Ex refuses to follow court order (Long)

[awakenlynn]

Its been awhile since I posted here, so I will give a bit of background first:  Ex moved to TX a few years ago and had jurisdiction moved from IL to TX last year.  And then she wanted the entire IL court order over turned.  We went to court in Feb. and the judge made her order, but TX is the state where the attorneys fill out the order and the judge signs off.  Well ex and her attorney drew one up that went against most of what the judge determined and then tried to have the judge sign it behind our backs. Since judge accurately figured out ex's personality at the trial, she immediately called our attorney and we said we had no idea, so the judge drew up her own order and signed it.  That was in June 2008.

The order is we get every spring break (we pay for the ticket with flights from Austin to Chicago). 
We get 8 weeks in the summer and we must contact her with the dates no later than April 1st of each year.  Ex will then let us know if she will fly SD from Austin to Chicago or drive and meet at the court appointed city. 
We get every other Thanksgiving (from Dallas to Moline) on odd years and the 2nd half of christmas odd years and the 1st half during even years (this year) and ex MUST contact us NO LATER than November 1st each year as to whether or not she will again be flying SD from Dallas to Moline.

I forgot to mention SD is 15-1/2 now.  And that takes us up to the present.

Ex did not contact us on November 1st as ordered.  She emailed us late on the 3rd--2 days late.  Her excuse was she didn't know on the 1st, she knew on the 3rd.  OOOkkkk, not like that really is an excuse to us.  So we contacted our attorney to see what we were supposed to do since this is a new order and new state.  So our attorney contacted her attorney. 

Next problem is that the flights are court ordered to be non-stop and the Dallas to Moline flight has been sold out and unavailable since before June (and we have told her this repeatedly).  So now what to do?  We looked at flights from Austin (closer to ex) to Chicago, but we asked the judge to keep the flights out of Chicago for the fall and winter due to the weather (flights have been cancelled, delayed and held in hold patterns for hours-- so it hasn't been the best airport for SD) and the cost was like $1000.  So we checked all the airports around ex within a 4 hour radius flying into Moline trying to find a non-stop flight.  There are none.  So we started looking opposite.  The court order does state Dallas so we checked what airports the airline flew into from there and we found Chicago, which are trying to avoid and can't afford.  The only other city is St. Louis, 4 hours away from us, but we do have family so if stranded, we have a place to stay.  The flight is very affordable and ready to purchase the ticket.  We also did find a flight from Austin to St. Louis but it is alittle more than double the Dallas/St Louis ticket, and unaffordable.

So our problem is ex thinks she can excuse her lateness with no consequence and states that if the flight is any other than Dallas to Moline than we were breaking the court order and that she refuses to fly SD any where except out of Austin.  So our frustration level is up there.

Any advice?  Is she right?? 
Thanks,
Lynn

[Kitty C.]

Any result on the conversation between the two attorneys?  Personally, I would think that they would be the ones to tell you and the BM what you can or can't legally do.  But whether she would listen even to her own atty. sounds debatable!

[awakenlynn]

Our attorney send her attorney a note about the court order and consequences for notifying us late.  I do not believe her attorney has said anything back.  I know that ex said she wasn't going to pay her attorney, she was done with it and if our attorney wanted to talk to her(ex) he was going to have to call her (ex).  Apparently her attorney had not been notified that ex wasn't going to be using her yet.

Our attorney said we have 2 choices, we buy the ticket from Dallas to St Louis and take our chances or we get ready to court which will take more time and money.  I am hoping that because she is blatantly not following the order the judge would have her pay some of attorney costs.

Our attorney did ask us to contact ex again and try and have her put it in writing what she will/will not do, so we have something written and see where it goes from there.  DH called a couple times now and she is avoiding our calls.  Apparently she has SD not answering either, so DH had to leave a message for her too.

