Family Law

Actions of Step-Siblings May Alter Visitation

As often happens, divorced parents will marry another person that has children.  When this happens, both spouses and their children are considered part of the same home environment for determining child custody and visitation issues.  In other words, if you marry again after your divorce, your new spouse’s actions, and the actions of his or her children, will be considered relevant for purposes of determining the “best interests” of your children for custody and visitation purposes.  So if your ex-spouse takes you back to court to try to modify custody or visitation, be prepared for your new spouse and his/her children to be under the microscope.

In this case from the Arkansas Court of Appeals last week, the court upheld the decision of the trial judge that modified a parent’s visitation based on his stepsons behavior.

http://courts.state.ar.us/opinions/2007a/20070207/ca06-756.pdf

From Kevin Hickey Law Blog posted 2007-02-19.