Gerrymandering, Gun Violence and the Sad State of Legislative Gridlock

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

According to most reports, following the September 14, 2012, Newtown, CN grade school massacre, 90% of Americans, including gun owners and NRA members, were in agreement that some stronger controls on the purchase of weapons was appropriate.  Background checks for 100% of gun purchases, eliminating the gun show loophole, and a nationwide coordinated automated registry of domestic violence perpetrators and those with mental health commitments, were favored by many of the American people.  Even the President was in favor of these measures.  Yet no such laws were even introduced into Congress, let alone voted on by the members. Why did this happen?

 

Fast forward to the Summer of 2017; although the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) had by that time become favored by the majority of Americans, the U. S. House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act, which, if enacted into law, would have stripped health insurance from millions of Americans, increased premiums, and given a huge tax benefit to wealthy health insurance companies and executives.  The U. S. Senate, which put together its own Obamacare repeal act, came within one vote of passing an even more draconian bill.  Rather than working with Democrats to fix the problems which were causing health insurance premiums to rise, the Republicans looked only to the Republicans to pass their legislation. Why was Congress so out of touch with the people it was elected to represent?

 

As a PA resident, I have seen similar gridlock in the legislature of this Commonwealth.  Both houses of the legislature are controlled by Republicans, and our governor is a Democrat.  I have been working with a non-partisan group known as Fair Districts PA, an anti-gerrymandering organization which advocates for an amendment to the PA Constitution to take the power of drawing PA State and Congressional Districts away from our partisan legislators and assign the job to a panel of non-partisan citizens.  In order to amend our Constitution to permit this, identical bills should be introduced and passed, one each in the PA Senate and PA House, for two consecutive legislative sessions, and then it has to be voted on by PA voters as a special question during an election.  The bills have been written and introduced, co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, but the House Majority Leader refuses to call the House Bill up for a vote. It is clear that the vast majority of PA citizens are opposed to gerrymandering and would prefer maps drawn up by a non-partisan commission.  Why aren’t these bills being called up for a vote?

 

In similar fashion, the annual PA budget is at a standstill.  Although the Governor and the Republican Senate have reached agreement on a balanced budget which would institute a small severance tax on the gas extracted from fracking in PA (PA being the only state from which there is oil or gas extraction which has no such severance tax), but the PA House refuses to even consider an extraction tax.  At present this leaves a $1.9 billion hold in the budget.  The House majority leader, interviewed on NPR in October 2017, admitted that the House Democrats would vote for an extraction tax, and some of the Republican members would also accept an extraction tax, but the majority of “his caucus” was not agreeable to it, so they were not interested in pursuing that option.

 

The majority of Americans favor legislation which would allow DACA recipients a path to citizenship, however no bills to accomplish this are on the horizon.  On the other hand, the U.S. House of Representatives recently introduced and passed (with mainly Republican votes) an anti-abortion bill that I am certain the general public is not clamoring for.  Certainly, many of their “base” is supportive of this, but I am certain that few legislators paused to check with their constituents to see if this was a high priority item with them.

 

Across the nation, both state legislators have and U. S. Congressmen and Senators been refusing to hold town halls or meeting with numbers of the voters in their districts, fearing an ugly confrontation with constituents who disagree with the positions they have been taken on some of these issues. This all seems to odd.  Why wouldn’t they want to hear from their voters?  Why would they vote in ways contrary to the wishes or best interests of their constituents?

 

Legislatures have hearings on issues which everyone agrees upon, like the Equifax data breach, where Senators took turns lambasting the former CEO about what a terrible thing the data breach was.  Did we need a hearing to determine this?  Or were they just posturing for the public?  Looking at their legislative calendar, we see them proudly point to laws that celebrate local heroes or toughen restrictions on people who hurt animals, while the real issues of the day fester. Our entire legislative system has fallen into disarray.

 

The one theme which runs through all of these illustrations is that party loyalty now trumps state, district or local issues. In as many as 20 U.S. states, the election districts are “rigged” or gerrymandered to yield a majority of “safe” seats to members of one political party or another. This is done through a variety of methods, generally the majority party in a state legislature drawing electoral boundaries using computerized voter data and maps, which “pack” or “crack” groups of voters into voting districts to result in a permanent majority for that party in the legislature, or in the U. S. Congress, following a U. S. Census.  For example, the majority Republicans redrew the Wisconsin legislative districts in 2011 (following the 2010 Census), in such a manner as to produce a result that, while Democratic candidates for Wisconsin legislative seats won a clear majority of votes in 2012 and 2014, they were never able to capture more than 39 of Wisconsin’s 99 legislative seats.

