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  • Originally posted by tilt View Post
    If it is going to be a Motion heading be sure to file a Motion Record with a VERY thorough factum citing current case law.
    She has said that we will require a long motions date to deal with the majority of her demands...so will my deadline to serve and file be in accordance with the long motion date or is she expecting me to serve and file by tomorrow even though she served and filed 2 days late?

    Her excuse for serving me late was that she hadn't had the material ready in time. She's a lawyer with 31 years experience and has an assistant and didn't have it done on time so then why should I be expected to have my material ready on time when I am not a lawyer, do not have an assistant, and have a family to take care of. Had she served this to a lawyer at 4:20 on a Friday afternoon I'm sure that lawyer would not spend the weekend working on this and chances are their office would have been closed for the weekend.

    She has not served me with a Factum this time or last time either. Do we serve the Factum on the other party or just file it with the court?

    Comment


    • Since the other party filed late they would have required your consent to do so. You can likely ask for an extension to file your materials as you will have needed their materials to formulate your response. When I self repped and did a long motion I served the motion materials as well as my factum on the other party and filed one with the court plus brought a spare of my filed materials and factum to court in case the judge did not have a copy(he didn’t ).

      Comment


      • I always try to respond within the deadlines as them not adhering looks bad on them, not you, and you don’t want the other side to spin it as “well she is late toooo” - making you both at fault.

        The appearance/motion will most likely be adjourned, which is beneficial to the other side (and most likely this is all deliberate for exactly that reason - guaranteeing you will not see the children over Christmas). So say that will will agree to an adjournment only if you are given temporary access to your children. But the judge will most likely not take you seriously if you do not have a lawyer with you. If you had a lawyer you would want a motion so the Judge can make an Order without consent, on your own you are better off not having the strict rules of a motion but you will not be getting any orders.

        It is okay to be self-rep for simple matters, although Judhes still have prejudice against self-reps. Sorry to be a downer, but to many judges, not having a lawyer means either no lawyer would take you on (you are a difficult client or don’t have a legal case) or that you don’t feel your case is important enough to get a lawyer for (in which case your aren’t exhibiting the good judgement of a parent). Judges don’t “get” low-income - they don’t have personal experience with it.

        The Factum is part of your Motion Record and of course must be served on the other party and filed. It has a specific presentation with blue covers and a table of contents. It allows the judge to immediately see the issues and how you want to resolve them without flipping through a million pages in the CR.
        Last edited by tilt; 12-15-2019, 03:49 PM.

        Comment


        • [QUOTE=tilt;239871.
          The appearance/motion will most likely be adjourned, which is beneficial to the other side (and most likely this is all deliberate for exactly that reason - guaranteeing you will not see the children over Christmas). .[/QUOTE]

          It will be adjourned because she said in her email that if I consent that she will only go ahead with 1-3 and that 3-11 will have to be dealt with at a long motion.

          She wouldn't be able to have 3-11 heard at a short motion regardless because it's complicated matters. 1-3 are basically procedural ie. adding her name as representative and stating that he is deceased.

          What's really bothering me is that the stepmother is acting as his representative only and has not been added as a party to the case yet the lawyer has amended the response to my motion to change and removed his name to add hers and skipping the rule that a non-parent must apply for custody and produce a police and case report.

          She was given temporary custody without prejudice which means the judge did what was best for the kids and had to make an interim decision so someone had custody of the girls. While it hurts like hell and I hate that they're with her and she's in control and able to continue the alienation full force now, I never wanted them to be just ripped out of their home and hurt more than they were already after losing their dad. I had struggled right from the get go with how I get them away from this psychopath and not hurt them at the same time. I still struggle with that but I also know from everything that I've read over the past few years that eliminating the source of the alienation is the only way to begin reunification and get them the therapy they so desperately need.

          I cannot find a law or rule or any cases that resemble my issue with how this is being done with her skipping the application process. I don't understand how as representative she just picks up where he left off in the case. I know this is wrong though because it make zero sense. I know what i mean in my head but can't figure out how to say it. That happens a lot with me lol. I have attention deficit disorder and his lawyer had even tried to use that as a reason for me not to be a good parent until I told her that a.d.d. does not affect my parenting abilities, it just means I get distracted by shiny things hahaha.

