by Mary Catherine Langley, Esquire – Seymour Law Firm, PLLC

If you’re no stranger to this column, you may notice that there’s a new name at the top of it this week – I work alongside Tina at Seymour Law Firm as her new associate attorney, and she’s handed me the reigns for this week’s column. Since I focus my practice in family law, I thought I’d share a few thoughts from my side of the fun in our office.

I want to talk about one of the most avoidable mistakes I see clients make in dealing with child custody issues… the mistake of failing to be informed. Let me give you a scenario.

A client comes in because their ex isn’t following their child custody order – failing to pay for the child’s expenses, failing to follow the visitation schedule, talking about things they shouldn’t be talking about around the kid – you name it, we’ve heard it.

Once I’ve gotten the full story, I ask the client if they’ve done anything themselves to violate the custody order… and I prepare myself for the answer. Silence. That deer-in-the headlights look on their face. And finally, they manage to get the words out… “I’m not sure, I’d have to read through it again.”

In my head, I’m hearing nails on a chalkboard. I print out their custody order and wait fearfully to find out the damage as the client reads through it.

After minutes of trying to decipher from their facial expressions if they’re relieved or nauseated, they finally speak up… “I didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to (XYZ).”

So, here’s the problem… in the legal world, we have what’s called the doctrine of “unclean hands.”

To put it for you in non-legalese, this means that if you’re coming to the court because someone else isn’t doing what they’re supposed to do, you better not have violated the law/court order yourself.

Thus, in the context of a child custody order, if you’re in contempt for violating some provision in the order yourself, it’s going to be difficult to take your ex to court when they violate the same (or a different) provision of the same order. We often tell clients who are wanting to pursue a contempt action that we want to come to court with the “cleanest hands possible.”

This means that when we take your case to court, we want to make sure that you haven’t done anything against the custody agreement that would make it more difficult for you to receive a full recovery for your ex’s contempt. Because when we go to court and a contempt action turns into a finger-pointing blame-game coming from both sides, it gets much more difficult to convince the judge that the opposing party should be punished for their failure to follow the court’s orders, but our client, who also violated the court’s orders, shouldn’t.

So, how do you avoid this situation and protect your right to hold your ex accountable in court if they’re in contempt?

The answer is simple – you treat that custody order as the bible.

You should be familiar with every single provision in your custody order, so that you can ensure you are always in compliance.

You should always have a copy of the order accessible so that you can check back with it if you’re unsure of something. And while it may be tempting to get back at your ex when they’ve violated the order, this is only going to hurt you in the long run – because in the judge’s eyes, your ex’s contempt won’t excuse any contempt on your part that follows.

Your best way to hold them accountable for their wrongdoing will be to take them to court with a winning contempt case, which can only happen if you yourself have clean hands when it comes to having followed the custody order.

The moral of this story is this – be familiar with your custody order. Know it like the back of your hand… and make sure you aren’t violating that order in any way, so that you can take your ex to court and win if they’re in contempt.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions at (228)224-6781 or editor@thegazebogazette.com.