Protective Orders and Reasonable Costs Considered -- Pendente Lite

My Friday afternoon in the Gloucester, Virginia Circuit Court was, as I mentioned in my previous post, an interesting one.  Primarily interested in the divorce cases heard and decided here, however, I must switch my focus back to the only divorce case I witnessed that afternoon.

Conflicted Counsel from my case was representing the wife.  An attorney I had not before had the opportunity to observe was representing the husband.  The judge was the same as in all of the cases I have witnessed to-date.  Now, as I recall, and as is confirmed in the transcript of my own Pendente Lite hearing, Judge R. Bruce Long does not hear fault in Pendente Lite hearings.  To quote the honorable judge,

"You want me to get into the issue of fault, and I'm not going to deal with the issue of fault pendente lite.  I haven't done that in the past. I don't think it's a good idea to start that now."

OK, so let's proceed on that presumption then. 

Before the judge this day was a husband who has a protective order against him, and who works outside the home, earning $4000 per month, is living at his mother and stepfather's and is paying them $600 rent for room and board.  The wife also works outside the home but only three days per month, with a monthly income of approximately $150.  She and the two children, one of whom is an adult child with disabling migraines who receives social security support, the other of whom is a 16 year old, live in the marital home, the $1100 mortgage on which, is paid by the husband.

Now, the immediate question is pertaining to the temporary protective order that is in place and which prevents the husband's any contact with the wife or the children, with the exception of email or unless initiated by the wife or children.  The two attorneys argue the point back and forth about whether he should be allowed to text his children back when they text him, when it is considered "initiated by the child" etc.  Conflicted Counsel suggested the girls don't want their father contacting them and that a guardian should perform a study to determine what is in the best interest of the children......AND this good attorney, the same one who wants the Court to believe that my husband is just some poor soul who wouldn't hurt a flea, despite the court records in this very courthouse which speak to the contrary, was all over this protective order, speaking at length about how the husband is abusive, demonstrated by his use of the cell phone. According to Conflicted Counsel, this man, if he were on his way to work and called home to speak to one of his family, and they did not answer the phone so he could berate them over the phone, he'd turn the car around and come home so he could berate them in person.... excuse me, but are we discussing "fault" in a Pendente Lite hearing????

Well, OK, but what ELSE was considered in this award of support in this case? Oh yes, let's recall that this judge loves the "guidelines" ... those rather odd contrivances of reality that allow the judge to feel "equitable" while completely destroying decent people's lives.  So, the "guidelines" allow the consideration of "family debt" to include ONLY mortgage/rent and automobile payments.  The "guidelines" consider "family income" in terms of gross income.

Well, the family income reported to be about $4150 per month, with the adult child's SS support payment being added to the wife's income, for reasons unclear to anyone but Conflicted Counsel who offered it as such.  Opposing counsel opposed and the judge agreed with opposing counsel, that the SS support was better characterized for the purposes of the "guidelines" as "child support."  Conflicted Counsel was unhappy with this ruling, rather wanting the husband to be required to pay $807 per month in addition to that $440 amount already being paid by the State.  This, of course, is in addition to the $1100 mortgage, and the utilities, and the insurance costs the husband is carrying.  Nevertheless, Conflicted Counsel is adamant, this is not right, but the judge declares it is, and so it shall be.

Next, Conflicted Counsel challenges the "rent" being stipulated as the husband's payment to his mother and step-father for the use of a room in their house.  He defines the rent as "bogus" and designed to rob the family of much needed monies.  

The two attorneys examine and cross-examine the husband and the husband's step-father and the truth rings out pretty clear... the step-father isn't about to give the 45 year old step-son a free ride... he set the rent himself and has no qualms about charging it.  In the end, after Conflicted Counsel had badgered the two men about how much of the $600 was for food, and how much for utilities, and wasn't it true that the three bedroom house was really set up such that the mother (with cancer) was in one room, the step-father in another and the computer set up in the third, meaning that the husband was REALLY sleeping on the fold-out couch in the sun room, neither of the men would allow Conflicted Counsel to have his way.  The last exchange, directed at the 75 year old step-father, went like this,

"How did you decide how much rent to charge him?"

"I pulled it out of my hat."

"Did you wear that hat today?" asked Conflicted Counsel of the bald man in the witness chair.

"No, it's against the law to wear a hat in court."

(Good for the old man!  Conflicted Counsel needed to be taken down a peg or two!)

And then it was time to examine and cross-examine the wife.  Could she actually work more hours to help with the strapped financial situation?  Neither attorney did a particularly good job at getting this woman to explain a very odd work arrangement she has with an employer for whom she has worked 23 years... nor did anyone suggest that there might be another way to earn income that did not require the woman to leave the home, etc. etc.  Nevertheless, the judge looked at her last year's earnings and decided to base his numbers for the "guidelines" on those figures. 

The judge chose to allow the full $600 claimed by the husband, even though, as Conflicted Counsel pointed out, both the husband AND the father-in-law agreed that this amount included food and utilities, items that are NOT part of the "guidelines."  Nevertheless, the judge found it "reasonable" and so he USED HIS DISCRETION and granted them.

Now, the net result to the wife, according to Conflicted Counsel, is that she will get something like $400 plus the husband's portion of the child support and this will be very hard for his client.  Based on my own calculations, since the total monthly income is $4150 out of which is taken both taxes and insurance costs, I'm guessing the take home pay is more in the neighborhood of $3500 per month.  The husband is paying the $1100 for the mortgage, $600 in rent and will pay about $800 in combined spousal and child support.  He is also paying the utilities for the family.  Regardless, this man will pay more than half his take home pay to support his family during the pendente lite period.  I don't imagine that sounds too bad to someone who is being represented and who represents himself as being the one"at fault" for the failed marriage.

Nevertheless, the judge clearly considered the aspect of fault in this hearing, when he heard the protective order arguments and he extended the "guidelines" in this man's case, to include food and utilities.  These two considerations seem to me to be in direct opposition to his statements made during MY pendente lite hearing.  

In my case, while I am the innocent party, the victim of the abuse, the ONLY one who worked and contributed financially to the marriage and the assets thereof, and the one whose life was threatened repeatedly by the man who wanted to ENSURE I would never seek a divorce, even despite ALL of this, the judge, in refusing to hear fault, and further refusing to consider my actual budget (in that I pay ALL of the bills, all of the debts, AND was, for the first year of our now two-year separation, sending the man an ADDITIONAL $500 per month, to help him while he got a job... of course that never happened....), succeeded in awarding this abuser just under 50% of my take-home pay.   My monthly obligations without the additional support exhaust the entire take-home pay.

There are no children of our marriage.  We were married less than half the time of the couple in the case I witnessed Friday.  And, just in case the judge HAD reviewed my file the night before, as his "right hand gal" assured me he was doing when I tried to see my file the day before the hearing, he knew very well that he was putting me into a Catch-22 situation.  I simply cannot pay all of the family bills AND pay that "temporary" alimony without further encumbering a "marital" asset.....

I am still pondering the "why" of this ruling...  I did object to the order, though it took an act of God to get my attorney to include my objections on the "Seen and Objected to" line of the order.  I am going to file a motion for a reconsideration.  But, as of today, Conflicted Counsel has issued a motion for SHOW CAUSE of why I haven't complied with the order (as yet not signed by the judge as far as I know).

Something is just not right in this Gloucester, Virginia Circuit Court...  The judge who "never considers fault" pendente lite has considered it on two occasions I have witnessed... the first for an adultery case and this one with the protective order....

Next Friday will be another opportunity for me to further my research in this courtroom......