"Custody hearing"

[LdiJ]

Our master's hearing is scheduled for three hours in a few weeks. Grandma's lawyer filed a motion for a full day hearing since there will be at least a total of 10 witnesses and our attorney agreed. The court today denied the request. Grandma's attorney successfully delayed our motion to dismiss hearing for five weeks so maybe the court looked at that and said once is enough? I don't know but the petition was filed in December and all we've had so far was the MTD hearing which was no more than 15 minutes. So in a way I'm glad the court denied the request because I want this case to go forward. The sooner the better.

Does three hours seem long enough for the master to decide with that many witnesses, or is there a good chance it won't be enough time and we'll have to come back another day to finish up?

I think that you are either going to end up coming back, or that the judge will decline to hear all the witnesses, or cut some of the testimony back it if appears repiticious.

 

[Intact family]

It's outside your control, but given the choice, I'd go the other way. While it's annoying to have things up in the air, the longer you are going with no orders (and presumably not letting the kids see grandma), the less of a case she has. Assuming the kids continue to do well in school, etc, then it's hard to make a case for them being damaged. And the status quo (not seeing grandma) becomes even more firmly entrenched.

However, I understand the desire to have it over with. It sounds like most of the things have gone in your favor so far. Their expert is a minor concern, but since their expert will not have any contact with the kids and yours has, that should go in your favor. It looks like very good odds for you, although you never know when a judge will do something boneheaded like "grandma didn't really establish harm, but giving her some limited visitation won't harm the kids so I'm going to allow it". That would likely be reversible on appeal, but that's time consuming and expensive.

That's why I think that any further delays actually work in your favor.

I've told my wife the same thing, that any delays grandma's attorney asks for only harms their case, so I don't know why he would want to do that. Still, I am anxious to get on with the case because as you said it is very frustrating, to say the least.

Our circuit court has a system where they try to resolve the majority of family law cases within 12 months, and the more complicated ones within 18 months. Our case is on the 12 month track, which would give us until the end of the year.

Whichever side loses will want to have an exceptions hearing on the master's findings, so that will take some more time. Then the losing side will try to appeal, so add another 6 or 8 months for that at least. If this ends up in appeals court we are talking at least another year before this case is settled for good.

 

[LdiJ]

I've told my wife the same thing, that any delays grandma's attorney asks for only harms their case, so I don't know why he would want to do that. Still, I am anxious to get on with the case because as you said it is very frustrating, to say the least.

Our circuit court has a system where they try to resolve the majority of family law cases within 12 months, and the more complicated ones within 18 months. Our case is on the 12 month track, which would give us until the end of the year.

Whichever side loses will want to have an exceptions hearing on the master's findings, so that will take some more time. Then the losing side will try to appeal, so add another 6 or 8 months for that at least. If this ends up in appeals court we are talking at least another year before this case is settled for good.

The good part is however, that you will be in the driver's seat that whole time...if it comes to that.

 

[mistoffolees]

I think that you are either going to end up coming back, or that the judge will decline to hear all the witnesses, or cut some of the testimony back it if appears repiticious.

Likely the latter. 10 witnesses is absurd - considering that none of them are likely to be people who have contact with the kids. About the third person who says "I've known grandma for years and she's a nice lady", the judge is going to get angry.

 

[Intact family]

Likely the latter. 10 witnesses is absurd - considering that none of them are likely to be people who have contact with the kids. About the third person who says "I've known grandma for years and she's a nice lady", the judge is going to get angry.

Most of her 5 witnesses (not including her expert) will be like that, as none of her witnesses know the kids well, or have seen them in the last year. The most they'll be able to say is "Me and my granddaughter went to the movies with grandma and her grandkids two or three times, and they seemed to have a good relationship." That will come from her strongest lay witness.

I know 10 witnesses seems absurd but the latest GPV case in MD, the one I referred to in post # 46, had at least 10 or 12 witnesses on each side. And that's not including the plaintiffs and defendants. The trial occurred over two consecutive days. Then, the parties had to wait two more months just to get a third day so the attorneys could do the closing arguments.

We shall see.....

 

[Intact family]

Some surprising but good news today. Received a call from our attorney's paralegal and it turns out that grandma has decided to withdraw her complaint, something I thought she would never do. It's not official yet and she still has the weekend to change her mind so I am looking at this news with guarded optimism. I don't think we've heard the last from her as it wouldn't surprise me if she has some other plan up her sleeve and most likely it isn't reconciliation. Maybe her lawyer finally convinced her that her chances were nil, at best.

 

[liandrajade]

Some surprising but good news today. Received a call from our attorney's paralegal and it turns out that grandma has decided to withdraw her complaint, something I thought she would never do. It's not official yet and she still has the weekend to change her mind so I am looking at this news with guarded optimism. I don't think we've heard the last from her as it wouldn't surprise me if she has some other plan up her sleeve and most likely it isn't reconciliation. Maybe her lawyer finally convinced her that her chances were nil, at best.

Well I hope its true and guess what, if she does withdraw then you use that against her as further proof of her nonsense. It goes to show her credibility is weak if she withdraws now and then tries something else later. It shows a pattern of behavior much like what I had in my case. Good luck and let us know how it goes...