Another Chicago Bear with child custody/support issues. Briggs and Urlacher have something to talk about.

Here's a brief clip about a recent Cook County family law case involving a visitation restriction:

1st Dist. In re Marriage of Manhoff, No. 1-06-2762 (December 5, 2007) 3rd div. (QUINN) Affirmed Mother's petition to restrict the visitation of the father, alleging disrupting conduct on the part of the father in the presence of the children, was sufficient, despite failure to attach affidavit in compliance with local Circuit Rules, since it contained 1-109 certification. Further, father has failed to establish that trial court abused its discretion when it ordered supervised visitation, with the father required to pay for the supervision, since he failed to include a transcript of the hearing in his report of proceedings.

Take a read of the full case. The court restricted the father's visitation seemingly based on a mere argument between the father, mother and the mother's boyfriend.

Some good elder care resources are listed in this article.

Here's a frightening read about the pace that it's taking for the Social Security Administration to resolve Social Security Disability questions. The piece suggest SSDI appeals are taking some 3 years to process.

Of the roughly 2.5 million disability applicants each year now, about two-thirds are turned down initially by state agencies, which make decisions with federal oversight based on paper records but no face-to-face interview. Most of those who are refused give up at that point or after a failed request for local reconsideration.

But of the more than 575,000 who go on to file appeals — putting them in the vast line for a hearing before a special federal judge — two-thirds eventually win a reversal.

I'm not sure what's more concerning, the long wait time or the fact that such a large percentage of cases are overturned on appeal.

A couple of interesting family law cases that have been recently reported:

First was Schroeder v. Winyard regarding an Alienation of Affections suit. This sort of suit is where a former spouse sues a person for tempting her/his former spouse to have an affair and if successful is awarded monetary damages. The plaintiff was divorced from her husband in 2003 and brought the Alienation of Affections case in 2005. However, the defendant had filed for bankruptcy in 2001. The trial court dismissed the case saying that this liability was discharged as part of the bankruptcy. It's interesting because if the trial court said this type of case were an intentional tort this would NOT have been dischargeable. Strange because as a lawyer I surely consider this type of case a tort.

The second as was In re Marriage of Rife. This one's almost funny. Here the marital settlement agreement said that the mother's right to receive child support would be terminated if she tried to modify visitation, child support or custody. No suprise, the court ruled that this was against the public policy of preserving the trial court's ability to modify child-related provisions of the judgment for dissolution of marriage if it's in the child's best interests.

Here's an interesting overview of long-term care insurance.

Here's a link to new attempts to get back child support when people apply for hunting licenses. The authority to do this is not new...it seems merely to be an attempt at improving the system.

The IL Supreme Court recently upheld a fine of over $1 million assessed against a child support obligor's employer for failing to withhold support properly. It's always important to consider a cause of action against an employer. Often the employer has the $$.

We often use Notices of Withholding (NOW) with large employers. But think about using these with small businesses or self-employed people too (small corps and the like). I have a case right now where it would have been nice if the previous attorney had used a NOW with this small corporation that the father/obligor runs. He unilaterally reduced child support...we're bringing a case against him but it would be great if we could go after the business too!

A little tip for the holiday season:

Send your clients to an experienced mediator in November if you anticipate problems with holiday schedules. Give your clients sample holiday schedules to get them thinking about where they fail so they can succeed independent of a legal proceeding.

Here's one of the many articles regarding Hulk Hogan's divorce case.

This article describes an often under reported issue in the child support universe. It's the scenario where custodial parents on public aid use the IV-D program, the Cook County State's Attorney in Cook County, Illinois, to collect child support and part of any funds collected first are used to pay back the state before coming to the custodial parent.

A solution? Use a private attorney and the State never gets their hands on the money.