 

As a result, loyalty to the wishes of party leaders or the party “caucus” has become more important than listening to the desires of the voters in that legislator’s district.  If a legislator has the temerity to “disobey” the party leader or caucus, they are likely to face a well-financed primary opponent in their next re-election bid.  And who votes in the primaries?  Across the nation it is the same in “closed primary” states (like PA), where only voters registered as members of that party, often a small minority of voters, mostly the party faithful, end up voting in the primaries, nominating candidates who are on good terms with their party leaders.  Voters who are not aligned with either of the major parties are left out of the candidate selection process altogether. CA has chucked this entire system, with entirely open primaries, so that the “top two” vote-getters will face each other in the fall election.  They, a progressive state, are the only state in the US with this electoral system.

 

The big money that is allowed in political campaigns due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2014 in the Citizens United case.  has also exacerbated this problem of candidates not paying attention to local issues, because it seems that all races are “nationalized,” by painting the disfavored candidate as a “tool” of the right-wing or left-wing “radicals.”

 

A recent poll indicates that the political parties in this country are now more divided on issues than ever before; in earlier days, Senators and Congressmen often worked “across the aisle” to solve this nation’s problems. Nowadays that has almost become a thing of the past.  The U.S. Supreme Court has just heard arguments on a case brought by Wisconsin voters, which claims that their politically gerrymandered districts violate the Constitution and threaten our democracy.  A similar lawsuit is pending in PA.  Something definitely needs to change, if our legislative bodies are to return to caring about local issues and the hopes and dreams of their constituents, rather than a national strategy.  Let’s hope we find a way back to the system the writers of our Constitution intended, and away from unyielding partisan positions.

 

Gun Rights and Domestic Violence in America

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

Just a little over a year ago, on September 1, 2016, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette carried the following article: “Long-time abusive relationship ends with death of Washington County Couple.” The article tells the all-too-often story this way: State police trooper Sarah Teagarden got the call in the wee hours of Tuesday: Kevin Ewing had cut off his ankle bracelet and had taken at gunpoint his wife, Tierne Ewing. It was the second time in two months the Washington County couple were on police radar. The first time, on July 8, Mrs. Ewing had escaped after being held for 12 days and tortured by her 47-year old husband…locking her in a closet… and threatening repeatedly that he would shoot her in the head then shoot himself, too. He made good on his word Tuesday night…. . The article continued, “it was [s]enseless and sad but not unexpected. The couple, childhood sweethearts, had a relationship marred by verbal and physical abuse as long as anyone could remember.”

In 2001, court records show that Tierne got a PFA (Protection from Abuse) order which restricted Kevin from having any contact with Tierne. He violated it at least twice, and 2 criminal cases were filed against him that year, as a result of which he spent at least 7 months in jail.

After the July 8 incident, Tierne Ewing got another PFA order which not only restricted Kevin from seeing her, but also required that he surrender all of his guns (he owned several). Unfortunately, the guns were “surrendered” to his mother. (This is the result of a loophole in PA’s Protection from Abuse law; during the summer of 2017 an amendment to the law to require the surrender of guns in PFA cases to be made to police departments or licensed firearm dealers was proposed, but it failed to be brought up for consideration by the Republican majority.)

On Tuesday, August 30, Kevin cut off the monitoring bracelet installed on his ankle by the court, took one of his guns from his mother’s house, and kidnapped Tierne at gunpoint, taking her to a nearby barn where he apparently held her for several hours. As the police were closing in, he shot her in the head and then shot himself.

Since the Las Vegas mass shooting on October 1, 2017, there has been a great deal of discussion about gun violence in the U.S. and how to avoid it, or at least some of it. The nub of the problem extends to the courts’ interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which says, in whole, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” That’s the whole Second Amendment. Does it mean that everyone has the right to have as many guns of any and all types as he or she wants? Does it mean that the State (or Federal or local government) cannot impose any regulation or law restricting the purchase or possession of guns or gun accessories by any American? Clearly the answer to the second question is no, but the forces supporting a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment push back when any curtailment of “gun rights” is being proposed or attempted to be enacted into law. The answer to the first question is …well, maybe.

So, let’s talk about the impact of these issues on society, but more specifically the lives and homes of Americans. Some sample statistics: According to the Violence Policy Center, more than 5 times as many women were murdered by an intimate acquaintance than by a stranger in the year 2000. Additionally, while firearm homicides involving male victims were mostly committed by male perpetrators, 95% of female firearm homicide victims were murdered by a male. Congress, recognizing the unique and deadly role firearms play in domestic violence passed the Protective Order Gun Ban in 1994. The law prohibits gun possession by a person against whom there is a restraining or protective order for domestic violence. In 1996, Congress passed the Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Gun Ban, which prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from purchasing or possessing a gun. Sounds like problems solved, right? Well, not so fast….