[MomofTwo]

I think you will be hard pressed to have a judge impose any type of sanctions against Mom for being two days late with her notification.  November 1st is an extremely late date for notification for Thanksgiving holidays due to the usual increase in costs and unavailability of airfaire.  You weren't required, but did you make any attempt on November 1st to contact Mom to find out plans.  It goes to show intent.  You yourself said the flights have been sold out since June. 

If you had put in the order that only specific airports  MUST be used, they MUST be used.  That is the court order.  You are upset with Mom for being two days late, but did those two days really make a difference in ticket availability and price? 

Unfortunately, Mom is right  about the airport selection.  You had it put in the order to be limited aiports only and since you are contemplating other airports, she would not likely be held in contempt if the agreed airports were not used.

What did Mom say she was doing in the November 3rd email.

[Kitty C.]

MomofTwo,

I don't think the problem is with the late notification..........I'm sure that awakenlynn would be the first to tell you that they were not surprised.  It's the blatant refusal to even try to compromise on transportation, given that tickets have been hard to come by for months.

Awakenlynn,  I have a feeling that this will eventually end up in court.  Pray that you keep the same judge, because I have a feeling the ex might get lambasted for refusing to cooperate, given this is a situation (purchasing tickets) that was out of everyone's control.  And if it does end up in court, make sure the order is modified to allow for circumstances like this.  It's very apparent that the BM is attempting to find any loophole that she can to make things more difficult........tho she fails to realize that the only one she's really hurting is her own child.

[awakenlynn]

Your right its not 100% about the 2 days late, its more about her blatant refusal to follow the court order and we know if it was the other way around she would have cancelled the visitation completely.

No, we did not contact her on the 1st because we needed to see if she would even attempt to follow the court order.  Yes, I do agree November 1st is a late date to notify the type of transportation.  And yes there was quite a price difference with the 2 days difference.

As to the flights, we are not the ones that stated the airports, that was the judge who determined which airport for each party.  So the next question is, how do we follow the court order the way things stand, there really isn't any way to do it.  Either the flights go from Dallas to St. Louis instead of Moline (which only really inconveniences us, not her) or the flight is made with a layover from Dallas to Moline, which we KNOW the ex will refuse to do.  That is one reason we had to go to court in the first place.  The judge kind of put us in a no-win situation in this case.  The ex insisted the flights be non-stop and that is the way TX works.  So the judge determined which airports when.  We did argue to keep the flights out of Chicago because of the bad weather.

I do figure we will end up in court.

Update: DH just reached ex and she is p****d, but agreed to fly out of Dallas, but refuses to put it in writing.  Now we will send her the ticket information 10 days prior to the flight (we will probably do it 11 days out) and will expect a huge arguement when she gets the flight times.  The court order says we get visitation starting 6pm the day school lets out for the holiday and we found a flight Friday night at 8pm and she gets into us at 9:30pm.

Thanks

[Kitty C.]

No matter what you do, she will still be pissed.  If she still wants to engage you, tell her next time SHE can make and pay for the reservations!  Of course, she'd pitch a fit that she can't afford it, but remind her that it would ensure the flights be more 'reasonably' scheduled for her!

You've done what you can with what you've got.......no one can reasonably ask for more.  Any BS you get from her now is her using you as a punching bag.......don't let it get to you!   

[awakenlynn]

Thank you.  She tries this every visit, so most of the time we know it is a bluff, but twice she actually didn't put SD on the flight we had purchased.  One time we called her, she was still in bed and the flight had left 2 hours earlier!

We know we will get some more c**p from her because the flight to get to St. Louis doesn't leave until 8pm and that means she won't get back home til after 11pm.  She doesn't care that it is a 2 way street and that if we drove home ourselves or even to grandparents we have a 3 hour drive ourselves.  She has stated already and a number of times, it has to be to her convenience or she won't do it.  If she feels inconvenienced, she just won't do it regardless of the order.  Thankfully SD is 15 and has gotten wise to her mother.  Unfortunately we have 2 and a half years before SD has graduated and we are fully done with ex.

We are keeping our attorney updated with every step so he can be prepared to go to court as soon as possible.