SPARC Forums

My DH and I have an upcoming hearing and we are asking the judge for 50/50.  We have a custody evaluation that says 50/50 would be the best situation for the child at this time (we recently moved to the same city as SS so we have the opportunity to see him more).

The problem is that we live in South Dakota and the court system seems to be about 10 years behind everywhere else.  Our attorney has been reseraching to try to find case law to support us, as her attorney has listed various cases in SD that recommended against shared parenting (but they are from 10-50 years ago, nothing recent).  

What I'm wondering Soc is if you know of any case law or anywhere specific we can search to find cases where the court has recommended a a change from joint custody (mother is primary) to a shared parenting (50/50).

Even if there's no precidence set in SD, I think if we could reference strong cases from other states that may help...?

Thanks in advance for your help!

>My DH and I have an upcoming hearing and we are asking the
>judge for 50/50.  We have a custody evaluation that says 50/50
>would be the best situation for the child at this time (we
>recently moved to the same city as SS so we have the
>opportunity to see him more).
>
>The problem is that we live in South Dakota and the court
>system seems to be about 10 years behind everywhere else.  Our
>attorney has been reseraching to try to find case law to
>support us, as her attorney has listed various cases in SD
>that recommended against shared parenting (but they are from
>10-50 years ago, nothing recent).  
>
>What I'm wondering Soc is if you know of any case law or
>anywhere specific we can search to find cases where the court
>has recommended a a change from joint custody (mother is
>primary) to a shared parenting (50/50).
>
>Even if there's no precidence set in SD, I think if we could
>reference strong cases from other states that may help...?
>
>Thanks in advance for your help!

I need the case citations for the cases that your opponent is using as a point of research. If you want to research yourself, buy a one month subscription to //www.versuslaw.com for $11.95 -- that's what I use. I have won many a case using this service, in preference to the absurdly more expensive traditional legal research sources (Westlaw and Lexis).

Thanks I'll have to check out the site.  

In the meantime here are a few of the cases he has referred to:

Jasper v. Jasper, 351 N.W. 2d 114 (SD 1984)
Wright v. Stahl, 39 N.W. 2d 875 (SD 1949)

If you know of any other cases even in other states that we could reference to help us - any help would be great!

Thanks...