How to get visitation enforced

[TwoBoys]

Case history:
Child born June 03 - BM and father werent married.
BM allowed visitation including overnights since birth, 3 night per week visits for several hours, and every weekend overnights, sometimes one, sometimes two.
NCP tried to get visitation agreement and standard SPA signed by her, without luck.  In Feb 04, NCP filed to have visitation and custody legalized.

Within 2 days of papers being served, she moved 8 hours away, but within same state (from NWFlorida to SFlorida).  After leaving, she allowed only 3 weekend visits, all supervised, between Feb and June.

June 04 - temporary hearing on visitation established visitation to take place one week per month, with two weekend visitations before week long visits were to start since child had not seen father regularly or in several months.

August 04 - She denied request for week long visitation, presented him with a signed stipulation allowing visitation 14 weekends per year or every 3rd weekend ,with 3 week long visits during the year, two of which were to occur at specific times.

Jan 05 - Case Management Hearing.  Judge ordered the signed stipulation into effect but reserved jurisdiction on outstanding issues such as what the halfway point for meeting would be, what the weekends were specifically, tec.

Now, the court order reads:
"on fourteen occasions per year there will be "weekend" visitations which will take place from Friday at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) to the following Monday at 9:00 a.m. (Eastern Time), unless the Monday is a holiday, in which the visitation will take place until that Monday at 5:00 pm.  Additionally, there will be three seven day visitations per year."
Then...
"In addition to the fourteen weekend visitations and three seven day visitations, the parties agree and stipulate that each will have the opportunity to spend their birthday with their minor child, and each shall spend Mother's Day/Father's Day with their minor child."
And finally
"Except for the specific changes with respect to visitation and travel contained herein, all of the rights and responsibilities as contained in the Shared Parenting Agreement utilized in Escambia County, Florida, shall be part of this Agreement, and adhered to by the parties. "

Now, according to the weekend visitation schedule that she has proposed (and followed so far since August 2004), we are to get the child on June 17, 2005.
June 19 2005 is fathers day, and June 27 is Fathers Birthday.

We requested Sunday June 19 at 5 pm until Sunday June 26 at 5 pm for the  week long visitation and Sunday June 26th at 5 pm until Monday June 27 at 8 pm (or Tuesday June 28 th at 9 am) for his birthday visitation.

Her attorney sent a letter stating:
"1.  Your client recently requested a week long visitation. He is entitled to 5 days in addition to his regular weekend, not 7 days in addition to his weekend visitation.   Also, my client feels that it is in the best interest of the child for the visitation to be more spread out between visitation.

2.  My client is planning to take their son out of town for a family vacation during the time your client has requested visitation, which is the reason it is being denied.  Your client is to exercise his week long visitation and his weekend visitation on June 10th and return the child the following Thursday (the 17th) for his week long visitation.

3.  Furthermore, the signed stipulation overrides the Escambia County shared parenting agreement, therefore, your client is not entitled to a visitation day on his birthday."

Now, as the stipulation clearly states, he is entitled to spend his birthday with his son.  With 8 hours travel time between them, picking him up the evening before adn returning him the following morning doesnt seem unreasonable.  

Questions:
1.  Now that she has officially said "No", what do we do/File?
2.  Is our request for receiving the child at 5 or 7 pm the day prior to his birthday, and returning him the morning following the NCPs birthday unreasonable?  
3.  Do you have any suggestions for how to handle both the weekend visitation (shes trying to change the date, and there are no set dates) adn the weeklong visitation (she wants them to override each other).  Furthermore, her request doesnt even allow him to see his child on Fathers day.
4.  Since fathers day only comes once a year, how do we handle this without missing fathers day?


Thank you,
TwoBoys...

[socrateaser]

>Questions:
>1.  Now that she has officially said "No", what do we
>do/File?

Send letter (certified mail) stating that you disagree with their interpretation of your visitation rights, and that if they are unwilling to accept your interpretation, that you will have no choice but to ask the court to resolve the dispute. State, that if you do not receive a positive response within 5 business days, that you will file a motion to clarify the visitation orders.

>2.  Is our request for receiving the child at 5 or 7 pm the
>day prior to his birthday, and returning him the morning
>following the NCPs birthday unreasonable?  

