Service question?

[halo]

Hello


My situation, I have been back from deployment in Iraq with the national guard for about 1 month. I was gone 15 months. During this time I did not have any contact with my son. My son was born out of wedlock and his mother has full custody and we have a parenting plan where I get minimum visitation, every other weekend and holidays. BM and I worked out over the phone a plan where I would start with a warm up plan where I start with a little time and work my way up to over night visits, and also that I would go to support enforcement and get my child support adjusted. I called support enforcement and we are doing the child support adjustment, and I am making progress with my warm up plan and hope to start overnight visits in about 4 more visits.

The other day my sister was at my house while I was gone and a process server came to my door asking for me, my sister told him that I was gone and that she could take the papers and give them to me, the process server said that he had to give them to me personally. I have not seen or heard from him since. I suspected that it was BM taking me to court for something, so I called the court in the county that my son and her live in and they said that I have a court date set for June 1st and that it was for a restraining order for me not to have over nights, and child support adjustment.

My feeling is that I have not had a fair chance to read these papers and prepare for this court date, and I am already dealing with support enforcement about the child support amount. I do not have an attorney and I live in Oregon.

My question is do I have an legal grounds to get this case dismissed both with child support and visitation.

If you have an idea what I can do I would appreciate it.

Thank you, and this is a great site and message board.

halo

[socrateaser]

>My question is do I have an legal grounds to get this case
>dismissed both with child support and visitation.

If the process server is trying to personally serve you, then the child's mother has filed for a "Family Abuse Protective Act" FAPA restraining order. In order to receive such an order, she must allege that you have physically or verbally abused her or the child, or that she is in imminent fear of such abuse.

This is a VERY serious allegation, and even though it may be a total lie, and the mother is intending to use the order to punish you by keeping you from the child, and simultaneously maximize her child support payments, it will be extremely difficult for you to defeat the order, especially without an attorney.

On the direct issue of personal service, you can certainly attempt to avoid service until the hearing, however, your problem is that the moment that you show up for visitation, the mother will hand you a copy of the order, you will be served, and she can IMMEDIATELY call the sheriff, and the sheriff will be FORCED come and arrest you because you will be violating the restraining order.

My suggestion is that you go to the courthouse, get a copy of the order, find an attorney, and if you are absolutely innocent of each and every allegation stated in the order, then I would immediately arrange to take a polygraph test, and then offer the positive result of that test as evidence in the hearing.

If the mother refuses to allow the test into evidence (as is her right), the judge will know she's lying. And, if she does allow the test in, then the judge will believe you and not her, because, as I have stated many times here, almost NO one can beat the machine, and judge's love a polygraph as evidence of truthfulness.

Good luck.