The l00-Mile Leash

It is well known that children can become lifelong victims of their parents’ divorce. Where the parents work hard to minimize conflict and remain involved in their children’s lives, the damage can be avoided or contained. Where parents continue their conflicts after the divorce -- and where the custodial parent moves a significant distance from the other parent, children can experience a profound loss of contact with and relationship to the other parent.

A few years ago, the Michigan Courts decided Dehring v Dehring, 220 Mich App 163 (1996). In that case, one parent moved to the other side of the state with the child but remained in the state. If the mother had wanted to move to Toledo, Ohio or “interstate,” she would have been required to obtain a court order. She would have had to convince the court that her motives for the move were to better her life and the child’s life and that she could provide the father with meaningful parenting time. The court would also consider whether the parties’ respective positions were based on an intent to increase or avoid child support. Under Dehring, no court order is required for an “intrastate” move and therefore no consideration is given to the effects on the child and the other parent. Mom can just move even though the parties were awarded “joint custody.”

There has been a major backlash to the Dehring decision since l996 when it was handed down. Senate Bill l244, was introduced by Sen. Bill Bullard, Jr. to the Child Custody Act to prohibit a child’s parents from changing the child’s residence to a new location more than l00 miles from where the child lived at the time of the divorce if the parents were awarded joint custody. That bill was passed into law. There are exceptions to the statute if the parties agree to the move, if the move brings the parties closer to one another, if the court has awarded sole custody to the parent, or if the child lives more than l00 miles away from the non-custodial parent at the time of the divorce. If none of these exceptions applies, the court holds an evidentiary hearing.

At the evidentiary hearing, the parent proposing the move would has to prove -- as in the Dehring case -- that the move would result in a better life for that parent and the child. The court also considers the extent to which the objecting parent had exercised his/her parenting time to date. The court finally considers whether the moving parent wants to increase his/her child support by decreasing the other parent’s parenting time and whether there is or has been domestic violence in the case (which might have precipitated the need to move).

Word to the wise -- Exercise your parenting time. Crusade for joint legal custody if you believe that is in your child’s best interests. In most of these cases, the past comes back to haunt a parent or to benefit him/her -- so the days since your judgment of divorce was entered are just as important as the days before.

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