I have previously written about situations where a child becomes constructively emancipated as a result of the child’s refusal to have contact with the parent. What happens in situations where a parent is prevented from seeing the child by the other parent? In Coull v. Rottman, 131 A.D.3d 964 (2nd Dept. 2015) the Appellate Division, Second Department suspended father’s obligation to make child support payments.
The father last visited his son in February 2010. For the next several months, he said he would go to the exchange location on visitation days, but often neither the mother nor his son would be there. In one instance, both the mother and the child appeared, but the mother said the boy would not leave the car.
The court also found that the mother assumed an inappropriately hostile stance toward the father and witnesses who testified in his favor. She further stated many times that she would never allow the father to see his child and would do “whatever it takes” to keep the boy away from him.
Given the circumstances, the court concluded that the father’s obligation to pay child support should be suspended. While parents have a duty to continually support their children until they are 21 years old, where the noncustodial parent establishes that his or her right of reasonable access to the child has been unjustifiably frustrated by the custodial parent, child support payments may be suspended.
Further, the relationship between the father and the child had deteriorated and while the boy had participated in therapy for several months to foster a relationship with his father, he remained “vehemently opposed” to any type of visitation with the father. Since the child was 13 at the time of the hearing, and the judge had placed great weight on the child’s wishes, since he was mature enough to express them.
A similar result was reached by the court in Argueta v. Baker, 2016 N.Y. Slip. Op. 01838, where the Appellate Division held that the father had demonstrated that the mother actively interfered with and deliberately frustrated his visitation with the child by failing to provide him with the child’s Florida address, preventing him from seeing the child when he was in Florida, and failing to notify him when the child was in New York. Therefore, the father was entitled to suspension of his child support obligations.
Both parental alienation and parental interference cases turn on specific proof of the child’s and parents’ actions. They may also require testimony of the child. If the parental relationship with the child is already bad, forcing the child to testify is not likely to improve it.