I have previously written about exclusive possession of a marital residence during a pending divorce action. The applicable standard requires a showing of a marital strife and that the parties were unable to coexist in the same house. I recently had an opportunity to litigate this issue in a situation where the parties’ conduct has not arisen to the level of marital strife, but the conflict was affecting the parties’ children. Justice Richard A. Dollinger of the Monroe County Supreme Court reviewed and addressed this issue in L.M.L.v. H.T.N. a/k/a H.T.N., 57 Misc.3d 1207(A) (Sup. Ct. Monroe County 2017).
Having reviewed the history of the marital strife standard, Justice Dollinger wrote that lower courts have generally required more evidence of “strife” than the “petty harassments such as the hostility and contempt admittedly demonstrated herein that are routinely part and parcel of an action for divorce.” However, he also noted that even minimal levels of domestic discord impact children living in a besieged household. Given those circumstances, he wrote that:
The harm of a hostile home environment – populated with foul words, disparaging comments, loud demeaning voices, frequent arguments and verbal fights – and the fear for safety of the mother and the children rise, in this court’s view, to the level of domestic violence that [*10]mandates court intervention.Second, this court concedes that simply separating the parents may not end the torrent of verbal abuse directed at the other parent: even in new separate residences, a parent can unleashed verbal abuse and make demeaning comments about the other parent. The children will be exposed to that language, perhaps even harsher than what would be uttered in the company of both parents. But, the children will be spared the retort, the rising voices, the angry face-to-face confrontations that ensue when a parent begins a verbal argument. This difference — between the comments of separated parents living in separate residences and confrontations of parents living in the same residence — may be seem of minor importance to the judiciary, but it would seem to be easily classified as in the “better interests” of the children.
Justice Dollinger summarized the issues before the court as “[t]he mere suggestion that “exclusive use” should hinge, in any fashion, on the “voluntary establishment of an alternative residence” also suggests that preventing domestic violence may depend, in part, on the untenable notion that the convenience of one party’s ability to secure short-term housing away from the home is somehow more important than the emotional security of the children.” The above holding represents a significant departure from the existing standard. I agree with the decision and have always thought that the marital strife standard was unduly restrictive. I will be interested to see if this decision will be followed by other court in pending divorce cases.