In an article in October 2015 by Christina Cauterucci, “How Domestic Abusers get to keep their guns, Cauterucci points out that the 1996 law, spurred by the staggering statistics such as those mentioned above, left two gaping loopholes. First, even though the victims of intimate-partner homicide are usually dating their partners, not married to them, the federal definition of domestic abuse required that the couple be married, cohabitating, or the parents of shared children. This is called the “boyfriend loophole.” The other loophole in the federal gun ban for domestic abusers also leaves the perpetrators’ existing gun collection untouched, which renders it ineffective against abusers who already owned firearms.

On March 17, 2013, Michael Luo wrote in an article in the New York Times, “in Some States Gun Rights Trump Orders of Protection,” that in statehouses across the country, the NRA and other gun-rights groups have beaten back legislation mandating the surrender of firearms in domestic violence situations. They argue that gun ownership, as a fundamental constitutional right, should not be stripped away for anything less serious than a felony conviction and certainly not, as an NRA lobbyist in Washington State stated to legislators, “for the mere issuance of court orders.” Luo notes that the 1994 Protection Order Gun Ban is rarely enforced; during 2012, prosecutors nationwide filed fewer than 50 such cases, and as a result, the law has largely fallen to a state-by-state patchwork of laws to regulate this issue. Or not. A 2013 a federal law named Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act was introduced to close the “boyfriend loophole” and extend the law to convicted stalkers and abusers of any former intimate partner, but it failed to pass.

History will judge whether the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group which formed after the Newtown, CN, massacre of grade school children and teachers, can change the minds and hearts of Americans, or, more importantly, their legislators, and begin the serious consideration of common-sense methods for avoiding further gun violence in America.

Gerrymandering in Wisconsin – The U.S. Supreme Court looks at the issue on October 3, 2017

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

The term “Gerrymandering” has been the subject of a great deal of discussion this year throughout the nation. The term “gerrymander” (pronounced “Jerry-mander”) was introduced into the language more than 200 years ago, when this technique was used by then Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry to produce a voting district shaped like what news organizations compared to a salamander; they then began calling it a “gerrymander.”

The practice occurs when a state with weak laws regarding the power of the state legislature to set boundaries for both state legislatures and U. S,  Congressional districts, and the party with the majority uses their power to reshape those election districts to favor voters from that party, usually by “packing” (drawing district lines so that other party’s voters are all crammed into districts together often producing a 85-90% percentage of those party’s voters), or “cracking”, in which the not-in-power party’s voting districts are broken up and put in with districts where their voting power is overwhelmed or diluted by the in-power-party’s voters. Although gerrymandering has been going on for more than 200 years, the advent of computers which can assist in drawing these lines finely has made the practice nearly universal in those states whose laws give loose permission for the state legislature to draw district lines.  PA is one of them, and is considered one of the most-gerrymandered states in the nation.

This problem arises for two reasons:  there are only 435 seats in the U. S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. population increases and/or moves around.  So every 10 years we have the U.S. Census, which determines how many persons are in each state, and therefore how many representatives should be “apportioned” to each state.  PA las lost representative in the past 2 censuses (which have been gained by the Western and Southern U.S.), and it will probably lose one or two representatives in the 2020 census.  As a result each state affected must “reapportion” its voting districts to divide them up, so that each voting district within the state will have approximately the same number of voters. (Voters also move around in states, so this in-state migration also must be taken into account).  Within each state, the number of state legislators remain the same, but in states where the laws regarding how districts are weak, the state legislative district lines are often gerrymandered as well, as they apparently are in Wisconsin.

The U. S. Supreme Court has recently decided in challenges to election districts in Texas and North Carolina, that districts gerrymandered along racial lines are unconstitutional.  However, the issue about voting districts gerrymandered along political lines has so far not been seen by the U. S. Supreme Court as a question they could resolve. The Gill v. Whitford case, brought by voters who complained that gerrymandering of voting districts in Wisconsin has deprived them of their rights.  In a New York Times article on October 2, 2017, Michael Wines discusses the issues at stake.

 

The background of the Wisconsin case is that in 2010, after taking control of Wisconsin’s legislature and State Capitol, the Republicans used computer models and voting data to redraw political boundaries for the Wisconsin Assembly.  This map insured that Republicans would continue to control the majority of the seats in that legislature.  In 3 elections since the map was redrawn, Democrats have never won more than 39 of the 99 seats in that body, even though statewide the Democrats won a majority of the votes cast for Assembly candidates.

