County residents in the North Carolina
Family Court system. Particularly when the opponent is an
out-of-state dad wearing a scarlet letter “A” on his jersey
and who lied about it his first appearance in court.
Am I the only
individual in the country who was ashamed to admit such an
indiscretion and a breach of the “for better or for worse”
marital vows?
Right. I thought as
much. When a partnership fails, there is more than enough fault to
go around.
Caught in the
undertow of an unforgiving stock market, an unmercifully harsh
economic climate, and a job market that exists only in the minds
of a few, I still paid child support. Only after depleting all of
my savings and exhausting all other alternatives, I filed a
“Motion to Reduce” child support in September, 2001.
I needed the
reduction for several reasons.
Three years is a
long time for a brutal bear market.
My misplaced belief
in the “independent” advice of Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker,
Merrill Lynch’s Henry Blodgett, and Gruntal’s Joe Battapaglia
caught me flat-footed when the bottom fell out of the market. The
doubtful veracity of corporate financial results filed with the
SEC and the talking heads on CNBC added fuel to the fire and
incinerated in a few short months a net worth that had taken
thirty years to build.
My average income
for the last three years has been $14,000. I have no house, a
negative net worth, and drive a car with 170,000 miles on the
odometer. Although the utilities are current, I have not had the
money to pay rent for several months.
After retaining an
executive counseling firm, applying to over 6,000 jobs, paying
nearly $20,000 in job hunting expenses, and taking interviews in
eight different states without an offer, I had run out of money.
Newspaper headlines
across the country seemed to agree that the economy had also run
out of jobs.
It just simply was
not possible to pay $2,000 per month in child support for four
children and an additional $350 or so for medical expenses on what
I was making. Those amounts were more than I earned. How was I to
pay for visitation expenses? How was I to live? How was I to
render unto Caesar the requisite federal and state income taxes?
Even when the
children were with me for the summer, I still had to pay child
support to their mother. Does that make sense to anyone?
My ex-spouse was a
college graduate, had in excess of $600,000 in assets, a house
that was fully paid for, and an income producing job that paid her
$21,000 this past year. She also had in me an ex-spouse who drove
over 40,000 miles the last three years to visit his four children
during the one weekend per month permitted by the court. When
times were better, I had paid over $110,000 in previous child
support, alimony, and medical reimbursements.
You should have
heard her howling in court the moment after the judge dismissed my
motion for temporary reprieve. Her invective-laced sobbing
accompanied by screams of relief made you wonder about her motives
during her victory lap.
The choreography
was superb.
It was a public
display of a hate so criminal that it should have been jailed. It
froze the bailiff in his tracks and stunned the gallery in the
court. The judge waved a finger at me and said: “If you say one
word, ONE WORD, you are going down.”
How appropriate it
occurred in North Carolina, land of lynching repute.
The judge’s
ruling was based on the Wolf case that was decided by the North
Carolina Court of Appeals on July 16, 2002.
In that appellate
case, the court refused to modify support determined on the basis
of an individual’s earning capacity instead of his actual
income.
How that case
applied to me was anybody’s guess. I had logged over 2,000 hours
looking for additional work in the aftermath of my job termination
through sanctioned Family Court action, the Stock Market Crash of
2000, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the longest
recession on record since the Great Depression. I provided over
1,500 pages of job listings, emails, rejection letters, and many
of the financial documents that supported my efforts to
demonstrate that my circumstances had indeed changed.
Surely some form
relief was warranted.
Like many American
citizens these days, I was involuntarily underemployed, not
unemployed. So too were hundreds of thousands of other
well-educated individuals in the wakes of the Enron, Arthur
Andersen, Adelphia, World Com, and Tyco debacles. So were those
individuals laid off or who had their hours reduced from nearly
every major company in the United States. The sectors included the
telecom, airline, investment banking, venture capital, and
brokerage industries and nearly every other as companies downsized
and attempted to “cut” their way to a profit.
Equally unemployed
were many of the good citizens of North Carolina, which, according
to the September 2002 Bureau Labor of Statistics had one of the
highest unemployment rates in the country.
But if anybody was
wondering about the justice for out-of-state dads in the North
Carolina Family Court system, well now, there is no longer any
need to wonder.
There is simply no
justice for out-of-state dads where the North Carolina Family
Courts are concerned. The recent decision in my hearing rendered
by the Wake County Family Court judiciary has cast doubt upon the
veracity of their entire legal system.
The court once
again deviated from their own guidelines for support and ordered
me to pay $2,000 per month plus all medical. How is such a
decision possible for a dad with no home, no net assets, and no
money?
There is, of
course, much more to the story.
The Wake County
North Carolina Family Court system feeds those who make their
living frequenting the court rooms on the 8th and 9th floors and
the judge’s chambers. In fact, the system exists to feed itself.
Attorneys with their over-sized legal bills always stand at the
front of the line.
