Articles Posted in Suit Affecting Parent Child Relationship

What is a Mediated Settlement Agreement?

If you reach an agreement in a mediation, more precisely called a Mediated settlement agreement or MSA for short, the agreement is binding on you and all other parties you are agreeing with in a family law case as long as the MSA is drafted in the way that is required under the Texas Family Code. The agreement must be the result of a mediation, hence the name, which is basically just the meeting of both parties with a neutral third person facilitating the conversation so that the parties can come to an agreement. Texas law encourages mediation as a cost-efficient and time-efficient way of settling disputes. One of the benefits of mediation is that instead of a judge who has only a glimpse into the lives of parties based on evidence presented to him or her, during a mediation the parties who know their situation and family the best get to come to an agreement that works for them and is custom to their situation.

One downside to a mediation could be that as opposed to a judge who should know what the consequences of their decision could potentially be, parties could be making agreements in a mediated settlement agreement using language that will have consequences after the agreement is entered that they did not intend. One of the reasons that we trust judges to make decisions for us in legal matters is that in general they have years of experience dealing with similar matters and they should understand what all of the legal jargon that goes into an order actually means.

Can I ask a Texas Court for visitation rights for my grandchild?

Texas allows grandparents to gain court-ordered visitation of grandchildren in very limited circumstances. The reason that the statute allowing grandparent visitation is so limited is because the United States Supreme Court has decided that parents having the ability to make decisions about raising their children is a fundamental right that should not be interfered with by courts. Basically, in the United States we want parents to be able to decide whether their kids get to see their grandparents or not even if the parents don’t seem to have a great reason for keeping their kids away from their grandparents. A parent’s right to decide how their kids are raised is more important under the law than a grandparent’s desire to see their grandchildren.

How does Grandparent visitation work in Texas?

What is a material and substantial change?

The Texas Family Code allows for a modification of a suit affecting the parent-child relationship if modification would be in the best interest of the child and the circumstances of the child, a conservator, or other party affected by the order have materially and substantially changed since the date of the order or the date of the signing of the mediated settlement agreement that the order is based off of. Material and Substantial change is not defined in the code, but obviously this is a term that has been dealt with by Texas Courts extensively. Material and Substantial change may sound like a high standard, but in actuality the courts give very broad discretion to trial court judges in their assessment of what a material and substantial change is.

What have appellate courts said about material and substantial change?

If you have a current pending divorce or suit affecting the parent-child relationship then you most likely have temporary orders in place.  If not, in most family law cases you do want to ensure that you have temporary orders granted by the Court so that you know what you should and should not be doing while the case is pending.  That is, temporary orders set the status quo of your case and instruct the parties as to their rights and duties with respect to their children, property, debts, and other issues in the case.  For instance, you may have been granted exclusive use of the marital residence, your vehicle, and primary possession of the children.  These are all essential things to establish in a case without delay, unless you and the other party are working amicably towards a final resolution.

Enforcement of Violated Temporary Orders

Once the Court has granted the temporary orders, they are enforceable against both parties.  If any portion of those orders is violated by either party, there are options.   The other party may have been ordered to pay child support and they may not be doing that and you may need that support in order to survive.  Or, the other party may have been ordered to participate in counseling or drug testing and they not be doing so.  It might even be that the other party will not stay away from the property or give you the car you were awarded temporarily.  All of these issues are concerning and when you are not getting the results from the provisions the Court put into place it can be very frustrating.  But, you do have recourse.  Typically, you can file an enforcement action of temporary orders asking that the wrong be corrected and asking for attorney’s fees for having to go back to Court and ask the judge to tell someone to do what they were already ordered to do.  If it is a failure to pay child support, the violating party also faces possible jail time.  You will have to be able to prove that the temporary orders were put in place, prove the violations, and then the burden becomes the other party’s to state why they did all of those things.  Depending upon those reasons, the Court may be a little lenient upon the person.  It is always a hope that the Court would at least grant your attorney’s fees for your attorney’s time to draft the enforcement and have the hearing.