The theory behind the Wisconsin case is that in 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political districts must contain approximately equal numbers of people, thus dividing the districts unevenly violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. The plaintiffs in this case, a group of Democrats represented by an advocacy group, the Campaign Legal Center, are hoping to expand that one-person-one-vote principle of partisan gerrymandering.  They argue that by banishing Democrats into gerrymandered districts that make their votes effectively useless, the Republican line-drawers have violated the 1st Amendment (Equal protection clause), along with the 14th Amendment, because it “punishes” Democrats for expressing their political views by their votes.

This is not a new argument; in the past some decisions of the Supreme Court have indicated that there might be some situations in which partisan gerrymandering could violate the Equal Protection clause, but also that some partisanship is unavoidable and therefore acceptable.   In his NYT article, Wise notes that that makes the real question – the one which has “tied the court in knots” for 3 decades—tougher: Can the justices devise a yardstick that reliably measures when a gerrymander oversteps constitutional bounds?  Or would that overstep the court’s own bounds and plunge it deeper into the political thicket of legislative duties?”

Opponents of gerrymandering, such as the Fair Districts PA organization in PA, believe that the answer is clear.  Among the 54 friend-of-the-court briefs filed in this case, the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law argue that “precisely because extreme partisan gerrymandering subverts normal politics, it cannot be addressed by normal politics.”  In another brief submitted by the Republican State Leadership Committee, they argued that a holding in favor of the Wisconsin plaintiffs “would politicize the courts and would go far beyond intervention in the ‘political thicket:’ it would impale the judiciary on its thorns.”

On the U.S. Supreme Court there are 4 justices who are likely to vote in favor of the Wisconsin plaintiffs, and four, including the new Justice Gorsuch, who are likely to disapprove of their position.  Justice Kennedy, the potential “swing” vote, has publicly stated his distaste for partisan gerrymandering, but has wrestled with the question of whether the Court could find a way to remedy it. Approximately 20 U. S. states, including PA, would be affected if the court found in favor of the Wisconsin plaintiffs.

Wise in his article quotes Richard H. Pildes, a professor of constitutional law and an election-law expert at NYU, who said in an interview, “I think this is a very important moment for the democratic system, in the United States. That’s not to say a court decision striking this gerrymander down is going to address all of the problems we’ve got, but in the absence of some sense of constitutional boundaries the pathologies of this process are just going to grow and grow.”

The question posed by anti-gerrymandering groups like Fair Districts PA is: “Shouldn’t the voters pick their legislators rather than letting the legislators picking their voters?” Many eyes and ears in the U.S. will be tuned in on the argument on this case at the Supreme Court. Much is at stake.

Practical Advice in Choosing the Right PA Divorce Lawyer

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

Choosing the right lawyer to handle your divorce is not an easy one, and it certainly isn’t a decision one should make lightly.  But with the thousands of lawyers that are currently practicing law in Pennsylvania, how do you make the right choice?  Read on for some practical advice in choosing the right PA divorce lawyer for you:

Beware of Lawyer Rating Services

Many younger PA divorce-seekers do a lot of divorce research on-line, or they assist older divorce-seekers in finding information online.

Most of the online lawyer rating services are unreliable, IMHO. We don’t know all of the lawyers in our area of Southwestern, PA who do divorces, but we pretty much know who the good ones are.  We see that some lawyers have high ratings that we believe are totally unjustified in terms of our knowledge of their expertise in handling divorce matters.  It seems old fashioned, but word-of mouth referrals are usually your best bet.  Ask people you know who’ve been through a divorce for a referral!

Insist on Meeting your PA Divorce Lawyer in person

Many divorce seekers (or seekers of divorce information) don’t know what to expect from lawyers during their consultation appointment, or thereafter.

It is virtually impossible to conduct an effective consultation appointment over the telephone, or in an internet chat; we need to look each other in the eye and gauge whether we are getting accurate information or whether the information we are giving the potential client is getting through. Some clients lie…

You Get What You Pay For

If a divorce lawyer is offering you a “free consultation,” they must not be busy enough; there may be a reason for this…

If the divorce lawyer has no support staff, or works out of his or her basement, maybe they are building up a practice (hey, I started by sharing law office space with an established lawyer), but bear in mind that it is likely they may not be available to you when needed, as they have to go to court, write pleadings, answer telephone messages, etc. all by themselves. Yes, voice mail and text messaging is handy, but if you have a burning question, it may be cold comfort to you.

As a corollary to the above, then, bear in mind that a lawyer whose fees appear to be “cheap” or much less expensive than others, may have insufficient support staff. Personnel and offices and computer systems cost money, but they make the lawyer much more available to answer important client questions and take action in emergencies.  If you don’t get a response within 24 hours to an urgent question, (it should be the same day), it brings a level of anxiety into the process which experienced lawyers want to avoid.

