66 Times Family Feuds Shocked Lawyers When People Actually Brought Their Petty Fights To Court

One guy was a total control freak. He'd gone to the Philippines and "romanced" his now ex-wife, brought her back to Australia and then expected her to do everything for him, pop out his kids, etc etc. When she left him, he manipulated her into believing that they would share care of the kids, and they didn't need court orders - then behind her back he went to court, obtained "sole custody" of the kids and basically cut her out.

Then when she was back on her feet and could finally go back to court and try to get her kids back, he said she was an adult worker, among other things. He said the kids were learning that behaviour from her, despite the fact that he was living in a trailer/caravan/modified shipping container (something like that), with no actual walls between the kids' room and the bedroom he shared with his new partner. And the mother was living in a house with bedrooms and doors.

Real nice guy.

In the end, he didn't use a lawyer, so he was completely steamrolled in court - his court documents were laughable, literally everything that had ever gone wrong with the kids was the mother's fault - and he now sees the kids once a fortnight instead of having them live with him full time. So there's a way not to do things.

Also, hilariously, one of the things he said in court was that he knew when he was impregnating the mother, because he can control himself. Riiiiiight.

My first job out of law school was as a Trial Court Staff Attorney. This is basically a judicial law clerk, so we did a lot of research and advisory memos for judges. I didn't cover a family law docket, but my office mate did.

She got an Emergency Motion in a family law case one time. For the non-lawyers, these are filed when something is EXTREMELY time sensitive and critically important. If the judge deems it a true emergency, your matter will be heard on an expedited basis...they'll fast track you in for a hearing, usually in a matter of days, rather than the usual weeks/months it normally takes to get a hearing date.

Anyhow, this particular Emergency Motion was to compel the ex-spouse to send their child to Happy Faces Day Care, because if the child couldn't go to Happy Faces Day Care, it was going to be irreparably damaged from the lack of social exposure, etc.

Emergency. Happy Faces Day Care.

FML.

Needless to say, this was NOT an emergency. I don't know how the motion was ultimately ruled on, other than that it wasn't an emergency.

Upon losing the house because he literally locked my mom out of their bedroom, garage, home office, and shed, my dad decided "the house" only meant the wood and brick. He took whatever appliances he could fit and, just for good measure, ripped the carpeting out of the bedroom. Or that he tried taking all of the family photos, including the ones of her relatives without her notice. She only found them because he forgot to lock the office door and I lied about locking it when he called to check. Jerk.

Family law is depressing. Worst I've seen is still ongoing: dad files emergency petitions every time a new court order is about to be signed because "he didn't agree" to the terms his own darn lawyer set per his wishes. Mom withholds the child from visitation (in contempt of court) if the dad's wife is present at the exchange. As in, she'll pull into the parking lot and if she sees anyone besides the dad, she peels out. Both have filed restraining orders against the other, which they later rescinded. Their last court order was 18! pages long (typically 2 to 3 at most for custody orders) because it is nauseatingly specific about each aspect of their interactions.

God help me if I get dragged back into the middle of their case again.

An opposing party had to pay $2000 in attorney's fees to his wife's lawyer, and he brought it to the office in pennies.

A client having a complete meltdown over not understanding that "first and third Saturdays of each month" that she insisted on is not the same as "every other Saturday", since sometimes there are 5 Saturdays in a month; amounting to a 2 day a year visitation difference.

She was also very upset that her baby-daddy left her for a white woman.

I am the employer for a mother who is going through child support hearings. She has retained sole custody of the children for more than 10 years and finally was awarded child support. The ex husband has not paid and is instead bringing charges against said mom for "unfit parenting", claiming the children live with HIM and pursuing HER for the child support instead. Yes, this IS happening. I am now tasked with responding as an employer and character witness(although happy to do it for her) to prove that she does not travel for a living and leave the children (teenagers) to fend for themselves nightly.

Parents had an ongoing battle over their kid's clothing. Both were angry at each other for keeping "their" clothes for the kid. This is more common than you might think.

Anyway, my client went to an exchange (at Dunkin Donuts) and mom made the child go to the bathroom and get into the dirty clothes my client had sent the child to her with, rather than allowing dad to take the clothes that belonged to her.

You can bet that we used that at our next evidentiary hearing.

One of my former cases come to mind right away:

I represented a mom who, despite my constant advice to the contrary, was constantly trying to get the dad arrested to improve her position in the custody battle over their two kids.

Before I took her case, she had successfully obtained a restraining order against the dad (I later strongly suspected her allegations were fabricated). It became apparent she had not gotten the restraining order for safety reasons, but rather to harass and mess with the dad.

