Howard, a member from a Pittsburgh area county, experienced a two year custody battle. The trial finally concluded this past summer with the court awarding primary custody to him and partial custody to the mother. However, there was a problem. The judge's order was specific about the mother's and father's time with the children for six weeks during the summer, but the order's language for the forty-six weeks when the father has primary custody was vague and unclear. The learned observer would surmise the six week summer schedule would be the converse during the other forty-six weeks.
Wrong! Mother and her attorney took advantage of the order's vagueness by taking the children whenever she wanted. Howard asked his attorney to help solve this confusion. His attorney told Howard to be happy because he 'won'. Howard actually was losing time with his children.
Howard reviewed his order with some NCFC members. It was clear that the order was not clear for the forty-six weeks when the dad has primary custody about when and who has the children. Howard wrote a motion to request the court to clarify the custody times in the order. Howard's attorney was furious with him. The attorney warned him that he may lose what he won and that he may not want to represent him anymore. In the meantime, the mother filed for custody contempt against the father when he exercised his custody time as per the summer custody schedule in reverse.
A hearing was scheduled the next week. Howard was nervous because his attorney was telling him to do nothing while Howard and the NCFC members felt that in terms of common sense, the vagueness of the order was the problem. The hearing started out with an apology from the judge. He apologized for writing an unclear custody order and said that the father was right in requesting a clarification. The Mother's attorney asked about the contempt petitions. The judge said to read them. Before the mother's attorney could finish the first sentence of the first petition, the judge slammed his gavel and said, 'Petition denied, next petition'. Each contempt petition was denied. Howard was elated and immediately called his NCFC members to thank them for their help.