The system takes
money from their dad and gives it to their mom with virtually no
accountability. Despite the overly generous amounts I have paid in
child support, their mother has been starving them. She testified
she spends $350 per month on food for one adult, three teenagers,
and an eleven year-old. She has made them buy their own clothes,
intercepted my letters to them, withheld their “CARE”
packages, and routinely made them unavailable for visitation.
On one occasion, I
flew from California to North Carolina for my court-approved
visitation only to find the house dark and empty. Her boyfriend
had taken my kids and her to a concert.
I will be the first
to say that she has been a real pain.
During the last six
years, I have appeared in front of three different judges in the
North Carolina Courts as an out-of-state dad in what has now
become seventeen hearings. I have lost every one: the fourteen I
had when I could afford an attorney and the three that I had when
I could not.
I have appeared in
court by flying six times from San Francisco, a 5,600 mile round
trip, and by driving eleven times from Philadelphia, an 850 mile,
sixteen hour drive.
That’s 33,600
miles of flying and 9,350 miles of driving to attend Family Court
hearings. Three hearings were continued. On one occasion, although
the Plaintiff’s attorney appeared, the Plaintiff did not, hoping
for the convenience of a default judgment.
It gets better.
I filed the Motion
for Change in Circumstance on September 30, 2001. Although the
Plaintiff and her attorney appeared in court on November 26, 2001,
they requested additional time and the judge granted their motion.
One more wasted drive. The plaintiff’s attorney took my
telephone number and deftly handed me his business card with the
invitation to call so we could coordinate our schedules.
But all I got from
his secretary when I called was that he didn’t have his calendar
with him. Apparently, ever.
During the next 210
days, the Plaintiff’s attorney refused to answer any of my
correspondence or take any of my telephone calls to discuss the
case. Seven months later, having failed to obtain my day in court,
I filed a complaint with the North Carolina State Bar citing
unethical behavior on the part of the attorney. I provided copies
of my phone records to the law office where I left nearly a dozen
different messages as well as certified mailing receipts. After a
pro-forma investigation, the North Carolina State Bar determined
there was no basis for my claim.
During the June 3,
2002 hearing which was again continued to a later date, the
Plaintiff’s attorney told the Court I had been in Raleigh, North
Carolina visiting my children and that I had hardly been
inconvenienced by driving 850 miles for the scheduled hearing.
It was a lie, and
of course, I told the judge so. I had the toll booth receipts in
my car from that morning’s 425 mile drive. The Ft. McHenry
tunnel receipt in Baltimore, Maryland and exactly one hundred
miles outside of Philadelphia is nearly one-quarter of the way to
Raleigh, the capital of the Tar Heel state and home of the
infamous Wake County Family Court.
I pointed to the
attorney and called him a liar. The judge told me to sit down and
shut up or I was going to jail.
Properly chastised,
I filed a second complaint with the North Carolina State Bar
against the Plaintiff’s attorney citing the lie. I also provided
copies of toll booth receipts for the Delaware Turnpike and Ft.
McHenry tunnel. After a second pro-forma investigation, the North
Carolina State Bar determined there was no basis for my claim.
“No foxes in this
henhouse,” said the fox.
On August 5, 2002,
over eleven months after I filed my motion, the case was heard.
How Pollyannaish was it of me to think that justice might be
blind? But then again, perhaps it was merely short-sighted.
The plaintiff’s
attorney reveled in my job misfortunes and my failure to produce a
greater income. Theoretically, I should be making a much higher
wage as an MBA and CPA. It didn’t matter that fifty year old
MBA’s were a dime a dozen or that thousands of CPA’s were out
of work.
Reasonable people
would agree that hypothetical earnings should not count for much
unless child support can also be paid with hypothetical dollars.
They have learned that lesson from World Com’s smorgasbord of
income manipulation that hid over $9 billion in real operating
losses with theoretical accounting adjustments.
The attorney on the
other side of the aisle objected to substantially all of the
evidence I attempted to enter into the court record. The judge
largely agreed. He didn’t want to slog through the more than
1,500 pages of discovery I had been asked to provide. Besides, he
was on his way to lunch with another judge, and clearly had no
time, patience, or sympathy for an underemployed, out-of-state
dad.
He instructed me to
pick one of the documents and he would allow that document into
evidence.
After his lunch, in
no uncertain terms, he denied my claim for relief. He also denied
the Plaintiff’s claim for legal fees. The judge also instructed
the Plaintiff’s attorney to draft a proposed order and mail it
to the applicable parties for review.
Five days after I
received the proposed order, I provided an alternative proposed
order. I faxed it to the judge and mailed it via first class mail
to the Plaintiff’s attorney.
A week later, with
neither order entered by the court, imagine my dismay to find a
new “Motion to Show Cause” in my mailbox. A nice transmittal
letter was attached. It stated there would be other follow-on
motions filed by the Plaintiff’s attorney. Although readily
admitting the recent order had not been entered in court, they
also demanded their legal fees. My estimate of their fees for this
action was something on the order of $8-12,000.
I could spend 100%
of my time just answering their motions and driving back and forth
to court. How does that benefit my children?
