If it were a competency dispute I can see how it would be relevant and even compulsory. There is no question whatsoever about competency in this matter.

Not only is he fishing, his layer is facilitating it and apparently her lawyer isn’t pushing back on it.

Every interaction with her lawyer costs money. Just Jack spoke to this issue; taking her to court when she never violated the settlement agreement, while he does repeatedly, then petitioning the court for petty grievances costs her time, money, and emotional energy. It’s harassment on top of harassment. Her only diagnosable condition would be anxiety which is largely a consequence of his treatment of her over the years. The irony of that discovery request is pretty fucking cruel.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Did that go straight to her or come through her lawyer? I can see how medical and mental health issues could be relevant to custody arrangements. Of course there are limits.

OTOH - is there anything there that really is worth being mad about? Part of the challenge in divorce cases is taking the emotion out. No one knows how to push your buttons like a spouse. I guarantee you that none of you can piss my wife off as fast as I can. If you can manage to not react to that you will be ahead.

There are other lawyers. If she isn't getting what she needs from the one she has, and I'd not be happy being told by my own lawyer that it will reflect poorly on me that I don't tithe to the church, she may need one that fits better.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

So, spend more money she doesn’t have to haggle over a component of the case before spending money to settle the case. After settling the divorce and custody *agreement* to the tune of over $70k.

I think we just need to verify that it isn’t compulsory and put the financial burden on him to discover the nothing he will find.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

That seems ludicrous. I’m sorry.

This is terrifying.

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The first time man split the atom was when the atom tried to hold Jens Voigt's wheel, but cracked.

The meet and confer process isn’t really a waste of time when you consider that it creates the rough draft for a protective order or motion to compel.

But— that’s a side discussion.

I think you need to communicate clearly with your lawyer.

When you say the bolded part above, it sounds like you’re avoiding talking to your lawyer about the issue. Can you send a one-line email to your own lawyer saying that she won’t provide the information because it is harassing, invades privacy, and not relevant to the issues in the case? You’ll be charged for your lawyer’s review of the letter & response. You can assess your lawyer’s response to see what you want to do next. It seems like the shortest & most direct way to tell your lawyer how you feel about the request.

Alternatively, if you write in the response itself that she won’t provide the information, your lawyer will review it & sign off on the responses. He won’t sign off on responses that he thinks are in violation of your state’s discovery rules, will he? You can even ask your lawyer to confirm he will do that when you email the responses back.

The request came through her lawyer’s paralegal. Wife says in the past she received things through his office that he hadn’t read through yet and that in the past he has told her to ignore parts of his lawyer’s discovery requests.

She just read through the full discovery with me and it’s special. Questions like “how much money do you think my client makes” (he is the petitioner, she is not asking for anything) and “in what circumstances do you refer to my client by his proper name?”

The list is over a dozen items long. Colossal waste of time.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Yeah, I would have changed lawyers immediately.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

He gets results, top rated in the area. If this is what he’s seen in court it doesn’t really matter how we feel about it, right?

I fundamentally disagree that it has a place in family court but it ultimately doesn’t matter.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

That's MISTER Dipshit to you.

The requests seem designed to get under her skin. Her lawyer should review that before sending it along. Pretty much his reason to be.

Seems like they are trying get her to admit to disparaging him.

I don't have a good answer for you. In this very short description I would be frustrated with her lawyer. But it is hard to tell. I get why you are mad. But getting you and your wife mad is his goal.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Maybe to some degree. Mostly it’s a temper tantrum. He’s sideways that she has the authority to tell him no and he wants to punish her for it. Everything in their former life together was on his terms and now he’s being kept in check and he can’t stand it.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

More time in the summer he will probably get. One parent drop off, other parent return is common

If he wants to miss his kids games, etc and it’s not his scheduled time with the kids, he doesn’t have to and that’s for him to live with his decisions.

The rest of the stuff the court won’t care about. That’s just parents bitching.

That’s my uneducated guess as well. As to the first paragraph I suppose it will follow the logic of the second. Exception being the drive. Seems unfair to make mom spend one of her two free days driving six hours when it was his decision alone to move out of state and she does all of the kid related driving otherwise. Same for court fees. They agreed, she complied, now he wants more. I would think absent delinquency that burden should fall on the parent who changes their mind about what they want.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

The health of the parties is usually a factor in custody, but, you have to have a very good reason to start a fishing expedition. A few tactics that worked from my marathon:
- nothing stops a request for medical information faster than a counter request for the same thing. Especially when the other person is a hypochondriac and for decades has always been on some cocktail of meds. Basically, if you ask for some invasive discovery, be prepared for the judge to order you to provide the same thing
- how long between judges orders can a party re-file a custody petition in your state? In my state, you have to show a significant change in circumstance from the previous order to refile within 2 years.
- Her lawyer needs to get more aggressive to cut the nonsense.

We submitted everything asked for in discovery, and sent a discovery list in response, to include the details of his GOMOR conviction in the Army for serial infidelity, bullying and harassment.

