1st Weekend of the Month

[frogger]

My husband is divorced in CA, has been divorced for 9 years and has an 11 year old daughter. The court ordered parenting plan gives him the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weekend of each month. My question is since 1/1/05 was a Saturday is the constituted as the 1st weekend of the month since Friday was 12/31/04 or is the 1st weekend of the month 1/7/04? Thank you.

[socrateaser]

>My husband is divorced in CA, has been divorced for 9 years
>and has an 11 year old daughter. The court ordered parenting
>plan gives him the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weekend of each month. My
>question is since 1/1/05 was a Saturday is the constituted as
>the 1st weekend of the month since Friday was 12/31/04 or is
>the 1st weekend of the month 1/7/04? Thank you.

Your custody order is badly worded, and there is no easy way to interpret it, other than to obtain clarifcation from a judge.

If the 1st of the month was a Sunday, that would be an even greater ambiguity. I would argue that anything less than two full days with the child is not the weekend. But, technically, the weekend doesn't begin until 00:00 hours Saturday. Obviously, most divorced parents figure that the weekend starts sometime after school lets out on Friday, and ends on Sunday evening before the child's bedtime.

I really can't give you any useful guidance other than to suggest that if you can't come to an agreement with the other parent, that you file a motion to clarify your custody order on grounds that the ambiguity is not in the child's best interests.

The court will first order both of you to mediation, and you can work it out there. This should not be a tremendously difficult problem, even for parents who do not communicate well.

[MixedBag]

I am allowed "one weekend a month" and asked for a weekend that started on October 31st, Friday.

In my order it says I pick up our son at 5:15 on Friday and return him on Sunday at 7 pm.

My EX denied the weekend I chose stating that Saturday and Sunday were Nov 1st and 2nd, and therefore I chose a November weekend instead of an October weekend.

I took it to court.

The judge told EX (and his attorney) that it was a long time understanding of the court that when a Friday falls in the month, that's an available weekend for that month.

I got a make up weekend.

So your weekends start when you pick up the kids.  And if Jan 1st is on the day you pick up the kids, I'd say "Its counted as the first weekend".

Dec 31st is a Friday this past year and I used it as my weekend in December, not January.

[patton]

My order also read 1, 3 & 5th weekends, but it goes on to say that it starts on Friday at 6:00 PM and ends on Sunday at 6:00 PM unless there are exclusive holidays.

My ex also tried to say at one point that when a 1st day of the month started on Saturday I had to pick up on Friday.  The Judge set her straight on that one.

Read your court order carefully and see if it states in there any specific times that constitute a weekend.

[frogger]

Thank you for your comments.  Upon reading the court order again, on form FL-341 is states in parenthesis, the 1st weekend of the month is the 1st weekend with a Saturday.  We take this to mean that Friday December 31st through Monday January 3rd was the 1st weekend of the month right?  Now we are over analyzing the thing, as this is very confusing to us. Thank you