Yesterday in the 231st District Court in Fort Worth, grandparents who were thwarted by a jury last year in their attempt to take their granddaughter from her fit father spent all day on the stand giving testimony before Judge Catterton. During the trial they previously argued that if the father was allowed to have custody of his daughter, he might leave the state. This time they argued that their granddaughter was being deprived by not spending more time with them. One observer commented that he had rarely seen such controlling people.
Once again home schooling was at the center of the grandparents’ arguments. While they complained that the girl had too much homework to do while she was with them on second and fourth weekends during their court-ordered visitation, they also protested that they did not know enough about her school. They told the court that the father was “negligent” because he did not tell them the location of a recent debate tournament she participated in, even though they acknowledged under cross-examination that they never asked him for the location.
The grandparents insist that their granddaughter exhibits anger and emotional stress when she comes to visit them, but then supposedly calms down by the time she leaves. They conclude that they should have more time with her, but some might conclude that the visits with the grandparents are the cause of the anger and emotional stress.
The grandparents are asking the judge to give them more court-ordered standard time with the child in addition to the two weekends a month they currently receive. They also want the father and his daughter to be restricted by the court to live only in Tarrant County or contiguous counties and are requesting a court-ordered counselor for the child. In addition, they are asking the judge to order the father to pay for their travel expenses to visit their granddaughter should he move further away than he currently lives. Finally, they are asking the judge to require the father to pay the $400,000 in legal fees they have spent while suing him to take his daughter. This request is ironic given testimony in the trial that the attorney for the grandparents told them originally that their case was weak from a legal standpoint, but if they were willing to spend more money than the father had, they could get the child. They also want the judge to force the father to post a substantial bond to prevent him from leaving the state of Texas.
Today, the father will be on the stand and the judge will also interview the young lady who is at the center of this battle as he considers the father’s request to require the grandparents to pay his legal fees incurred while fighting for possession of his daughter. Please continue to pray for this father and his daughter.
About Tim Lambert
It’s important that the grandparents in this case are held financially responsible for those legal fees, because if they are, other people in the future will have to consider that possibility and thus may not try to out-spend a parent in order to gain access to a child. This tactic has become more an more used in our legal system, once primarily a strategy used by corporations, this out-spend-the-opposition has created a serious abuse of our legal system and in many cases allowed for a miscarriage of justice. Let’s pray that this will not be the case here, or in future cases, involving the care of and access to a child. No one can say that they are free from the danger of this type of legal tactic — no matter your income bracket, there is still some entity, person or corporation that would be able to outspend you. Fortunately, most of the time people don’t have a reason to take what we have, things we have earned, or the people we love and cherish. But, in the rare case where they do, the cost is high for someone choosing to take action such as this, it’s costly to defend against, and the repercussions should be of equal magnitude.
I agree that the grandparents should pay this father’s legal fees. That, however, is up to the judge in this case and based on his previous actions I’m not holding my breath.
how is it that this even came to a trial? Grandparents do not have custodial rights in Texas. They shouldn’t have ever been able to get court ordered visitation much less anything else. While I realize the importance of family and ties for this girl to her mother’s family, there comes a point in time where you have to rid yourself of toxic people, and these people are trying to hold onto their daughter by suffocating their granddaughter. I have a feeling that they never approved of the marriage from the beginning, otherwise they wouldn’t have begun legal proceedings before his poor wife was even buried. I hope he gets everything back and then some, and they send a message to overbearing relatives that parents make decisions for their children, nobody else. If they’d been more supporting to him during the time he lost his wife, I bet they’d have a decent relationship now but there’s little hope ofthat ever happening, and as the daughter gets older and realizes what has been done, it will destroy her relationship with them as well.
This is much like the Waco situation where the government was protecting the children, or the Mormon group where the children were taken away. We don’t hurt children in the guise of protecting them. These grandparents have an agenda, and don’t really love this child. They want to hurt the father. Shame on them and shame on the courts for allowing all this pain and financial stress to take place.
It breaks my heart to see this little girl torn in two. My guess is, as controlling as these grandparents are, the mom (deceased) chose to home school her daughter in order to give her the authentic relationship with her and her husband that her parents were unable to provide her. When people truly love someone and know how to show it they do not need to control and manipulate.
I share your pain for this girl, however, the deceased mom did not home school her it was the dad, who decided to home school to give her time with him and all the other benefits of home schooling. That decision was one of the key elements that the grandparents continue to vehemently oppose.