Citation

Duggan WD. Fam. Court Rev. 2007; 45(2): 193-213.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1744-1617.2007.00139.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article offers for inspection the proposition that the adversarial evidence-based litigation process is unsuitable for resolving custody cases in general and relocation cases in particular. It analyzes the leading cases from New York, Massachusetts, California, England, Canada, and Australia. It reaches a conclusion that no jurisdiction has devised a legal standard or formula that enables a judge to predict the future best interest of a child if that child is allowed to relocate with one parent away from the other. For this reason, the court has a duty to offer as sophisticated and friendly a settlement process and atmosphere as possible. However, knowing that judges will still be required to resolve these difficult cases because they often seem impervious to settlement, the article offers thirty-six factors that a court should consider in all move-away cases. By relying on each of these factors that is relevant to the case, the parents will have an understanding of why the decision was made the way it was and it will also allow for effective appellate review.