Just because a lawyer is expensive, however, it doesn’t mean that they are the lawyer for you. Ask around, find out how satisfied friends or relatives or co-workers have been with their divorce attorneys (or how impressed they were with the skill level of their spouse’s attorney).

Real, practical advice = Good Advice

The right lawyer for you will take in a great deal of information about you and your marriage, your children, and your spouse, and they will educate you on the divorce, support, and custody laws of Pennsylvania. They will tell you hard truths, truths you may not want to hear but need to know.

The right lawyer will have a sense of humor, be able to relate, but will not feel sorry for you. We must analyze the situation as the court would and work to develop a strategy to reach an outcome that is acceptable, in the long run. As changes occur, they will keep you informed and will modify the strategy, with your approval.

Communication is Key

The right lawyer will keep you informed and will communicate with you regularly, usually by email, and will want your input and response to actions and communications in your case.

Your lawyer will charge you for all communications, telephone, email, written, etc., because he or she has nothing to “sell” but his or her time. Don’t expect them to work for free, particularly when they have an office, staff, and other overhead expenses.

Divorce Lawyers should be Tough, but Professional (even if you secretly hope they beat your ex into a pulp on the courtroom floor)

Your lawyer will very likely know and hopefully have a cordial relationship with your spouse’s lawyer. Our job is not to hate or scorn the other side; our job is to get the best result for our client, and we have learned that cooperation, not flame-throwing, is the best way to achieve this with a minimum of expense.

Few Surprises

It is possible but unlikely that you will be unhappily surprised by developments in your case, if you have been listening to your lawyer and following their instructions. Most experienced divorce lawyers are fairly good predictors of outcomes and are trying to save you attorney fees and anxiety by attempting to settle your case, along lines you have already discussed and are prepared for.

Choose Wisely

 

If you hear someone complaining that divorce lawyers are money-grubbing thieves, it is possible that they have had a bad experience with their lawyer.  We have met many of those people, and we have performed case “rescue missions” more times that we can count.  Or it is possible that they had unreasonable expectations or are trying to get something for nothing.  Choose wisely.  Your future may depend on it.

 

 

Rethinking Equally Shared Custody Arrangements

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

In Pennsylvania, until the 1970’s, when parents of children under the age of 18 separated, the “tender years doctrine” applied.  That meant that there was a presumption in the law that children “of tender years” were better off with their mothers as their primary custodians.  It also meant father were relegated to the role of “visitors,” and that the custody arrangements for fathers were known as “visitation,” generally something like every other weekend and a dinner visit or two during the week, and some sharing of holiday custody.   In order to obtain  “primary custody” of his children, a father had to prove that the children’s mother was “an unfit mother.”  Do these phrases sound familiar?  Well, they shouldn’t, because for the last 40 years or so, the “tender years doctrine” has been outlawed in Pennsylvania, since PA adopted an equal rights amendment to its constitution.

That is not to say that PA courts enthusiastically accepted the demise of the “tender years” doctrine automatically.  The same judges who had been automatically awarding custody of children to mothers were still on the bench, some of them for many years thereafter.  It was as if even though a new custody law was adopted which required that “the best interests of the child” be considered by the courts in awarding custody, the scales seemed to tip in favor of mothers for quite a while.   After all, mothers could proudly claim, they had been the stay-at-home parent for the children for their whole lives, and the fathers didn’t know the first thing about parenting.  Well, that was then and this is now.

As we know, married women with children have been entering the workforce in great numbers during the last 40 years.  More good-paying jobs have opened for women, and women have for some time been a growing part of college and professional education students.  When I began my college education many years ago, the ratio of “boys” to “girls” on campus was something like 4 to 1.  Now is it often 50-50, and in some areas of higher education women outnumber men.  Men have in many cases stepped up to the task of co-parenting children with their wives.   However, another trend that has affected families is the sheer number of divorces and out-of-wedlock births which have made the old profile of mother-father relationships nearly obsolete.

Judges have changed too.  The old judges have died or retired, and the new breed of judges, raised in the latter part of the 20th century or the first part of the 20th century, don’t usually tip the scales in favor of mothers any more.  Despite the shrill claims of “Fathers’ Rights” groups, there is no presumption based on gender.  Ask any lawyer who practices family law primarily (or solely); they will tell you that when they first meet a judge or other court officer in a custody situation, the judges expect them to offer some kind of equally shared custody arrangement between mother and father, or be prepared to explain/fight for some other arrangement.   The “Ackerman plan,” or 5-5-2-2- custody arrangements, came into vogue around the turn of the century, and these have been enshrined as ideal custody arrangements for all children, along with shared legal custody (shared decision-making) of the children.

.  Another development which pushed this movement along was the adoption in PA of modified child support guidelines that gave a break in child support payments to support obligors with 40% or more overnights with the children.

