Category: Child Custody


Legal Issues and Paternity in Pennsylvania

Posted by – October 5, 2012

Pennsylvania paternity cases fall into two general categories, those involving children born during marriage and those with children born outside of wedlock.

Intact Marriage

Pennsylvania law has historically maintained that children born to intact marriages are considered to be the children of the husband. In those cases, the identity of the biological father is not even considered and genetic testing is not permitted except under very limited circumstances. A recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court case involving an intact marriage may signal that the standard for paternity in intact family situations may be changing to emphasize the best interests of the child.

Out of Wedlock

When children are born out of wedlock, paternity is often established by blood and/or genetic testing (if paternity is not acknowledged by the father of the child at some prior time). Both married and unmarried fathers may be prevented from contesting paternity where the individual holds the child out to be his own and either receives the child into his home or provides support for the child.

What happens when one spouse wants to move? Custody relocation in Pennsylvania

Posted by – September 18, 2012

If child custody is one of the most difficult issues for a family and their attorneys to deal with, an even more difficult subset is custody relocation.  When one parent wants to move away with the children and the other parent does not consent, the party desiring to move must seek court permission.  Pennsylvania has recently enacted a comprehensive custody relocation statute which provides lawyers and courts with more specific guidance in these difficult cases than previously existed.  The “best interest” of the children is still the overarching standard.   The courts look at the benefit of the move to the moving parent and the children, the purity of the motives for the move as well as the motives opposing the move, and the ability for reasonable substitute partial custody for the non-moving parent.  For example, if a father previously had alternate weekends during the school year and every other week during the summer a court might determine that reasonable substitute contact might be giving father most of the school holidays during the academic year and perhaps a couple other long weekends and then perhaps the vast majority of the summer school recess.  Transportation issues alone provide a major area of dispute given the cost of air travel, the proximity of airports, the age of the children (are they able to fly unaccompanied), etc.

How Custody Law Suits Work in Pennsylvania

Posted by – September 15, 2012

When parties cannot agree upon a custody schedule one parent will initiate a custody lawsuit.  Once such a suit is initiated the court orders a custody conciliation conference, usually held within 3 or 4 weeks, before a conference officer who is a lawyer.  These conferences last about an hour, are generally pretty informal, and are not recorded; however, the custody conciliator does keep notes of what happened.  If an agreement is reached at the conference then an order is entered by the court setting forth the terms of that agreement.

If an agreement is not reached the conciliator usually enters an interim order and sets a date for a hearing before a judge and may make other interim directives such as the requirement that the parties and the children participate in a custody evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist.  Such evaluations are quite common and are relied upon by the courts in reaching decisions involving the best interests of the children.

Generally speaking, custody litigation is the area of family law that is most disliked by family lawyers and by family court judges.  It is frequently contentious, bitter and outrageously expensive.  Moreover, the emotional trauma, to say nothing of the monetary expense, can be devastating to the parents and the children.  Custody litigation should generally be avoided if at all possible.  There are a variety of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms available which should at least be considered before resorting to actual litigation.

Sometimes however litigation is unavoidable when the parents’ views concerning what is in the children’s best interests are so far apart from each other that they are simply unable to reach agreement.  In these situations a judge, the person who knows the family less well than the parents themselves, than the lawyers, or than the psychological experts, will ultimately decide how and when the parents see their children.

Custody law in Pennsylvania

Posted by – September 14, 2012

Pennsylvania recognizes two types of custody of minor children: legal custody and physical custody.

Legal custody is the right to make major decisions concerning the health, education and welfare of the child.  Shared legal custody, which is by far the norm in Pennsylvania, means that both parties share that legal right.  Because there are only two parents, deadlocks can occur.  Both parents must agree if there is to be a change in schools, the child is to be seen by a new doctor or mental health provider, the child needs elective surgery.  When parties cannot agree the courts are left to decide whether the proposed change is reasonable or the opposition to the change is reasonable.  In those rare instances when one parent is constantly objecting to reasonable requests involving a child’s health, education or general welfare, or is constantly ignoring the other parent’s shared legal custody rights, the courts may award sole legal custody to the other parent.

Sole legal custody is very difficult to obtain in Pennsylvania but when it is awarded to one parent, that parent then has the sole authority to make schooling, religious, and physical and mental health decisions for the child.  Remember that legal custody, whether shared or sole, has nothing to do with physical custody.

Physical custody, as the term implies, is the right to have physical control over the child; essentially, to decide what the child does and where the child sleeps.  Again, the norm is shared physical custody.  This does not necessarily mean equally shared.  Parents can share physical custody on any schedule upon which they can agree.  This may mean that dad has the kids on alternate weekends from Friday night to Sunday morning and every Wednesday night overnight and mom has the kids the rest of the time or any other schedule the parties agree upon or the court orders.  Equally shared custody is when the parties each have the kids close to 50% of the time.  Pennsylvania uses overnights to determine this.  If mom and dad each have 7 overnights in a 14-day period then they equally share physical custody.  The most common types of equal physical custody are week-on/week-off with the non-custodial parent typically having one overnight during the other parent’s week; or a schedule where one parent has every Monday and Tuesday night, the other parent has every Wednesday and Thursday night, and the parties alternate 3-day weekends.  This is sometimes referred to as a 5-2-2-5 schedule because in 14-day period each parent has 5 days on , 2 days off, 2 days on, and 5 days off.  Custody is determined by a custody agreement or by a custody law suit.