In my last post, I started discussing my experiences with Family Court in Manhattan, specifically, Support court.
I left off with a summary of how our original support order was determined, and mentioned that what I had been dealing with over the past year or so had been a nightmare.
Early last Spring, after a slow deterioration of that amicable co-parenting relationship my ex and I had, we both determined that our current child care arrangement, of him spending business hours with our daughter in my apartment, was no longer working. For now, I won't say too much as far as why. I don't want to bash my ex excessively in this space. We had this arrangement in place for a number of reasons - the two biggest being a) childcare is expensive. We already worked opposite schedules, it made sense for him to keep watching her during the day while I worked to save us both money and b) he didn't live somewhere suitable to take a small child. However, after a year and a half of this arrangement, it was time for full time childcare.
I handled finding the full-time childcare. I guess that process requires a separate post, so I'll just summarize by saying that I found a reasonably priced, safe preschool. It was close to home, I liked the teachers and the director, Audrey seemed to like it, and the hours were perfect. And although reasonably priced by Manhattan standards, it was expensive by rest-of-the-world standards, by not-on-a-six-figure-income standards. My ex refused to pay willingly, and was certain that he would not be obligated to pay anything by the court.
This is where the fun with family court started. I filed a modification petition using the online DIY form. I brought this form in to the petition center on the first floor of 60 Lafayette. They created the petition, gave me my court date and asked who would serve my ex. I could have tried to do it myself, but the family court can have the sheriff's office do it when a violation is also involved (which it was, in this case - he also had an arrears balance) so I chose that option.
We appeared before a magistrate. I learned that a more senior judge/magistrate handles initial orders, and then future changes to that order are dispersed to other magistrates. The magistrate we were stuck with is awful. I googled her after several bad experiences, and found numerous complaints about her behavior.The general consensus was that she was rude, snippy, sarcastic and didn't seem to care about her job. I have NO problem naming the magistrate in the future, but until I get off her service, I think doing so could only screw me more. So for now, let's call her She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Our appearance was at the end of July, a month before Audrey would start preschool. I wanted to get the payments set up for when she started school, rather than start the long process when I was already shelling out the large expense on my own. However, the magistrate declined to set anything up, and simply told my ex to pay his share, even though the original order clearly indicated childcare expenses were to be paid through the SCU, not directly to me. I attempted to explain to her that I knew he refused to pay, which is why I was there. I even tried to show her a printed screenshot of a text message in which he states he will not pay. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't look at it. She didn't even ask him if he intended to pay. If she had, he would have said no.
At the time, I didn't have a lawyer, so I didn't know what to do next. I attempted to ask She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named what I was to do when September 1 rolled around and he still wasn't paying. She wouldn't answer me. So sure enough, on the first business day of September, my daughter's first day of preschool, I refiled. Our court date was to be in October. We got to court only to find out the magistrate had called out sick. We weren't given any prior notification of this. I had taken the morning off work, and wasted hours of my time. We were rescheduled for November.
By our November date, I had hired a lawyer. I hired the lawyer not because I thought my ex had a case, but because She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named clearly didn't take me seriously, and I felt I needed someone "on my side" to help me deal with her blatant disrespect and disregard for what was fair, or necessary for my child's well-being. We informed She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that my ex was still refusing to pay, so she set a trial date. According to her, her first available date was four months later. I didn't believe this at all, I simply saw it as another way for her to show her bias against me. My lawyer asked for relief in the meantime, which was denied. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did suggest to my ex that he pay some additional amount in the meantime, because whatever she did award me in childcare would date back to the date of my filing, resulting in an arrears balance right away. A suggestion. Right. If anything but court enforced action worked, I wouldn't be there in the first place, lady.
By the date of our next appearance, four months later, my ex was not only not contributing anything extra towards childcare, but had stopped paying even his basic obligation. Our initial trial date finally came, and guess what was postponed? According to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's clerk, they were still catching up on cases that had been postponed due to snowstorms the week before, and our court date was now scheduled for 7 weeks later, in April. This is where I'll leave you for now. Stay tuned, the ridiculousness continues.
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