The appellate division recently made new law. For years many Judges regularly denied a child’s relocation. However, a thoughtful referee in the Bronx, after listening to the evidence granted a child’s relocation to California, and the appellate division upheld her decision. This is an extremely important case. Please read it and be amazed.
The case was: Alaire K. G., Petitioner-Respondent v. Anthony P. G., Respondent-Appellant, 3583
The court originally granted the petition of the mother to modify the terms of her divorce agreement. The mother was then allowed to relocated from The Bronx to California. Although the relocation was appealed, the court ultimately upheld the original decision. The mother and paternal father of the child had only been married about a year and a half before they were separated and then divorced. The child in question was six years old at the time the mother petitioned for a relocation. The original divorce agreement held that the mother would possess both legal and physical custody of the child. The father of the child was allowed visitation privileges three days a week. In the original divorce agreement held that the mother and the child would not be allowed to relocate further than 25 miles away from the father’s house.
At the time of the petition to relocate, the father was not employed. In fact, he had a history of inconsistent employment. The mother remarried and had another child with her second husband and did not work because she made the decision to be a full-time mother. Before the mother remarried and had her second child, she was living in Bronx with her child and began working for a construction company. When she met her boyfriend, she moved with him and the child to Connecticut in order to give him a better life and a “suburban upbringing.” The mother and her son eventually moved back to New York into an apartment in Harlem.
Some time later, the mother became engaged to her future husband and contemplated moving with him to California. The child’s paternal father opposed the move over concerns that the relationship was not stable and that California was too far away for him to maintain a relationship with the child. The father attempted to gain custody of the child, but the mother protested. By this point, the mother had already moved to California without her son, claiming that her plans were irreversible and she was left with no choice but to leave her child with his father. It took nearly a year for the court to issue a decision, but they eventually granted the mother’s relocation.
In this particular case, and all others like it, the court considered the following factors: each parents reason for the relocation or opposing the relocation, the child’s relationship with each of their parents, the impact the move would have on the child and the child’s relationship with each parent, the degree of economic, emotional and educational benefit the move would have on all parties involved and how feasible preserving the familial relationships would be post-relocation.
To read about this case in further detail, please click here.