The key to advancing the mission of Reform Family Law Now is to identify large groups of individuals who have had similar experiences having their Constitutional rights violated in the family law system. To do this, we need to show the consistency that exists between individual claims, across geographic regions and the existence of large enough numbers that show that litigation brought on individual claims would yield the potential for inconsistent results on the basic factual situation before the court. In other words, unless we can tear down the injustice in one, major assault, we will be stuck with very few victories across the board and the perpetuation of the system's destruction of families.
Here are four basic sets of common fact scenarios that stand out as more than ripe for attack in the courts by very large classes of individuals. You will note that the way the facts segregate the affected individuals, each one tends to come together either as a class of women or a class of men.
Women whose Constitutional Rights have been violated by child protective services investigations and judicial proceedings that have flowed from them. To fit into this class, you should have suffered harm in the form of losing custody, parental rights or substantial parenting time because of CPS' actions. There are numerous points at which you may have had Constitutional rights violated, including any of these:
- denial of your right to confront witnesses against you;
- denial of your right to be tried by a jury of your peers;
- denial of protections against unreasonable searches and seizure of property;
- lack of proper notice of hearings, and/or an adequate opportunity to have your own claims heard by the tribunal
While the first two rights apply primarily to criminal proceedings, the quasi-criminal nature of these proceedings gives rise to the need for these rights to be protected.
Noncustodial parents who have been denied due process in the setting of child support obligations at amounts that are not within the person's reasonable ability to pay. To be clear, this is different from a claim that child support constitutes an involuntary servitude, a claim we do not expect to bring because it is so likely to be rejected at every level of appeal. Instead, our claim is that child support calculations that make it impossible or highly improbable that the payor will be able to pay, are unconstitutional. In essence, support calculations that create a high level of risk of nonconformity, concurrently create a risk of imprisonment, and therefore set standards for an individual that do not apply to the population as a whole, or a quasi-Bill of Attainder, which is unconstitutional. Furthermore, even the IRS is constrained by due process and prohibited from trying to assess or collect sums of money on income it cannot prove exists.
Men whose rights have been violated in VAWA proceedings for domestic violence and relating to restraining orders. The family law courts ignore Constitutional protections for men in these proceedings in roughly the same measure as they do for women relating to CPS investigations with one additional consideration. A case is now pending in the NJ Supreme Court that will address the issue of whether the standard of proof required to obtain a restraining order, with criminal sanctions for its violation, should be higher than the preponderance of the evidence standard. This, along with the lack of jury protection, confrontation clause issues, and possibly equal protection concerns, create a host of grievous denial of individual rights all around the country.
Women who lose custody or parental rights because of allegations they make. This is the opposite side of the VAWA case. Though it is a surprise to most, at least in San Diego, CA this is taking place routinely. The very same rights that are ignored and violated of men in VAWA proceedings are being ignored in cases where women are losing their parental rights in southern California and perhaps other places today.
These are the four primary classes that we're working to try to assemble at present. Yes, there is potential for others. For example, there is the prospect of subdividing the above classes further to enable indigent class members to have their own class, and add an additional reason for the courts to pay attention when their claims are brought as a group rather than individuals.
Please consider your own circumstances and email us stating which class or classes you believe you fit.