So this social experiment has been happening for some time, and how it is working?  As lawyers concerned for the welfare of children involved in custody disputes, our observation is that the results are mixed at best.  We are delighted when we are able to assist an involved and caring parent in obtaining substantial custody time with the children, be it the mother or the father. What we are less delighted with is that the less experienced judges whom we appear in front of in child custody cases seem to have adopted a general presumption that equally shared custody is best for everyone. What that means is that when equally shared custody does not appear to fit this family well, we have to work (and spend large quantities of clients’ money) to overcome this unspoken “presumption.”  It was not contained in the recently-modified PA custody law. One size fits all is not for every family.  What the 5-5-2-2 schedule means for children is that they have a lot of adjustments to make, and they bear the brunt of the going back and forth between households several times a week.  In a recent article in the local legal journal, a Pittsburgh area family lawyer recounts the experience of being one of those children in a situation where the parents or the court adopted a 5-5-2-2 custody schedule for her and her younger siblings.  In her case, her parents refused to communicate directly, and it put the crushing burden on her, a young teenager, trying to find her place in the world, to make any schedule changes or accommodations between the parents, to make this schedule “work.”  In her mind, because of non-cooperation and non-communication between her parents, this schedule was unfair to the children.  Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of advantages to children of a custody schedule which permits them substantial contact with both caring and loving parents, when they are able to cooperate.  Children’s mental health is more stable when both parents are actively involved in their lives. It’s when one parent is so angry or bitter at the other parent and insists on sharing “his” or “her” side of the marital dispute with the children in an attempt to turn them against the other parent, that this kind of arrangement breaks down.  Cooperation and co-parenting is a must for shared custody arrangements to work well for the children.

It would be good if judges, rather than reflexively suggesting an equal overnight custody schedule for every family, took the parents’ ability and/or willingness to cooperate and communicate into account more often, in thinking about custody arrangements.   That would be in the children’s’ best interests.

How is PA Child Support Collected and Enforced?

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

PA child support is collected by the state, once an order for support is          entered.  The process of filing for support and establishing a support order  are subjects of other posts.   This post assumes that you are the payor/obligor of a PA child support order which has been entered and is being enforces by PACSES, the PA State Child Enforcement System.  The arm of this system which collects and disburses support payments is called PASCDU, the PA Support Collection and Disbursement Unit.  Once a child support order has been entered, a case number is assigned to the case (and separate identification numbers are assigned to each party and child involved in the order.)  A wage attachment goes out to the payor’s employers from PASCDU, to enforce the order.  If there are arrearages, the wage attachment is generally increased to collect any arrearages.

PASCDU keeps a close watch on support orders and payments – they are required to by the Federal Government, which funds most state child support collection efforts.  Once an obligor falls 30 days in arrears on the amount of the order, collection efforts begin, which can include scheduling a contempt hearing, notifications to credit rating agencies, seizing bank accounts, and even suspending driver’s licenses and professional licenses.  If an obligor files a tax return and expects a refund, but owes arrears on child support, the refund will be used to pay any outstanding arrears.  It hasn’t always been this efficient; years ago, arrears were often accumulated in large amounts for various reasons.  Nowadays, because of penalties imposed by the Federal government and massive computer databases, those cases are much more rare.

In cases where the obligor is self-employed, wage attachments may not be effective in collecting the full amount of support, but the PASCDU computers and collection system are on the case 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  A contempt hearing is likely to be scheduled, and at that hearing, the obligor is given an opportunity to make arrangements to pay the arrearages, and make on-time payments thereafter, but it is not uncommon for the court to order the obligor to jail if the obligor does not comply with the payment arrangements set by the court. PASCDU does not care if the obligor is able to pay rent or car payments; its first goal is to collect support ordered by the PACSES system.

There is no statute of limitations on court-ordered child support payments, nor can they be avoided by moving to another state or by taking another job.  PASCDU will track the obligor through their social security number and will obtain assistance from the state the obligor has moved to, to collect the order.  States are required by the Federal government to cooperate and assist other states in collecting support payments from persons who reside within their borders.

The moral of this story is:  if you owe a Pennsylvania child support order, you must pay it as ordered.  If for some reason the amount of the order is not correct, or circumstances have changed which make the existing order no longer appropriate, you must file a petition for modification in the state which entered the order, to change the amount.  Shah Law Group is experienced in working with Pennsylvania child support cases and can assist in this process.  Give us a call!

Bifurcation is Still Alive and Kicking in PA

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

Last month we posted a blog article on bifurcation of divorces in PA.  As we explained, the term “bifurcate” means to divide something into two parts.  When applied to a divorce, to “bifurcate” means to grant a divorce, giving a person the right to legally remarry, while other issues, such as property division and alimony, remain pending.  While bifurcation can happen in PA, for divorces granted after 1980, it has become relatively rare since the divorce law was amended in 2004 to require that all claims related to a divorce be resolved before a divorce is granted, except in rare and unusual circumstances.

