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Parenting Time

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Removal – Interview with Child in Judge’s Chambers.  The Appeals Court overturned a Probate and Family Court order denying a mother’s request to allow her to remove the child to Arizona with her.  The Court was concerned with the fact that the trial judge had an unrecorded in camera interview with the child in his chambers and found that his opinion was based largely on the child’s statements.  Henceforth, the Appeals Court held, any such in camera interviews “must be electronically recorded and that record made available to the parties.” Abbott v. Virusso, 68 Mass.App.Ct. 326 (February 28, 2007), rev. granted 449 Mass. 1101 (May 2, 2007)
 
Counting Parenting Time (Even When the Kids are Sleeping).  In trying to equalize a parenting schedule, do you count “sleep time” and “school time” or only “awake time”?  In a modification action, a Probate and Family Court judge changed the parenting schedule without finding a change in circumstances on the theory that the percentage of “awake time” (time that the “children were not at school, camp, or awake”) spent with each parent was roughly equivalent to the previous schedule. The Appeals Court reversed, noting that the law has not “neatly divided custodial parenthood into waking, sleeping, and schooling categories.  Nor should it.  Disregarding sleep or school time ignores that children get sick, have nightmares, and otherwise require their parent’s assistance at unexpected times.”  Parents are always “on call,” the Appeals Court continued: “[t]he responsibilities of a parent do not end when a child is asleep, at school or day care, or otherwise outside of the parent’s presence.”  Katzman v. Healy, 77 Mass.App.Ct. 589 (September 7, 2010)