Apparently, everything that you request is unreasonable, so, stop trying to analyze it and have the court deal with it.

>3.  Do you have any suggestions for how to handle both the
>weekend visitation (shes trying to change the date, and there
>are no set dates) adn the weeklong visitation (she wants them
>to override each other).  Furthermore, her request doesnt even
>allow him to see his child on Fathers day.

Your motion should ask for clarification and also allege that the other parent is being intentionally unreasonable for the sole purpose of frustrating your access to the child, which is not in the child's best interests.


>4.  Since fathers day only comes once a year, how do we handle
>this without missing fathers day?

File ASAP. I would attach what you believe to be a reasonable parenting plan exactly specifying every visitation, transfer time, place, etc., so that you show that you are trying to resolve the matter amicably and that your opponent is simply stonewalling.

Your goal is (1) clarify everything once and for all, and (2) make your opponent appear to be wasting the court's time by refusing to cooperate.

If you succeed at #2, you will get everything you want in #1.

[TwoBoys]

Thanks, were drafting a letter now.

Also, I should add one thing since this is your suggestion,in the court order resulting from the case management hearing, it states that "both parties shall have an informal settlement conference in an attempt to resolve and clarify all issues not specified in the ordered stipulation".  (You may remember a question i posed asking for help on this = they are currently refusing to set anything with us).

We tried setting the settlement conference per your advice, and we are currently waiting for their response, which has been nothing so far.

The settlement conference will take place by the end of this month, and at that point (or if they continue to refuse to schedule one) we will request the final hearing.  The judge stated that any issues that are still unresolved by the time of the final hearing (such as this one) would be addressed in the final hearing.

Now, with this, three more questions:

1.  If they continue to deny our requested visitation (were sure they will), and we file the motion for the court to clarify, and we cannot get a hearing prior to fathers day (which is probably going to be the case), do we accept what they offer or hold tight to the agreement and insist on getting our appropriate days (week long in addition to a week)?  (Even if this means he doesnt get to see his son at all except his regular weekend).  

2.  If we hold tight to the agreement, and turn down any offers of visitation from them that give us less time and that do not afford him visitation on fathers day, will that make us look worse?

3.  It would be my guess that if we conceded and accepted 5 days of visitation plus our regular weekend for fathers day visitation, even if it doesnt allow him fathers day visitation, that we would not likely be able to successfully hold them in contempt.  Your opinion?

Thanks, I know this is a mess.  They are already trying to paint us as the difficult ones, because we dont want unreasonable strings attached to our parenting time, and they knwo that typically when they say "these terms or no visitation" and we would prefer our visitation time than not to get any.  

I appreciate all your help, and i think its fantastic that you devote your time here :)

TwoBoys...

[socrateaser]

>Now, with this, three more questions:
>
>1.  If they continue to deny our requested visitation (were
>sure they will), and we file the motion for the court to
>clarify, and we cannot get a hearing prior to fathers day
>(which is probably going to be the case), do we accept what
>they offer or hold tight to the agreement and insist on
>getting our appropriate days (week long in addition to a
>week)?  (Even if this means he doesnt get to see his son at
>all except his regular weekend).

Your position should be that you want what you're entitled to and nothing less. If you believe that there is ambiguity in some part, then you offer the most reasonable alternative, and if that is refused, then you go to court on it.

If they offer something, you take it, but you do not agree to give up anything in return. You just take every opportunity to see the child.

>
>2.  If we hold tight to the agreement, and turn down any
>offers of visitation from them that give us less time and that
>do not afford him visitation on fathers day, will that make us
>look worse?

If you are abiding by the "agreement" then you cannot look worse, because you are merely doing what you and THEY agreed to do.

>
>3.  It would be my guess that if we conceded and accepted 5
>days of visitation plus our regular weekend for fathers day
>visitation, even if it doesnt allow him fathers day
>visitation, that we would not likely be able to successfully
>hold them in contempt.  Your opinion?

I don't believe you can obtain a contempt, because your existing orders are too vague. The best you can do is get a specific set of orders in place for the future.

[TwoBoys]

Great!

Thanks so much!

TwoBoys...