Ventura California Family Law Blog

I am disgusted. Utterly disgusted. Not with my client, or even opposing party (scoundrel that he is). I am disgusted with my client’s prior attorney’s failure to protect her interest in retirement accounts acquired during marriage, but held solely in husband’s name. I am disgusted with prior counsel’s failure, over a period of years, to subpoena the records to prove the existence of the money, or to even serve basic discovery. I am disgusted with prior counsel’s utter failure to send so much as a NOTICE OF ADVERSE INTEREST to the holder of the funds - even more disgusted that the fund was never joined to the action, which would have prevented Husband from accessing a dime of that money without a court order, and would have prevented Wife’s tremendous and irrecoverable loss.

I’m feeling discouraged today. This isn’t a scenario about any one client, because, hey - duty of confidentiality here. But recent events have made me remember... In the early days of a Restraining Order proceeding, I simply don’t have as much authority over my clients as does a spouse or lover who’s willing to play dirty and hold out false hope to my client.

We have seen many, many cases in which fathers have come to us, distraught with the sudden discovery that the child (sometimes children) they’d known and loved was not their own. This type of betrayal cuts deep: at one and the same time, these men learned their child was not “of my loins,” to quote a very early client of mine, and that the woman they had loved and trusted had been unfaithful. Sometimes the betrayal cuts so deep that the man wants nothing to do with the child. Other times the man recognizes he loves the child as his own, regardless of actual parentage.

One of my favorite movies is Galaxy Quest, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and a great supporting cast. The movie more or less posits: What if Star Trek were real? What if an alien species received broadcasts of Star Trek and decided to model their society after those “historical documents?” And what if that species then came here, to contact the Captain, and get his help – and that of the crew?

I had the strangest phone call today... A few years ago, I represented a nice guy and successful entrepreneur in his California divorce. The case involved the full range of issues: custody, child support, spousal support, a business, real property... pretty much everything except domestic violence. He was a great client: always polite, always followed our advice, always communicated well with us, always paid his bill. He was NOT always happy; he WAS going through a nasty court proceeding - but he was always reasonable, knew what he wanted, and was willing to understand the law as it applied to the facts in play. We got good results for him, and he got on with his life.

This will be a difficult topic. I’ve had this on my list of “blog ideas” for about two years but have frankly lacked the courage to write on this topic - I am afraid I would lose business. But. This is important. Many, many clients go to initial interviews with an attorney or three and choose the attorney who tells them what they want to hear. “He’ll never see those kids again.” “You’ll get half of everything he has even though you’ve only been married three years.” “Why should you pay support for your wife of thirty years who’s never worked and who has MS?” “Nah, you don’t have stop drinking/drugs to keep your kids.” And so on.

My partner, Patricia Lamas, has pulled off three successful defenses to false domestic violence claims in the last month. And by that I mean, three IN A ROW. All three cases kicked off at the beginning of the 2019 calendar year; all three went to trial in the last 30-40 days. All three cases involved clients who came to us after the Temporary Restraining Order was issued by the Court. All three cases involved clients who swore their accuser was lying. All three cases looked like losers when the clients signed with us, in that - apparently - the accusing party must have gone down a list of bad actions and alleged our client had done each and every one of them. The declarations were, quite frankly, harrowing.

One of the areas of practice many Family Law attorneys end up exploring is Dependency Law - you can think of Dependency Law as involving custodial disputes that are so bad the police and social workers get involved, and the Court removes a child (or children) from a dangerous environment.

Those cases often attract or involve Family Law attorneys, because they deal with custody and there’s significant crossover in the law between the Family Code, the Welfare & Institutions Code, and the cases decided under both Codes.

And - frankly - Dependency Law is tempting. Everyone wants to rescue kids, right?

Many years ago, when I was a young and impressionable law student, I recall watching a case play out in our local Family Law court. That judge has since retired, but the story has stayed with me all these years. It’s worth sharing.

It all started when two people fell in love when at their wedding they were gifted with an extraordinarily expensive bottle of tequila. As I recall it was a Patron of some type... I don’t recall the series. At the time of the marriage, the bottle purportedly was valued at $125.

The couple was so thrilled with the gift that they vowed to hang onto that bottle and save it for some significant date in the future.

I am going to discuss, here, two statutory schemes for reimbursement of a party’s own money applied to another party’s obligations, usually paid during the course of the relationship.

If you were married...

The easiest of these two statutes to apply is Family Code Section 920, which allows for a spouse to recover half on the funds paid during the marriage for the separate debts or obligations of the other spouse. This is a marital reimbursement right and requires marriage to have occurred for Family Code section 920 to be applicable.

One of the great and continuing tragedies often played out in Family Court is one party’s pledge to “destroy” the other if he or she chooses to leave the relationship. Sometimes that is just an empty threat, one party’s desperate attempt to induce the other to stay - most often, once the relationship is over, the threatening party doesn’t take any steps to carry out his/her evil plan.

As promised, this segment will deal with the effect of the changes in Domestic Violence statutes, which became effective on January 1, 2019, on the property rights of the parties.

To the extent you believe spousal support affects your property - it certainly affects your paycheck! - please refer to Part 1 of 3 of this series of posts. This is limited to the new laws’ impacts on characterization and distribution of the community property estate.

Adults who depend on caregivers in order to have a good quality of life can be physically dependent, emotionally dependent, or both. With dependence comes an intrinsic amount of vulnerability that can make adults at risk for abuse and neglect.

If you have a loved one who is dependent on care, you may be concerned about their risk of neglect. In addition, you may have had observations that give you a cause for concern. In this situation, it is important that you take the time to understand what type of treatment counts as abuse, and how it can be recognized.