Last week, the PA Superior Court, the appeals court which decides on appeals from PA trial courts (called Common Pleas Courts) posted a decision that reminds Pennsylvanians that bifurcation is alive and well for divorces granted between 1980 and 2004. The divorces to which this concept applies is the “3301(d)” divorce, the divorce in which one spouse files for divorce (the “plaintiff”)  and then files and serves a notice on the other spouse (the “defendant”) that the parties have lived separate and apart for two years (or 3 years prior to 1987 divorce law amendments), and the other spouse takes no action other than to file a response (called a “counter-affidavit”) saying they agree on the period of separation, but they want to raise claims (such as for property division, alimony, etc.).   In this recently-decided case, the plaintiff  (husband) served the divorce complaint and the 3301(d) affidavit on the defendant (wife) in 1998, and the wife, apparently unrepresented, filed a counter-affidavit stating that she wanted to raise a claims for property distribution.  She didn’t file any claims, however.  The husband’s attorney filed the paperwork to make the divorce final, indicating that “property distribution” was still pending.   The divorce was granted by the court, noting in the decree that the court retained jurisdiction to resolve any issues raised but not settled before the divorce.

Fourteen years later, the ex-wife apparently saw an attorney who reviewed the court records and decided that ex-wife might still have a valid claim to ex-husband’s pension.  The attorney filed the paperwork to raise a claim on ex-wife’s behalf for property distribution.  Ex-husband’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss ex-wife’s claim on the grounds that she had never actually raised the claim before the divorce was granted, and that it had been too long since the divorce to raise any claims.  The trial court judge agreed with ex-husband and dismissed ex-wife’s claim. Last week, the Superior Court reversed the trial judge and reinstated ex-wife’s claim for property distribution.

Creative lawyering strikes again!

Bifurcation in a Pennsylvania Divorce Proceeding

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

The term “bifurcation” means to divide something into two parts.  When this term is applied to a divorce, it generally means, “Can I get divorced – legally free to remarry and file my taxes as single – while other issues such as property division are still pending?”  Before 1980, the term did not apply to PA divorces.  The only kind of divorce allowed before that was a “fault” divorce (where the spouse who wanted a divorce had to allege “grounds” for divorce – that they were entirely innocent and the other spouse had committed such bad acts as to cause the marriage to fail – and then prove those grounds in a trial). If they were successful, or if the other spouse simply didn’t put up a defense, the divorce was granted. Property division was easy, as it followed “title.” that is, if a bank account or a pension or a piece of real estate was in your name, you owned it after the divorce, free and clear of any claims by the other spouse.  If an asset was owned jointly, it was to be split between the parties 50-50.  There was no post-divorce alimony.

If you thought that was still the law in PA, you are more than 35 years behind the times!  The Divorce Code of 1980, which became effective that year, revolutionized divorce law in PA. Many Pennsylvanians had been living separate and apart for many years, resigned to fact that that if they were not the “innocent and injured spouse,” they could not get a divorce from their former loved one.   Suddenly in 1980, the floodgates opened. “No-fault” divorce became legal in PA.  As originally written, the law granted the right for a “guilty” spouse who had been living separate and apart for 3 years or more to request a divorce from the “innocent” spouse by filing an affidavit alleging a 3 year or more separation, and serving it on the other spouse.  Suddenly there was no defense to the divorce, and the best thing the defendant/spouse could do was to request from the court a fair property distribution and some alimony.  For other just then separating couples, it gave the left-behind spouse a 3-year window to get ready for the divorce.   In 1987, the law was changed to turn the 3-year separation requirement into a 2-year separation.  By 2016 it left PA one of the few states in the US with a long separation requirement, possibly the longest one.  However, in 2016, the PA legislature again changed the law to allow a party to request a divorce from the other spouse after only a 1-year separation (so long as that separation began after December 3, 2016).   Of course, if both spouses agreed to a divorce under the 1980 Divorce Code, they could file their consents to the divorce at any time after 90 days from the date the divorce was served on the other party.  That portion of the law has never changed.

However, this entire discussion about “no-fault” divorce involves the divorce only; property division, (called “equitable distribution” by the new divorce code”), alimony, and requests for attorney fees could not be addressed until grounds for a divorce had been established.   Unlike the previous “title” approach to property division, equitable distribution assumes that everything acquired during a marriage by either party, regardless of title, is “marital property” and will be divided between the parties according to what is “fair,” by the courts, if the parties are unable to agree.