Her lawyer just informed her that they wish to conduct a deposition. She did not have sit for one during the settlement and divorce proceeding so we're wondering if that's necessary as part of the discovery process. She hasn't heard back from her lawyer yet. Sitting in the same room with him puts her in a tailspin so the thought of having to do that outside of a court room setting is not sitting well with her right now.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Having read through everything on here, it doesn't sound like your wife's lawyer is fighting too much. It sounds like he thinks, if he says no, it will be harder on your wife, so just give them everything they want. I understand she hasn't heard back from her lawyer yet, but from the rest of the thread, I'll be shocked if he doesn't just say, sit for the deposition.

I have never been through a divorce or personally dealt with one from a family member or friend, so I don't understand the process at all. I wish your family the best of luck.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

In recent developments, my wife complied with discovery and submitted her documentation (this was an exhausting and to put it very mildly, frustrating process) orderly and on time. We are now two days past his deadline for his discovery submission and he's produced nothing, to include paystubs, evidence of her noncompliance with the settlement agreement, etc. Her lawyer now says that the discovery on his end is essential for various issues being addressed and so they need to pursue an Order to Compel.

This will of course require more time and money at my wife's expense, in a case that she didn't bring about a settlement agreement she is in 100% compliance with.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

The motion to compel will likely include a request for sanctions in the amount of attorneys’ fees for preparation of the motion & the attorney’s time spent at the hearing. If your wife’s attorney has shown a good faith effort to meet & confer about the non response/ insufficient response, then your wife’s request for sanctions seems reasonable.

An idea to float might be a discovery referee that the court grants authority to resolve these disputes. That person should be a family law mediator w/ experience working in acrimonious / abuse situations. That discovery referee can take over some of the burden of dealing with the ex. The discovery referee can be an added layer of insulation from stress associated with him.

A creative offer to the judge re: discovery referee to resolve discovery disputes to shows a spirit of cooperation and willingness to resolve the disputes without relying on the court & court resources. Even if the request is not agreed-to by the other side & the judge doesn’t grant it, the effort might be favorable to your wife because the judge will see she’s trying.

This is not legal advice, obviously. As you know, I recently went through a divorce. I know it’s very challenging. Staying committed to reasonableness and cooperation is difficult when other people aren’t reasonable or cooperative.

It’s nice to see that the ex’s main interest is taking $100 bills and lighting them on fire.

-sounds like your wife is doing everything right. Stay the course
- he lawyer needs to get off his rear to stop the nonsense.
- what happened with the deposition? This would seem unnecessary other than driving up costs. Interrogatories would be much more efficient.
- if discovery isn’t produced by the filing party, I would motion to dismiss the case on the fact they have not provided any discovery or any information showing a change in circumstance that would require a change in the custody arrangement,

Until the kids turn 18, the court retains jurisdiction to make rulings, so I don’t think dismissal is an option. I think taking a really long view is the best course.

Yes, Court retains jurisdiction of the kids until 18, however, individual filings can be dismissed by the court for various reasons during that time if they don’t have merit.

Ah. In my neck of the woods “dismissal” is used for entire actions whereas “denial” is used for motions. This is why talking about legal things is best left to people who are familiar with the local terms & rules. I am not qualified to speak on these subjects.

That's about how it feels. He's 0-for everything in court thus far and doesn't seem to have switched up his strategy. But we still have to show up and pay for the privilege.


I think so. We've been scrupulous in always staying within the lines and documenting everything.

Whose lawyer?

It's scheduled for later this month. Her lawyer hasn't floated any alternative ideas. In my layman's view a mediator could easily have handled these complaints.

I think at this point she's already sunk considerable cost in prepping for the case, and in response is asking for the child support to be recalculated. Her initial child support factored in spousal support, which fell off after six months, in addition to their 3rd child reaching school age while he currently pays $0 toward that cost (the kids attend a private school, public schools in the area are shit). He's retired LT. COL. and now working full time for a Big Four accounting firm, so I suspect there will be an upward adjustment in his child support obligation. It's worth following it through at this point, I think.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

If this is how it could be handled, I'm surprised her lawyer didn't propose this. Absolutely nothing has changed except for what her ex wants, after agreeing to the existing settlement. She has met her obligations 100% and gone above and beyond to expand his access to the kids.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

She received a response from his lawyer today detailing his allegations and what he is asking of the court.

He is asking for physical custody for the entire summer, from the day after school lets out until the day before it resumes, giving mom visitation every other weekend.

He's throwing absolutely everything he can at her to smear her as a bad mother, and me as contributing. Things like poor dental health (oldest needed tooth extractions for crowding, the younger two have had one cavity between them), poor diets (he cited noticing the middle child making a Nutella sandwich during a facetime session and having had "breakfast for dinner" with cereal and muffins, which we do on rare busy night occasion), and generally painting her as a terrible human being and mother. He had set up his phone in the car to video tape the kids talking about being hungry for dinner when he picked them up at 5pm one Friday, after getting home from school at 4, snacking and playing outside. He offered this as evidence--presumably with video--of her being a neglectful mother and punishing them with hunger to make their father pay for dinner.

He is asking the court to mandate that she always and only refer to him as Dad in her home and that they never use any iteration of the word in reference to me---all the while having his kids call his wife "Mama A**y"

This is so far from normal I can't even wrap my head around it. I cannot imagine taking my kids away from their mother for three months for any reason whatsoever, especially if it was my own fuckery that led to divorce and my choice to move nearly 3 hours away.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W