Kitty Crutcher’s Legal Blog

More and more cases are coming in that turn into custody battles. Both parents are seeking the right to determine the primary residence of the child. In some cases the parent has legitimate reasons for seeking this exclusive right. One parent may not have spent enough time with the children or have a life style that children should not be around. All of which has to be proven in Court. The legislature in an attempt to stop this issue added the ability for both parents to have the right to designate the residence of the child within a certain geographical area. The problem is that they failed to foresee the issues that this would cause.
What was supposed to make it easier has now made the job more difficult especially in cases where the party seeking custody is only doing so to be mean to the other party and to cause pain and grief, which unfortunately happens a lot.
When you come in for your consultation we help you as much as we can to determine the best way to proceed with your case and how to handle the issues that may come towards you.

With all the recent up roar about Tiger Woods and now Jesse James cheating on their wives I thought maybe I should blog on some of the legal aspects when a spouse cheats. When a spouse cheats it not only breaks the bond of trust it creates a legal mess.
When it is discovered that a spouse has cheated the emotional rollercoaster ride starts for the non-cheating spouse. For some it is easy to choose to walk away, but for others it is an agonizing decision, especially if there are children involved.
Texas is a no fault state when it comes to divorce. What that means is that you do not have to have grounds for a divorce in order to obtain a divorce. However, if a spouse can prove that the other spouse was having an affair then you can plead adultery as a ground for divorce. The purpose for pleading grounds is to ask the court to award you a disproportionate share of the community assets.
There are pitfalls to pleading grounds. You have to have evidence of the infidelity, not just a hunch. Adultery is very difficult to prove. You also have to be willing to tell a court room full of strangers what happened. For some this is the most difficult part because you are still going through the emotional trauma.
While motions are running high it is easy to say I want the world to know what he/she did to me, but once you get into court it is not that easy. You also have to think about what will this do to your family. How do you protect your children?
When you come in for a consultation we listen to what you have to say and then assist you in the best way to handle your legal

I saw an article in the Houston Chronicle about a women in Illinois that is in a custody battle, because the father of her child says her disability keeps her from careing for her child. A little background on this case. The mother while serving in the navy was knocked from a balcony during a huricane and left as a quadriplegic. This happened more than a decade ago. She cannot walk, move her fingers independently, or feel anything from the chest down. Last December she found out she was preganant and now has a five month old son. The father of the baby, a lawyer, states that she is not up to the challenge. Now I have a real problem with this. Most people who know me know that I have a muscle and nerve disease and that I have two children and a grandchild. To say that her disability prevents her from taking care of her child is wrong. Of course he can’t claim this is the only reason because then it would be discrimination. This is a mother who makes over 90k a year and has continous help, her brother lives next door, plus a live in caretaker is there to assist her with the child. Which I believe is no different then a live in nanny. Here is my other problem, this man knew that she was disabled, he is a lawyer so I would assume he knows where babys come from, he conceived a child with a woman who was disabled, now he wants to claim she is unfit. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will keep you updated.

I just received an opinion from the 14th Court of Appeals overturning a Judges decision to sanction a party by firing their lawyer. They didn’t want to fire the lawyer, but the Judge was so upset with the tactics of the lawyer that he sanctioned them by telling them to get a new lawyer. Sorry your honor, you can’t do that. While I agree with the Court the tactics of the lawyer warranted sanctions our code does not allow the Court to fire a lawyer because he abused the discovery process. You have a right to the counsel of your choice. As long as that attorney is in good standing with the bar then you can use them, but becareful and review what your attorney does. You are the one who has to pay the sanctions. In this case the attorney sent out over 31000 request for admissions and over 1000 request for production. It was definitely frivolous and unnecessary, while the attorney may have had a reason it was not appropriate. Especissaly not serving them on an attorney at one time. You see we only have thirty days to answer what the attorney stated took him five weeks to draft. The moral of the story is that you should always know what is going on in your case and be comfortable with what your attorney is doing.

It is that time of the year when the number of divorces start to rise. Christmas is over and the bills are arriving and the tempers are flaring. Don’t get swept up in the drama of it all. There is no need to stay in a marriage that makes you feel blue or worse yet makes you feel violent or ill. Thats when you know it is time to leave and seek the advice of the professionals. I know in these hard economic times that it is probably weighing on your mind that you can do it yourself. Well I can tell you we go to school along time to learn how to do what we do and a do it yourself guide to divorce is not going to help you. In fact it will cost you longer in the end. It is easier to just call an attorney and let them handle everything. A good attorney takes on your stress for you. Allows you to do what you need to do in your everyday life and handles all the drama of it all for you. So don’t let the holiday blues get to you if your marriage is over then give us a call let us walk you through the process and go over with you all the pros and cons of filing for a divorce.