These are the golden Scales of Justice, They represent the legal system and courts, The scales here ... [+]
Abusers use legal strategies to perpetrate abuse on victims even after a court issued an order of protection or a restraining order on behalf of the victim and even after custody is resolved by agreement or court order. These legal abuses consist of:
Cross Petitions for Orders of Protection
The abuser files a petition alleging abuse by the other parent or litigant which serves to confuse the court as to who the perpetrator is and who the victim is and in some instances issues two orders of protection essentially neutralizing the actual aggrieved party’s allegations and creating a platform for further abuse, i.e. allegations of violations of the abuser’s order of protection. The cross petition for an order of protection by the abuser creates the illusion that it is in essence a dysfunctional family where both parties are at fault, the very conclusion the abuser wants the court to reach.
Excessive Discovery Demands
The abuser, often the more moneyed party, seeks to bury the victim in paperwork, demanding documents for every expense and payment made from a victim who often was given a paltry allowance in cash by the abuser and has no records of expenses or bills paid. Victims have been subjected to intense questioning in depositions about the cost of personal products such as Tampax or shampoo and how much they spend on these items.
Violation Petitions
These petitions are filed against the victim often in retaliation. The abuser seeks to hold the victim with “contempt of court” for having committed alleged violations of orders of visitation or cross orders of protection. Violation petitions intimidate victims causing them to fear retribution from the court or worse, a harsh penalty including incarceration. The strategy is used by abusers to try and force victims into settling for the custody arrangement the abuser wants.
Calls to Child Protective Services:
An often used tactic is making calls to Child Protective Services to allege a complaint or complaints of child abuse against the victim. This causes an investigation of the victim’s home, examination and questioning of the children and questioning of the children’s schools and other family members about the allegations, which are false. The abuser receives no punishment for having called in a false report. The victim of the report suffers intense fear and anxiety fearing at worst the removal of the children from her care and custody and turning over the children to the abuser.
Repeated Child Custody Petitions
Abusers file numerous custody petitions keeping the case before the court alleging various bases for the court to modify or change a custody order and forcing the victim to answer in court each and every custody petition with new allegations.
Frivolous Motions and Appeals
Another tactic is filing motions without a basis at law and once they are denied, filing new motions to reargue or renew, and appeals to a higher court, causing the victim to incur significant legal fees to defend against each new filing.
Extensive and Exhausting Settlement Negotiations
Abusers often use their more moneyed position to force the lesser moneyed victim into settling by both threatening that theirs is the more legally valid position and that the victim will undoubtedly lose in court and be ordered to pay the moneyed person’s legal fees so they best settle for what the abuser is offering. Victims are forced into signing away rights to valuable property or accepting lesser support for themselves and their children by this abuse of the legal process.
By offering less support, abusers force the victim into litigating at trial without the resources to do so.
Identifying legal abuse
Identifying legal filings such cross petitions or violation petitions as abuse is left to the attorney for the victim to bring to the attention of the judge or to the judge herself to observe a pattern of abusive behavior based on the filings in her courtroom. Excessive discovery demands are often overlooked as legal abuse because both sides in a dispute have an equal right to receive information from each other pursuant to law. Legal abuse in settlement negotiations is left unnoticed because once a settlement is reached, however unfair or unjust it may be to the victim, it is often not subject to court review. Allocutions by the court of settlement agreements are done with both parties present and the victim may be afraid to say they felt forced into signing the agreement. Legal abuse by motion or appeal is only remedied by combating the filings with a cogent legal response and ultimately prevailing on the merits costing the victim exorbitant sums of money they do not have. The end result is that the victim prevailed but lost is how they were victimized. False filings with Child Protective Services receive no punishment as the person who calls in the abuse is often not identified as a matter of law.
Legal abuse is part of coercion and control
Legal abuse must be recognized as part of a pattern of abuse and should not be tolerated as part of any legal strategy in any courtroom.
Proposed Remedies
Suggestions for remedying the ways in which abusers use the legal system to further abuse the victim are:
There cannot be cross orders of protection. While both sides have a right to seek an order of protection, each against the other, a court should enter only one order of protection on behalf of one victim.
Awards of legal fees to the non-moneyed spouse must be automatic and without question. Leveling the playing field will go a long way towards allowing a non-moneyed person, often the victim, to retain qualified counsel who can match every filing and discovery demand with the appropriate legal response.
Child Protective Services must name the callers of alleged abuse when they are made aware of a contested custody dispute. Once they are identified, if a report is deemed false, there needs to be a penalty, similar to the filing of a false police report. Not only do these reports threaten and intimidate victims but they tie up valuable resources that should be investigating cases of real abuse.