On one occasion, the mom convinced her teenage babysitter (whom she later confessed to being in a relationship with, but that's a whole other story) to call the dad, frantically claiming that one of the kids had stopped breathing. The babysitter told the dad she had called 911, but they had not shown up yet. The dad, understandably panicked beyond belief, rushed to the mom's house, to try to save his child. What he was unaware of was the fact that the mom had planned the whole thing, and had herself called the police and said that the dad was threatening to come to her house to harm her. When the dad arrived at the house to try to help his child, the police were already there waiting for him, and he spent the weekend in jail for violating the restraining order.

Later the same week, the mom paid a relative to plant illegal substances in the dad's car, while she tipped off the cops, in hopes of getting the dad sent to jail and losing all custody and visitation of the kids. Fortunately, the relative got cold feet at the last minute, and confessed the plan to the dad.

To this day, that was the only client I ever dropped due to their morally repugnant actions.

Paralegal for a family lawyer.

We just finished a case where the father gave up all parental rights because he didn't get as much child support as he wanted.

I watched a mom and dad argue over whether or not their child could read a darn book for school. Mom's attorney wanted her daughter to read the book... and the father (through his attorney) was objecting to it. The Judge held a 15 minute hearing to consider arguments.

As this was going on... I was waiting to go up next to see if my client would be spending the next 30 days in prison for not paying his child support. Puts everything in perspective.

My sister interned at a family court and there was a case where the child's shoes were untied so the mom asked the dad to tie them. He didn't want to so she pulled a gun on him. In response he pulled his gun. So they were both pointing guns at other in front of their kid because they didn't want to tie her shoes.

Have a buddy going through a bad break up with 2 kids. The mom tried to have him served custody papers a day before his daughter's bday, but he wasn't home. Only way he found out about it was the neighbor told him.

During the bday he asks the mom what's up with her trying to serve him papers when they were trying to be civil about the kids. She says "oh don't worry about it, I'm not going to follow through."

He finds out months later he had a default judgment against him (no show) and she legally has full custody. Even though he still has the kids like 5 days a week, takes them to school, and practices.

So now he has to sell a car to hire a lawyer to find out what the hell happened with this judgment against him.

This didnt happen to me but my co-worker. he got custody of his kid because the mom was institutionalized. she got out and is trying to get custody of the kid back so she can keep getting the child support. he has proof she neglects the kid, doesnt feed him doesnt clothe him, and has messages and e mails from her own family saying she is crazy. but she is still fighting for custody.

When I was a kid and my parents were divorcing, my dad filed many lawsuits against my mother for anything and everything. When I was 10 years old, he even told me he was going to take me to court in a lawsuit because I didn't want to go visit him.

A cousin of mine (Let's call her T to protect her) had a marriage and three kids (K, L, and I) with a man I hated so much I think I've intentionally forgotten his name, so we'll call him F for...you can guess.

Because of this story.

Child number three (I) was born with serious issues that were luckily diagnosed and tended to quickly. She's suffered no lasting damage but can't digest normal proteins. No meat for her, medically. She has a tube in her stomach, and when younger, it had to be through her nose. This made I a pretty cranky baby and self-conscious toddler.

In short, they split when she was 2 or 3, and this Man (I use the term EXTREMELY loosely) petitioned for custody of the kids.

Actually, just K and L. T could keep I.

Thankfully the Judge ruled as any of us would when he heard.

When my parents divorced, I was four at the time, my dad told my mom he didn't want custody as long as he could keep their CD collection. That was until he realized how much he would have to pay in child support. He had me two days a week until I showed my court appointed councilor how to tell if you had poured a full shot of whiskey. I don't have much memory of this but he apparently would take me to happy hour at a local bar and then to pawn shops to look at guns. Full custody was given to my mom who moved us out of state.

I don't speak with him anymore.

I work for an attorney, and one time we had a client who wanted us to file an emergency hearing for custody. Of their dogs. We said no to that one.

A long time ago friend's parents got divorced. I remember my mother telling me that the divorce agreement stated that as soon as the ex-wife made $X/week (she worked as a substitute teacher for years, finally found a perm position when the kids were older) the child support would drop by X%. Ex-wife assumed that meant only for the week she had the higher income. Nope. Permanent.

I remember my mother saying that the ex-wife had a horrible, horrible lawyer. The ex-husband had a long affair, which brought about the divorce, although looking back now and meeting this woman as an adult, I seriously wonder if the ex-wife was trying to act straight and the husband was like, "Nope, out of here." No real idea, though.

When Mom and Dad shared joint custody, Mom went to the child's daycare and told them I (stepmom) was not allowed to pick up the child. I had to get the police involved. As long as Dad had me on the list and their was no restraining order, I was allowed.

Mom also got EXTREMELY mad when Dad found out who her kindergarten teacher was. Again, they shared JOINT custody.