During the period when a “no-fault” divorce could only be requested after a 3-year separation (or even a 2-year separation) in PA, bifurcation was a hot topic. In addition, those couples who had been separated for (sometimes many more than) 3 years at the time the new Divorce Code became effective, were anxious to move on with their lives.  They wanted a mechanism whereby the divorce itself could be granted while property division was pending.   Initially, the courts often “bifurcated” divorces as a matter of course.  However, because of the problems of dividing pensions, pensions beneficiary designations, the loss of health insurance, and a host of other issues, the courts began to deny bifurcation if one spouse said no.  In 2004, an amendment to the Divorce Code put an end to bifurcation of divorces.  Although under certain extreme circumstances divorces can still be bifurcated, especially now that the one-year separation rule has gone into effect, requests for bifurcation are less and less likely to be made, and less likely to be granted by the courts.

Free Internet Child Support Calculators – Worth the Cost?

Posted on by Kristen Anders Bojarski

The internet offers a wealth of information that is easily accessible, literally at our fingertips.  If you don’t know something, just pull up Google on your smart phone, type in a question and receive an instant answer.

So when a client comes into my office for the first time, I’m not surprised when they tell me that they already know what they will receive/pay in child support because they calculated it themselves using a free child support calculator they found online.  Unfortunately, many are surprised when I tell them that the child support calculator did not give them accurate numbers.  This happens for a lot of different reasons.

First, an internet child support calculator arrives at numbers based on the figures and information that you input into it.   If you don’t know child support rules, chances are that you will be inputting wrong information.  For instance, the calculation of one’s net income.  Many people do not know that bonuses, overtime pay, vested stock options, etc., are considered income for purposes of calculating support.  Many people also miscalculate the amount of custody time they have; they think they have primary custody when they actually have shared custody meaning that a shared custody deviation likely applies.  The incorrect calculation of a person’s income or amount of custody time they have can make a huge impact on the child support calculation.

Second, there are a lot of legal issues to consider when calculating child support.  Perhaps the most common is earning capacity.  When a party is not working outside of the home, or they left one job for a lower paying job, it might be appropriate to calculate the child support not on what they are currently earning (or not earning), but by what they could potentially earn based on their education and experience. A free internet child support calculator cannot make this kind of determination.

Third, deviations from the child support guidelines are sometimes warranted when there are extraordinary expenses or needs.  For instance, perhaps a child has a substantial amount of medical expenses due to a medical condition; an upward deviation from the guidelines may be warranted.  Internet child support calculators cannot calculate this.

The lesson here is not to completely avoid free child support calculators you find on the web– I have no problem with clients doing their own research – but don’t depend on them as a source of free legal advice.  Hiring and consulting with a lawyer may be an expense that some people want to avoid, but ignorance can be much more expensive, particularly over the months or years the child support obligation may run.  You just might find that the “free” internet calculator was not worth the cost.

 

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Family Law Attorney

Posted on by Barbara J. Shah

Family law attorneys are experts in many different issues. They’ve dedicated their practice to helping families solve problems and create solutions. Whether you’re facing divorce or are in the process of adopting, an attorney can assist you. When seeking the help of an attorney, there are a few common mistakes that people make. Avoiding these mistakes ensures that you retain proper representation and that your legal troubles are handled correctly.

Waiting too long to hire an attorney

Many people wait too long to hire an attorney. Instead of searching out the right representation as soon as the situation calls for it, they wait to see how things play out. Maybe they think that they can work things out without an attorney or maybe they spend too much time researching which attorney to hire. Either way, it’s important to hire an attorney quickly to ensure that you’re treated fairly throughout the process.

Hiring an attorney that doesn’t specialize in Family Law

While it’s important to hire someone quickly, it’s more important to hire the right person. There are dozens of attorneys out there. Chances are you probably know an attorney. Not every lawyer should be trusted with your case. It’s important that you find an attorney that specializes in family law, has passed the bar, and has experience in dealing with cases like yours.

The attorney that you do hire should be able to give you some basic answers up front. Many people make the mistake of hiring an attorney that looks good on paper, but doesn’t give them the right information from the beginning. Whether it’s their financial policy or their strategy, a good attorney will always be transparent.

Hiring an attorney that you don’t trust

Finally, don’t make the mistake of hiring an attorney that you don’t feel comfortable with. You’re trusting your finances and the future of your family to your chosen lawyer. It’s important that you trust them and feel confident in their ability to represent you.

The Shah Law Group, located in Bethel Park, is your source for legal representation. Our practice was built on the philosophy that each client interaction should be handled carefully and efficiently. We continually strive for exceptional communication and compassion. No matter what your legal issues may be, trust the Shah Law Group to handle them.

Explore your legal options by visiting www.shahlawgroup.com.