Father's Right to See Son

[Sandra Petraitis]

I'm writing this on behalf of my son.  He and his significant other split a few months ago.  She has his son.  She already has a new boyfriend and our understanding is that she is planning to move out of state with him.  By son has filed papers with the court to establish joint physical custody.  We have paid to have the local Deputy Sheriff serve her with the papers but she refuses to answer the door.  The Deputy has left his card and she acknowledges that she received it but won't call to make arrangements to get the papers.

She has told my son that if he wants to see his son that he should call her everyday and when she feels like it is ok, she will let him know.  She also stated that she may not let him see Taryn (his son) for at least a year.  My son got to see Taryn on Holloween (when she was present) and we got to see him for three hours on Christmas Eve.  Is there something we can do to force this into court and be able to see Taryn?  He is only 2 years old.

[MixedBag]

Your son is going in the right direction....

Hopefully he has an attorney -- because if she never answers the door and thinks that she can avoid the system or court this way, his attorney will know how to proceed and what constitutes trying hard enough to get her served.  

(It might be that the sherrif has to testify that he tried several times, or it gets published in the local paper for 30 days or something -- EACH state is different and unique.  Not that there are 50 different ways, but the proper way is gonna be determined by your state's laws.)

Good luck -- one step at a time, and this is the right place to come.

Hopefully you'll spend tons of time reading all the helpful articles that are here so you can help your son through this difficult process and time in his life.

[wendl]

If his ex works, then have her served at work.

Also you should file a temp restraining order, restraining her from moving out of state until all custody matter have been resolved thru the courts.

Check with the local clerk of the court in regards to serving papers, in my state you can do the following

1) serve by police
2) serve thru private party
3) serve thru publication (local paper in the area for 4 weeks)

So their may be other ways to serve her, so contact the clerk of the court or an attorney to see what else your son can do.

Make sure to document everything and have son go back and start a journal from when this all started. DOCUMENT where she said child couldn't see dad for at least a year. Whenever you son attempts to pick up child it is best to have a friend with him who is not a party in this action and has no interest so they can testift to the denial. This way it isn't his work against moms if you know what I mean.

Read everything you can on this site it will help a lot.



**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[leftoverinmn]

You have to get a lawyer. You can't do this without one.

This is going to bite her in the ass later. She's gonna have to answer to a judge WHY she denied him visits. Just "cuz she didn't feel like it" isn't a good enough answer. That judge is going to want an answer from her.

But make sure he documents everything. Write everything down, dates, witnesses, times.

Then your son can request compensory visitation. (That doesn't help you now)... but bring that up when you see a lawyer. Heck, you should get a lawyer and go for full.

Do the legal papers have to be served by law enforcement? or can you do a personal affidafit by mail? Publication (in the paper), like mixed bag said, might be a good idea. Can you get a plainclothes officer to do it? Retired LE? Undercover officer dressed as the Prize Patrol? Maybe even a criminal justice student who has newly aquired his LE lisence?

I'd talk to the sheriff's office and see if they can work with you. Pester them about it, squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

But don't let him go alone to pick up the child. All he has to do is step on her toe accidently and she can claim "ASSULT!" and have him thrown in jail. That happened to a friend of mine.  Go with him, or have him go with a friend.

I saw on COPS once, they sent a letter to the last know address of people who had outstanding warrents, saying that they've won a 36' TV, come to this place to claim your prize, then they arrested them all. Every person showed up, go figure.

I hope you stick around here, people are very pleasant and it's a good resource for everybody.

[MixedBag]

On COPS, huh?

We did something similar waaaay back in the beginning when his EX was refusing to accept any letters from him.

Used her attorney's return address -- not the name, just the street.

She accepted and then got flippin' mad.  (We heard it via phone calls.)

She calls us liars and sneaky.....forgetting that she drew "first blood" by keeping the kids from Dad.

[leftoverinmn]

Yes, on COPS..I never laughed so hard. Sometimes the law has gotta get sneaky to get the job done.

See? See? Ms. Petraitis!  I said this website is a good resource for everybody..

[wendl]

lol one time when my best friend served my ex at hsi home (in our state you do not need to serve the person ONLY a person whom is at the residence that you know your ex lives at and is over a certain age) Well ex wasn't home and the guy refused to take it, my girlfriend left in at his feet on the doorstep.

Another time when she served him, she served it to his girlfriend whom he lived with as he refused to come to the door.  Another time she served it to him and gave the paperwork to his future fatehr inlaw (hahahah father future father in law read all the docs as they were not in an evelope, next week the wedding was off and ex didn't live there any longer.


I LOVE COPS, we were watching it one night and OMG BM"S apartment complex was on it, they were doing some DV thing, dh and I just looked at it and said OMG.

**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**