          The long motion requires to be served 30 days before the date, then I have up until 15 days before and 3 days before for the factum. I will be pointing out that her last motion was scheduled as a short motion but changed to a long motion when she stated she had made a mistake so, since it's basically all the same as the last motion that didn't go through when he died, and because she said a long motion was required in her email, that this should have been scheduled as a long motion and I should have been served in accordance with that long motion date.

          I'm tired of her bullying me into consenting and tired of all her mistakes but all over me if I don't do something exactly by the book. Actually, I'm just tired period...absolutely exhausted to the point it's now affecting my physical health.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by tilt View Post
            It is okay to be self-rep for simple matters, although Judhes still have prejudice against self-reps. Sorry to be a downer, but to many judges, not having a lawyer means either no lawyer would take you on (you are a difficult client or don’t have a legal case) or that you don’t feel your case is important enough to get a lawyer for (in which case your aren’t exhibiting the good judgement of a parent). Judges don’t “get” low-income - they don’t have personal experience with it.

            Or a person simply cannot afford any lawyer.

            Or went through a bunch of them and none are doing their job (you can call it bad luck).

            Comment


            • Oh I totally agree! But Judges definitely have their biases; as self-reps we have to be mindful of those biases and how the Judge’s views affects their decisions. It is a systemic problem.
              Last edited by tilt; 12-16-2019, 12:54 PM.

              Comment


              • have you been paying any sort of CS to the step mom?

                Comment


                • Originally posted by standing on the sidelines View Post
                  have you been paying any sort of CS to the step mom?
                  Everything still goes to him since she is still only his representative and the custody order is "without prejudice".

                  They weren't married so she basically has no right to anything. It has been over 90 days now so she shouldn't even be living in his house right now unless she's paying rent because the house goes to our daughters and neither are old enough to make any decisions.

                  I plan on applying to be guardian of their property (I gain nothing by doing this). I will be asking for his mother to be guardian along with me because she has a background in banking. Nobody has applied yet or they've applied and I wasn't notified as I should have been as their only living biological parent. That's quite possible as they don't seem to be doing anything the way it's supposed to be done. She's driving his truck and I know he had loan protection, which means it has been paid off in full but because she wasn't on the loan she has no right to it.

                  I'm afraid to do anything about any of these things though because I can guarantee that I'll be painted as evil if I do. At the same time, if I don't do anything then our daughters lose what should have been theirs. I predict that once she finds out there's no assets going to her that she won't think playing mommy is much fun anymore.

                  Comment


                  • How do you know so much about your ex husbands affairs? How do you know she wasn’t on the loan? How do you know she wasn’t on other assets? How do you know they didn’t share a bank account? Things totally are not adding up but I suspect given how long everything is taking (and the children being with her), it won’t be an easy fight to get them back. If I remember correctly they are teenagers (or almost teenagers? I don’t have time to reread this whole thread)... but Standing makes a point... if she currently has temp custody of the children shouldn’t you be paying CS? I assume you were paying to your ex and seeing as you don’t have custody of the children CS should be following the children. Just because they were not married does not mean she’s entitled to nothing. This whole thing is really confusing and it’s concerning you don’t have a lawyer to assist you


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                    Comment


                    • Update:

                      Their lawyer emailed me Monday morning to say that if I'd like more time to submit my response that she's fine with adjourning ALL matters until the next Motion date. She was WAY too nice in her email, saying that they'd contact me with a long motion date and see if it's good with me and if it isn't that I could just let them know when is good for me. She said that I can just let her know when I'm ready to submit my response.

                      So tomorrow we go to Motion court so she can ask for an Order on the 2 procedural matters that I consented to and then it's adjourned.

                      Today they emailed me with Long Motion dates which included ones in January, February, and March and said that the March 20th date works best for them.

                      So I was served with all this just before Christmas, came close to losing my mind from the stress, and sent my daughter away for the weekend just so I could try to have my material ready to serve and it was for absolutely nothing!

                      I emailed the lawyer today to ask for access or communication with myself and their little sister over the holidays or for access or communication with my mother and their little sister if not with me. Asking for my mother to see them when I can't was difficult and will be so hard if she does agree to it but I'd rather they have contact with someone from my family than with nobody...and their little sister asks about them every day and is hurting from this so that's what's most important.

