Improperly served by mother among other things

[superlildipper]

Oregon

To be clear: I am not the mom or dad. I am the dad's girlfriend and just had a couple questions since he can't afford an attorney and this seemed to be a good resource.

To sum up everything quickly: Mom had a restraining order on dad, they have an almost three year old son, mom has full custody, mom was told twice by family court judge she would be found in contempt of court if she did not stop following/calling dad, the restraining order expired in the end of May (18th/19th), mom immediately starts calling multiple times a day, completely changes her mind about letting their son have unsupervised visits at dad's parent's (their son's grandparents) house (which she would not allow at all during any family court hearing b/c of a dog at said house).

From there things got very bad; miscommunication led to her multiple times saying "you're never seeing your son again", then two days later "don't you want to be in your son's life." This lead to dad filing parenting time modification forms. The officer who tried repeatedly to serve her and sent two letters; first, a man open the door and lied saying she did not live there anymore. Second, officer states "subject is avoiding." Eventually dad's dad served the papers on the 2nd this month, legally. Last night mom came to dad's house and as dad opened the door to dump the recycling handed him the papers (served him personally).

In this case what should dad do? Does mom need to have someone else serve the papers? When dad had his dad serve mom there was a three layered serving paper (stating when, who, etc. served the papers) and it needs to be signed before a notary at the court house so how would mom even get that turned in?

 

[BL]

Oregon

To be clear: I am not the mom or dad. I am the dad's girlfriend and just had a couple questions since he can't afford an attorney and this seemed to be a good resource.

To sum up everything quickly: Mom had a restraining order on dad, they have an almost three year old son, mom has full custody, mom was told twice by family court judge she would be found in contempt of court if she did not stop following/calling dad, the restraining order expired in the end of May (18th/19th), mom immediately starts calling multiple times a day, completely changes her mind about letting their son have unsupervised visits at dad's parent's (their son's grandparents) house (which she would not allow at all during any family court hearing b/c of a dog at said house).

From there things got very bad; miscommunication led to her multiple times saying "you're never seeing your son again", then two days later "don't you want to be in your son's life." This lead to dad filing parenting time modification forms. The officer who tried repeatedly to serve her and sent two letters; first, a man open the door and lied saying she did not live there anymore. Second, officer states "subject is avoiding." Eventually dad's dad served the papers on the 2nd this month, legally. Last night mom came to dad's house and as dad opened the door to dump the recycling handed him the papers (served him personally).

In this case what should dad do? Does mom need to have someone else serve the papers? When dad had his dad serve mom there was a three layered serving paper (stating when, who, etc. served the papers) and it needs to be signed before a notary at the court house so how would mom even get that turned in?

Dad had papers served for parenting time , so what's Mom's papers about .

Mom could have someone else lie and state they served Dad,but Dad should chalenge it those paper's are entered in to summon's /records.

 

[FlyingRon]

Service must be made by a competent adult not a party to the suit. Yes, mom's service on dad is probably invalid, but since he has the papers, he'll have to ask himself (or his attorney) what good there is in trying to contest service. At most it will be a delaying tactic until someone serves him properly. Service isn't all that difficult, substituted service can be used even if someone is hiding from the process server.

Since they're going to court anyhow, it's not clear what separate issue mom has in her suit.

 

[superlildipper]

Thank you both very much. I forgot to mention; Dad was asking for his unsupervised days, no verbal contact (instead write important things like meals, bathroom, etc. in a notebook to hand off at pick up/drop off) and third party pick up/drop off at a store with cameras. He's very tired of the he said/she said stuff. She just said he violated probation and it should stick to what the court approved (in the current custody agreement) which was supervised visits with mom's mother twice or three times a week. It's a whole complicated situation where because dad's on probation he's the bad guy when there's a lot more bad things mom has been actually doing in front of or around their son (and also lying in court and avoiding the officer trying to serve her).

I'm just really hoping he gets those three things in court, then they will all be better off (especially their son). Dad will just have to bring up at family court mom served him incorrectly; as you said he just wants to go to family court and show the judge the evidence he actually has this time (voicemails, e-mails, etc.) to validate his need for those three things.

 

[Proserpina]

Thank you both very much. I forgot to mention; Dad was asking for his unsupervised days, no verbal contact (instead write important things like meals, bathroom, etc. in a notebook to hand off at pick up/drop off) and third party pick up/drop off at a store with cameras. He's very tired of the he said/she said stuff. She just said he violated probation and it should stick to what the court approved (in the current custody agreement) which was supervised visits with mom's mother twice or three times a week. It's a whole complicated situation where because dad's on probation he's the bad guy when there's a lot more bad things mom has been actually doing in front of or around their son (and also lying in court and avoiding the officer trying to serve her).

I'm just really hoping he gets those three things in court, then they will all be better off (especially their son). Dad will just have to bring up at family court mom served him incorrectly; as you said he just wants to go to family court and show the judge the evidence he actually has this time (voicemails, e-mails, etc.) to validate his need for those three things.

You're kidding me - A NOTEBOOK?

No. Dad needs to ask the court to order Family Wizard as a means of communication. I do have to ask though, why are meals and bathroom issues so important?



This is also not about Dad's validation. At. All.

 

[Ohiogal]

Thank you both very much. I forgot to mention; Dad was asking for his unsupervised days, no verbal contact (instead write important things like meals, bathroom, etc. in a notebook to hand off at pick up/drop off) and third party pick up/drop off at a store with cameras. He's very tired of the he said/she said stuff. She just said he violated probation and it should stick to what the court approved (in the current custody agreement) which was supervised visits with mom's mother twice or three times a week. It's a whole complicated situation where because dad's on probation he's the bad guy when there's a lot more bad things mom has been actually doing in front of or around their son (and also lying in court and avoiding the officer trying to serve her).

I'm just really hoping he gets those three things in court, then they will all be better off (especially their son). Dad will just have to bring up at family court mom served him incorrectly; as you said he just wants to go to family court and show the judge the evidence he actually has this time (voicemails, e-mails, etc.) to validate his need for those three things.

Actually he should get OUR FAMILY WIZARD ordered. That or SHAREKIDS. The notebook is a secondary idea. You need to stay out of it and don't believe everything your boyfriend tells you.

ETA: Yeah, what pro said.

 

[single317dad]

Personally, I don't see a problem with a notebook. Yes, OFW would be much better (no one can "rip out a page", forget, or lose the notebook; communication could happen any time, not just at handoffs), but I can't be the only one whose ex doesn't have internet access most of the time. How would those people make use of OFW?

As far as the public meets at locations with cameras, it's a great idea, and one that I myself insist on. Be warned, however, that simply meeting somewhere with cameras won't guarantee there's always a witness to whatever transpires. Some places don't monitor or record those cameras. Some would require a subpoena to produce the recordings (assuming they haven't already been purged; 7 days is a common threshold for the cheaper commercial DVR systems.) In most cases, the cameras and public forum are more of a deterrent than anything.