A Good Father vs. Manipulative Mother

I have a few questions regarding my Sister-in-Law's husbands custody case. Please forgive me if I don not use the correct terminology. Also, part of this information is second hand.

First. At the begining of summer the mother of the child sent up her plane tickets, like always, to fly the child down to Texas for the summer. Texas is the state that the mother, non-custodial parent, lives. The child and all of the court case reside in Washington State. However, the tickets were wrong and against the parenting plan. I believe that is has been arranged that the tickets are to be a direct flight. The Child is now 9 years old and has flown to Texas since she was either 3 or 4. The Father of the child refused the tickets in May and sent them back to be changed with plenty of time before she was to leave in June. The mother refused. I believe their lawyer told them not to put the child on the plane until the tickets were corrected. I have a funny feeling that the lawyer was wrong. The mother's lawyer then arranged a confrence court call and the Judge ordered the father to put the child on the plane. What should have happened?

The child was given up to the father by the mother at the age of 2 1/2. He has had custody ever since with the child spending her summers with her mother. My sister-in-law and her husband are very good parents. Do they have to worry about loosing custody?

Second problem. Recently they hired a company to serve court papers to the mother of the child. Some how the compnay messed up. I am not sure how. They apparently didn't do something. But it looks as if it is going to hurt the fathers case. (case-I am not sure what the court cases are for). Is this true? Is so what can they do to fix it. All I know is that a court date set earlier was for the mothers contempt of court. Is there any information that you could shed on this? I will try to find out more from my sister-in-law about what they are doing.


Thank You

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Sister-in-Law
[email protected]

Her is the list of the court dates and what they are for. Anyone, with any advice or just information or explaination of what is going on would be great. The father right now is having a hard time getting a hold of his daughter when he calls. He is not sure if she will be getting off the plane when she is suppose to fly in.

Thanky You,
Sister-In-Law

July 18 Contempt of Court (for failure to pay child support) - continued
by my attorney because Mother avoided process server & was not served until
July 20.

August 8 Contempt of Court (for failure to pay child support) - continued
by Mother's attorney due to him having to be in trial. Commissioner ordered
him to have the Mother appear in 7 days.

August 15 Contempt of Court (for failure to pay child support) - continued
by Mother's attorney due to him claiming that neither him nor the Mother were
served with continuance. Process server doesn't know if it was served or
not.

August 22 Show Cause for Major Modification of Parenting Plan (to shorten
summer visitation & add restrictions for method of travel & exact time frame
for visitation) - ?

Sept. 1 Contempt of Court (for failure to pay child support) - ?

Are you implying that the tickets were not direct ?? is so, what arrangements are there for looking after the child between flights ?

Actually the reason that they refused the tickets was because they brought her back home one week too late. The child is come home two weeks before school starts as stated in the parenting plan. I was confused earlier. They are going to adjust the parenting plan to include direct flights, because the child is terrified of flying and the last time the childs luggage was lost and she thought at the time that it meant the she was lost too. The tickets were refused in May and the child's flight was at the end of June.
Thank you for replying.

Just a note that they recieved a continuance on the August 22 court date. Still working on trying to serve the mother. She seems to be be able to avoid being served before any of the court dates.

Please help shed some light on what is happening!

[This message has been edited by sister_in_law (edited August 24, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by sister_in_law (edited August 24, 2000).]