                      We'll see what happens...I'm betting it's a no for either.

                      Comment


                      • So today was Motion day...seemed like a waste of everyone's time.

                        She got to change the title of the proceedigs adding the stepmom as his representative and adjourn until January to set a date for a long Motion which isn't until March 20. I won't be seeing my baby girls all that time. I'll miss my daughter's birthday. I'm not sure I can handle much more of this.

                        Stepmom was there with his mother. My daughter's school Christmas concert was this morning and stepmom chose to be at the courthouse (she didn't need to be present) instead of be there for my daughter at her first Christmas concert without her daddy. If I thought for one second that she maybe actually cared more about my girls than she did about getting revenge on me for things I said close to 10 years ago she just proved that I am 100% right about her.

                        Not a good day emotionally/mentally. I just want to be with my babies and let them know their Mommy loves them more than life itself.

                        The justice system is messed up!!!

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Berner_Faith View Post
                          How do you know so much about your ex husbands affairs? How do you know she wasn’t on the loan? How do you know she wasn’t on other assets? How do you know they didn’t share a bank account? Things totally are not adding up but I suspect given how long everything is taking (and the children being with her), it won’t be an easy fight to get them back. If I remember correctly they are teenagers (or almost teenagers? I don’t have time to reread this whole thread)... but Standing makes a point... if she currently has temp custody of the children shouldn’t you be paying CS? I assume you were paying to your ex and seeing as you don’t have custody of the children CS should be following the children. Just because they were not married does not mean she’s entitled to nothing. This whole thing is really confusing and it’s concerning you don’t have a lawyer to assist you


                          Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
                          I know all this because the day he died he was at my son's father's house with my son's stepmother. I get along great with them...even drove her to the hospital for the birth of one of their children. She's the one who called to let me know when he passed. She likes to talk and gives a lot of info about things without even being asked. She knows all this because him and her were "best friends". I don't understand the relationship and don't bother myself with the details.

                          She has without prejudice custody which means she doesn't have offical custody...the girls just needed to be somewhere.

                          I have no idea what goes on with any payments to him. I've assumed that's up to his lawyer and her to deal with?

                          Common spouses are not entitled to anything when one dies intestate. She can go to court and fight for a share but apparently it's hard to prove. She's entitled to death benefits for a certain amount of time. Everything else belongs to his children now.

                          Besides all that, the words out of her mouth when she was notified were "He didn't have a will, I'm going to lose everything"...to me that says a lot.

                          Comment


                          • So all your knowledge is based on hearsay? I’d take what this third party tells you with a grain of salt because the reality is, you know nothing


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                            • Originally posted by Berner_Faith View Post
                              So all your knowledge is based on hearsay? I’d take what this third party tells you with a grain of salt because the reality is, you know nothing


                              Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
                              I know him and know he wouldn't have put her on it...his mother wouldn't have let him. There's a reason he never married her even after giving her the ring 9 years ago.

                              But, yes, you're right that I don't know the absolute facts about any of that. Does that mean that I shouldn't be looking out for our daughters' futures and do what's necessary to keep what's rightfully theirs out of someone else's hands? There's no guarantee this woman is going to stick around so there's no way I'm just going to sit back and let her take away even more than she already has from my daughters. She has destroyed enough and needs to be stopped.

                              It would take me a week to tell you all the details of the hell she has put my family and I through in the past 10 years and she's still doing it.

                              Do you think someone who wants $8,000 if I ever want to go back to court for my children (should she get custody) and $15,000 if I want to even ask for custody has the best interests of those girls in mind? She wants me, their 2 siblings, and an entire extended family out of their lives completely and forever. The fact that she'd even ask that proves it.

                              She sat behind me in court today and pretended to be crossing her legs and kicked the bench I was sitting on multiple times...it wasn't accidental after the first couple of times. She has a personal vendetta against me for things I said almost 10 years ago. She's psychotic by definition.

                              Comment


                              • Stepmom is holding on to those girls because she sees dollar signs. Don't give up fighting for your kids and what belongs to them. Stay strong. Prayer helps me and it's cheaper than therapy.

                                Comment

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