Unfortunately for
the attorney involved, he also should also have requested a peer
review by the North Carolina State Bar since many of the dates in
the new motion citing previous orders were wrong. They even cited
references to 1993 court orders pertaining to my case. I was still
married in 1993 and at least four years away from the receipt of
their first legal letter.
It is absolutely
amazing the kind of legal drivel you can churn out with a good
secretary and word processor. The regularity of these harrassive
motions, unlike the regularity of a good bowel movement, is enough
to torture my honest soul. But if this is what Alan Greenspan had
in mind the day he begrudgingly acknowledged an increase in
productivity, then will somebody please take me back to the Stone
Age?
I filed my third
complaint to the North Carolina State Bar as a result of this new
motion which appeared to be crafted from some prior, unknown, but
“it’s stored-on-the-computer-so-let’s-use-it” filing.
The toxic forum
provided for out-of-state dads by the Wake County North Carolina
Family Court System has all but strangled the life out of me.
While it has been a regular ATM machine for the attorneys and law
firms involved, it has taken its toll on all of us. What remains
of “the family”, the children included, is weary of the
process.
I have never seen
such a wholesale destruction of wealth in my lifetime.
A sympathetic
police chief and friend of long stature tracked me down, wondering
why those whose company we once enjoyed had not heard from me. For
years.
I provided him with
the 10,000 foot “fly-by” version of my story. With good
intentions, he offered a remarkably simple solution. “One of my
deputies is going through a divorce. I suggested the 20-50 plan:
pay $20K for a Harley and $50 for a sleeping bag. You need to
serve me? Then find me.”
That, of course,
works for awhile. As long as you don’t have kids that you’re
just madly in love with that are held hostage by some Family Court
order. I had ruled that option out years ago. Besides, these days,
I couldn’t afford to pay for even a used Vespa.
“But child
support is based on income. They can’t take more than you
make.”
In North Carolina,
oh yes they can.
Although a simple
class in “Economics 101” will convince you that you cannot
spend money you do not have, the laws in the North Carolina Family
Courts appear to condone deficit spending.
They most certainly
tolerate the legal shenanigans that lead to such troubling
decisions.
This past summer,
my oldest daughter filled a backpack with her precious things,
called a cab from her mother’s home, and took the train out of
Raleigh to live with her dad. She attends public school in
Philadelphia. It marked a turning point in her life where the
detritus of her mother’s unfettered enmity towards her father
finally drove her away. In a few short years, her siblings may
follow.
I don’t know that
I would have had the courage at age 17 to make such a decision.
She is doing very
well, thank you, without the benefit of the faulty vision of the
North Carolina Family Court judiciary system. The recent motions
filed by her mother conspicuously omit the fact that the oldest
daughter has been living with her dad for the last five months.
This year I have
worked four jobs: as a web site writer, as an accountant, a
handyman, and a painter. I celebrated my 50th birthday on
September 17, 2002 at the top of a twenty-eight foot ladder
painting the trim on a warehouse in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
I have been reduced
to selling personal items on eBay in order to pay for some of the
past due child support. Holiday and birthday gifts may have to
wait a few years. Be sure you bookmark my auctions. I would
greatly appreciate it.
I am still battling
with the Internal Revenue Service over the exemption for the
children. My ex-spouse mistakenly believes she is entitled to take
them as dependency exemptions on her income tax return and has
done so since 1998. She earned no money and received the
appropriate amount of child support. Although I have been a
practicing CPA the last 24 years, I simply am incapable of
understanding the IRS’s reasoning.
It is a darn shame
that I am still required by North Carolina to pay an ex-spouse
child support for a child who is no longer living with her.
Especially since my daughter has SAT’s and college application
fees coming up.
Don’t even start
with me about how I plan to pay for her college.
The punishment to
my daughter does not fit the crime. In fact, she committed no
crime. She simply loves her dad. And I need her. She has been a
delight in my life. One day, all my kids will somehow grow up and
make their own decisions. Yours will too.
Wherever I live,
the “Welcome” mat for my children is always out.
But what do you do
about “Hairbow” hate crimes still hiding behind the skirts of
Family Court systems? It is indeed unfortunate for the civilized
members of society that the judges and bottom-feeders at the
Family Court trough have yet to realize that they have exacerbated
the problem. In North Carolina, there is currently no “family”
in the Family Courts.
Indeed, the courts
in North Carolina appear to have targeted the wholesale
destruction of the once sacred institution of fatherhood.
They have certainly
confiscated its dignity.
I am now “on the
record” with my opinion that North Carolina is a state that more
closely resembles a Dante’s “Inferno” that has shaken my
belief in the judicial system to its core. Family Court is little
more than a country road game of chicken where attorneys are
driving eighteen-wheelers and out-of-state dads are riding
bicycles.
The credibility of
those courts is in tatters as a result of the disconnect between
Family Court decisions and an ability to pay.
You must give that
matter some serious thought before you consider moving to North
Carolina. It can be a nice place to visit. But would you really
want to live there?
mark-petersoncpa@comcast.net
