LEGAL BLOGS…ASK A QUESTION…

1993’s Family and Medical Leave Act took an unprecedented step in the United States by ensuring that employees–at least, those working for companies with 50 or more employees–could take up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for medical or family needs without losing their jobs. The flaw in the plan, of course, was that many American workers simply can’t take that kind of time off work and survive. While the promise of a job to return to after illness or family crisis is very important, it’s meaningless in a practical sense if the employee has no means to take that time off and still pay the rent and put food on the table.

Now, Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn) have introduced a bill that would establish mandatory insurance coverage for up to eight weeks of paid leave in such circumstances. In its current form, the bill provides for a sliding scale benefits, so that those at the lowest end of the income spectrum would receive full salary, while those at the higher end would receive only a percentage.

Dozens of other countries guarantee paid paternity leave and paid time off for parents with sick children, and more than 150 countries already guarantee paid leave for women for childbirth.

Samantha’s Question: If there is no court order in place, can one parent stop the other one from seeing the child (my daughter’s father is refusing to allow me to contact her. I have been her primary care giver since birth, we have a parenting plan which he has gone against, but it was not lodged with the court)?

Brette’s Answer: If there is no order of custody, each parent has an equal right to the child. You need to file an emergency petition for custody it sounds like.

Katie’s Question: My ex husband and I have 50/50 joint custody, but my kids primary residence is his home. He is mad at me because I wont get intimate with him, so now he won’t let me see my kids unless he is there. Their grandmother watches them during the day. If I go pick them up at there grandmas, can he turn me in for kidnapping?

Brette’s Answer: If he is interfering with your right to visitation, then you should file a violation in court. Doing this is called custodial interference and can be the grounds for a change in custody. If you pick them from his mother’s house, he cannot say you kidnapped them if you are exercising your court ordered visitation rights. I think you need to go back to court to get this straightened out.

Melissa’s Question: Our divorce decree states that my ex gets the kids for 2 weeks out of every summer, but I have always been lenient since he is in the military and does not see them any other time during the rest of the year. This year I let them go for 4 weeks, and when I tried to ask him where we should meet to pick them up (he lives 5 states away) he said he was not going to let them come home for 3 more weeks! What can I do to get them back?

Brette’s Answer: You can file a violation with the court that ordered the visitation. You could also contact the police or perhaps his commanding officer and show them the order which he has clearly violated.

Cindy’s Question: I have sole custody of our 17 year old son. My ex of 3 years has visitation and is letting our son run around all hours of the night with no supervision. My son went to visit his dad four months ago, and refuses to come back home. What can I do, and how can I keep my son at my house. My ex lives only 2 miles away.

Brette’s Answer: At age 17 there is not an awful lot you can do. Even if you go to court for violating the order and the judge orders your ex to bring him back, making your son stay is difficult. You can try going back to court if you want to try something.

Will my custody papers be enforced if he threatens to keep our son?

Theresa’s Question: My son is 3 years old, and I have sole physical custody. His father takes him for 4 weeks each summer and lives 5 states away. He is threatening not to give him back. Will my divorce decree and custody papers be enforced in another state.

Brette’s Answer: Yes they will be enforced. Based on that threat, you can seek to have his visitation reduced.

When Your Ex Doesn’t Comply With the Visitation Schedule

Melissa’s Question: Our divorce decree states that my ex gets the kids for 2 weeks out of every summer, but I have always been lenient since he is in the military and does not see them any other time during the rest of the year. This year I let them go for 4 weeks, and when I tried to ask him where we should meet to pick them up (he lives 5 states away) he said he was not going to let them come home for 3 more weeks! What can I do to get them back?

Brette’s Answer: You can file a violation with the court that ordered the visitation. You could also contact the police or perhaps his commanding officer and show them the order which he has clearly violated.

Holder_Eric_070427 President-elect Barack Obama will officially nominate Covington & Burling partner Eric H. Holder Jr. to be attorney general sometime after Thanksgiving, Politico.com reports. Obama is satisfied that the Senate will confirm Holder despite plans by Republicans to grill him about his role in President Clinton’s last-minute pardon of international financier Marc Rich. (See our previous coverage.)

But even as Holder appears likely to become the nation’s next attorney general, opposition to his appointment is being heard from an unlikely array of critics from the left and the right. Among those who oppose Holder’s appointment:

* The right. The Republican Liberty Caucus says: “For years, Eric Holder has worked to degrade our civil liberties and weaken the Constitution and the values on which our nation was founded.”

* The left. TalkLeft is not happy about Holder’s efforts while U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., “to raise marijuana penalties and restore mandatory minimum penalties for drug crimes.”

* The legalization lobby. NORML Blog expresses concern about Holder’s “long history of opposing drug policy reforms, perceiving cannabis smoking by adults as a public nuisance worthy of constant harassment, promoting violent governmental intervention into the private lives of citizens who consume cannabis.”

* Free speech advocates. The Legal Satyricon says Holder “has a censorship goon past.” NewsBusters suggests Holder would “stifle free speech on the internet.”

* Civil libertarians. The blog Wizbang Blue accuses Holder of “pandering to religious right organizations” on separation of church and state.

Even legendary trial lawyer Gerry Spence is not pleased. Calling him “Eric Holden,” Spence says that when a lawyer works long enough for big corporations, as Holder did as partner at a corporate law firm, “the human psyche begins to dry up and one day will fall out on the carpet of the boardroom floor … like a dried up old prune.” Let us just hope that doesn’t happen until after the confirmation hearings.

Kingsley Guy writes for the South Florida Sentinel Sun:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist had some savvy advice for his Republican colleagues during the recent Republican Governors Association conference in Miami.

“You have to be inclusive,” Crist said. “You have to work for a big tent. That’s about as obvious as the nose on your face.”

Yet, it’s amazing how many Republicans can’t tell their noses from their tightly shut eyes. Unless GOP leaders, across the board, open their eyes and work to broaden the GOP base, the party could find itself relegated to permanent minority status.

Among those whom the GOP must welcome into the tent are Hispanic voters. George W. Bush and his brother Jeb recognized this. Strong support among Hispanics, the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, helped them win the governorships of Texas and Florida respectively, and for George W., the presidency.

Exit polls indicate that in the 2004 presidential race, President Bush may have won as much as 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2008, the Hispanic vote for GOP candidate John McCain nose-dived to about 31 percent.

The GOP should find the Hispanic defection in Florida particularly troubling. Historically, Republican presidential candidates have carried the Hispanic electorate, for years dominated by Cuban-Americans who supported the GOP’s tough-on-Castro policies. Attitudes are changing, however.

In the 2004 presidential election, 56 percent of Florida’s Hispanic voters chose Bush. This year, 57 percent went for Barack Obama.

The divisive immigration debate, more than anything, soured Hispanic voters on the GOP. Near the end of his first term, President Bush presented a plan for immigration reform that offered a road to legalized status for immigrants living illegally in the United States. Bush’s plan recognized the legitimate labor needs of the country.