You have a pending case involving a child (divorce, SAPCR, modification) and child support has been established.  However, like most parents you are concerned about the future—what happens when the children go to college, how will I afford their expenses then?  Most people say that you can “save the child support” but that is not ideal.  Children are expensive and it is highly likely that you will spend all of the child support and then some with all of the things that come up throughout their lives until they turn 18 or graduate from high school.  Child support ends on “removal of the child’s disabilities for general purposes, the marriage or death of a child, or a finding by the court that the child is 18 years of age or older and is no longer enrolled in high school or a high-school equivalent program.”  In the Interest of W.R.B. and B.K.B., Children.  So, what are your options to ensure that your children can get a college education and have support from the other parent?

This issue is addressed in In the Interest of W.R.B. and B.K.B., Children from the 5th District Court of Appeals in Dallas.     There, the Dallas Court of Appeals addressed the issue of post-majority support which is defined as applying “only to a non-disabled child who is 18 years of age or older and is no longer enrolled in high school or a high-school equivalent program” Tex. Fam. Code Section 154.001(a).  Therefore, this creates or allows for a specific scenario in which the other parent would still be required to make support payments.  In this case, the Court held that the trial court cannot order post-majority support on its own volition but the parties can agree to post-majority support in writing.  In the agreed modification orders, the parties had done just that.  Therefore, the Court of Appeals held that it was proper for the trial court to render the order of post-majority support.  However, the issue then became that the obligor parent stopped paying the post-majority expenses and so the recipient or obligee parent filed an enforcement action seeking reimbursement of all of the expenses, attorneys’ fees and interest.

The Dallas Court of Appeals held that for post-majority support, this is after the child ages out and was based purely upon the parties’ agreement and so therefore it is not enforceable in a family law court under the Texas Family Code.  Rather, the proper avenue is breach of contract.  This is because the agreed orders, with respect to the post-majority support, are considered a contract because it is an agreement of the parties not based upon legal authority.   This is unlike the issue of child support that was ordered which remains enforceable even post-aging out of the children because the Court still maintains jurisdiction over that issue as it was awarded under the family code.

​Whether you are just now to the realization that you will have to pay child support or whether you have just been ordered, the sinking feeling may be setting in as to the fact that you will be paying this monthly amount for quite some time. The real question is, however, when does your child support obligation end? What if your child moves in with you, what if your child moves out entirely, what if your child gets married before they graduate high school? All questions to be considered when paying monthly child support.

Understand that if nothing out of the ordinary occurs and your child continues to live with the parent receiving the child support, you have a statutory obligation to continue paying your child support. More than likely, you were ordered to pay a certain amount in child support each month due on the first day of each month and every month thereafter. You may have a court order that states the following:

“and a like payment being due and payable on the first day of each month thereafter until the first month following the date of the earliest occurrence of one of the events specified below:

You may not think that this distinction is important, but in the world of family law it is imperative that you understand the difference.  It could be the difference between you actually being the father of a child in the eyes of the law as well as differing burdens of how to overcome that label if you are not the child’s biological father.  In fact, if you are in the middle of a divorce or a suit affecting the parent child relationship, knowing your definitions is crucial when it comes to duties to support children and your rights to visiting those children.

Texas Family Code Section 101.0015 defines alleged father as a man who “alleges himself to be, or is alleged to be, the genetic father or a possible genetic father of a child, but whose paternity has not been determined.”  So, if you think that you are the father of a child but it has not been concluded by court ordered genetic testing—then you are an alleged father.  We see this type of scenario come up in situations such as cases involving the Attorney General’s Office of Texas.  If a woman petitions the Attorney General’s Office for child support, then that agency will file a lawsuit and have all of the alleged fathers served.  It is then your duty to ask for genetic testing if there is any doubt in your mind about whether or not you are the father.  Once genetic testing is completed and paternity is established, you then become an adjudicated father.   Adjudicated father is defined in Texas Family Code Section 160.102(1) as a man who is determined to be the father of a child by the Court.  Therefore, once your paternity is established by results of genetic testing then the Court will name you as the father and proceed forward with child support, visitation, etc.

In contrast, Texas Family Code Section 160.204 defines a presumed father as follows:

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