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Everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another edition of Family Law Matters. And today, I’m joined, of course, with Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, the founder and managing partner of Primus Family Law Group. Hi, Bonnie.

Hi, Michael. How are you doing today? Great. And we have a very special member of the Primus Family Law team.

Hello, Koryn. Hello. I’m so excited, Michael.

Koryn Shepherd is one of the most amazing attorneys in San Diego. And for some reason, she agrees to work with me. So I am so happy that we were able to get her to take some time with us today.

Great. And I am too. I know, Koryn, because I’ve worked with the team for so many years.

Today, we’re going to talk about an interesting topic. Couple’s divorced. They have children.

And one member of the couple decides on his or her own, I’m moving away. I’m taking the kids and I’m leaving. Koryn, have you ever heard of that happen before? Yes.

Probably, I’d say, unfortunately, it does happen frequently. You have families that split and sometimes one of the two parents have relatives that live in another state. And they, as often people do, want to move closer to their family members.

And so, you know, one parent wants to stay here where they’re, you know, they have a home, they have a life. And then the other one needs needs or wants to move back to where they originally came from. And do they do they pay attention to how the children might feel? And do you get psychologists or therapists, social workers involved? What’s the law? How does this play out? It’s a lot of questions with a lot of answers.

I mean, so, I mean, it’s a big, it’s a big one. I can tell you that most judges will tell you that that move away cases are the hardest cases that they have to judge. Because, of course, somebody gets left behind.

So there’s always a sense of loss in these cases, even in the best of circumstances. But the court has to consider a few things. First, they have to consider what is the timeshare between the parents? Is this a situation where they have a joint custody arrangement? If they do, that actually makes the considerations a bit easier for the court, because really, then the court only has to think about what is in the children’s best interests.

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Now, that seems simple. But of course, all kinds of factors can come into play with kids best interests. So, I mean, just about anything you can think of in the world can affect a child’s best interest.

And every family and every child is different. So that could look very different, just depending on the family and their needs. You asked about the children’s preferences and whether they consider that.

They can and they do. When the child becomes age 14, they are obligated to take the child’s preferences into consideration. Of course, how much weight they put into it can depend on a few things, like how mature is that child? Is this a situation where the child has been in a custody arrangement for a while and this is a modification? Because then the child’s preferences weigh a little more heavily than if it’s an initial determination, because the court feels that the child’s lived with a circumstance for a while and then can make an informed decision.

So age, obviously a factor, maturity, a factor, modification, a factor, those kinds of things. What you seem to be saying is, you know, the court has a bunch of things that they consider, but it’s not necessarily a cookie cutter template kind of thing. Sure.

Especially on a best interest, because a best interest is such a wide universe of factors. It’s really a totality of the circumstances kind of issue. People always want to know about, you know, when do my kids get to say what they want? I usually tell people never.

I mean, your kids don’t get to pick. They’re your children and how often do you let them make decisions? Like, I don’t feel like going to school or do my homework or eat the broccoli. They don’t get to choose.

They just get to have their opinions weighed. So then once you move past that joint arrangement, you know, there’s other arrangements, right? Like there’s one where somebody’s a primary and someone has a smaller timeshare. That’s a bit different.

When you have a situation like that, where somebody is primary and somebody is not, or you’re talking about an initial custody determination, so there’s no determination yet, the factors just change. And so if you have a primary care parent, they actually have a presumptive right to relocate with the And the reason for that is, is the courts really heavily value keeping and maintaining the status quo for the children in terms of their custodial parents. Now, visitation can change.

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Wait a second. That’s really important, Koryn. Michael, hear that? A presumptive right to move just because somehow in your agreement or your judgment, you have more time with the children, maybe because the other party works 16 hours a day, and they can’t have the children on that kind of basis.

So the parent gets a presumptive right to move. That’s huge. Now, in cases where there’s a 50-50 custody, the primary residence is shared, both parents work, and one parent remarries and decides, I’m moving out of state, and says, too bad, ex-husband, ex-wife.

I’m going, and I’m taking the kids. What happens then? So the court will go through what we call the Lama Shea and Burgess factors. These are two cases.

I know it’s a weird thing to call them, but like a lot of things in law, we just call things by the case name from which they are born. So these are a list of factors that the court considers. And off the top of my head, the ones that I can remember are the kids’ age, the distance of the move, the relationship between the parents themselves, the relationship between the parent and the children, their timeshare, that kind of thing, family ties, and other ties to their community.

Why they’re moving. Because sometimes parents have less than altruistic reasons for wanting to move. They want to move to go away, and they don’t want that parent involved.

All of these things are factors the court will consider. The court does have to consider that, yes. Corinne, let me ask you another question.

It’s related to this, and I know we’re getting short on time, but very quickly, let’s suppose it’s not about a move away, but one parent decides, when I have the kids, I’m taking them to Europe on a vacation. Lucky. Take me instead.

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That depends on which side of the desk you’re on. But in any case, can the parent then, I mean, this is not a move away, but this is a parent deciding, I’m taking the kids away on a long vacation. Can the parent do that? The courts get involved in something like that? They can.

Usually, if you’ve already got orders, a lot of times embedded in your orders are vacations and the notice that you have to give. Usually, it’s something like anywhere between 60 and 30 days of notice about your vacation itinerary and that kind of a thing. Obviously, if you have joint legal custody, then we’re talking about passport issues, and everybody has the right to maybe have one of the passports if you have multiple kids or that kind of thing.

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But generally speaking, you’re allowed to go on vacation with kids, including international vacations. Usually, it’s a notice requirement. It’s not a permission requirement.

Some orders may have a permission requirement for out of country travel, but standard orders are that they don’t need permission. They are just allowed to travel. If you don’t have orders yet, possibly someone would run in and say, go on an ex-party or have an order shortening time to have a motion heard quickly if they know something’s coming up.

If you had a really, really good reason to prevent the visit, for example, you had some concern that the parent really wasn’t going to return, i.e. they bought a one-way ticket. They don’t have any ticket back, but they assure you, don’t worry, I’ll be back. Or they’re taking them somewhere kind of dangerous, somewhere where there might be some sort of conflicts going on.

Then, of course, that would be a justification to go in and say, hey, for the children’s safety, we need some orders here, we need some protections here, so you could do something like that. But that’s also what the notice requirement is for, so that if you do have a problem with the planned itinerary, you can go to this is why I object, this is why this is a problem, I need you to make some orders. And this is why we like to say Primus Family Law Group is where experience meets results, because, folks, you can hear the experience coming from this incredible professional, Koryn Shepard.

Bonnie, if people want to reach the Primus Family Law Group to get some more information and speak with team members as astute as Koryn, how can they do that? Well, you can always reach us at 619-574-8000. And Malani will get you on to our calendars for a consult to see how we can help you. Or you can reach out to us at www.primusfamilylaw.com and fill out a form there.

Sounds terrific. Bonnie, Koryn, thanks for a wonderful edition of Family Law Matters. We’ll see you next week.

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Thanks, Michael.