Rule to Show Cause

David Siegel: Yes. So back to this. You’re going to petition the court for visitation rights – or rule to show cause.

Jesse Barrientes: Rule to show cause.

David Siegel: Because you want to get your visitation. What’s the court likely to do?

Jesse Barrientes: Well what will happen is we, or a divorce lawyer in Aurora, will file it as long as it’s a verified petition and we’re there on the first day. Generally the court, depends on which county you’re in, but generally the court will issue a rule to show cause and that means that the person – and this is very important. And it depends again on what the local rules and which county you’re in. If a rule is issues, that means then that the burden shifts. Instead of me who is bringing the motion to show that the other person hasn’t done it, the burden shifts to the other person to show why they shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for disobeying the court order. And so what will happen is there will be a hearing date and sometimes you’ll settle it but if you don’t settle it – see for lack of visitation it’s one of those difficult things because they have what they call a purge.

Which means if they find you in willful contempt they have to give you an opportunity to purge yourself of the contempt. With child support, back child support it’s easy. Okay, we find that you haven’t’ paid child support and you owe $5 thousand. Okay, here’s the purge amount. You’re held in contempt and you’re ordered to be taken into custody and that is going to be stayed. It’s called a minimus for contempt. In other words, they’re going to stay the order. Taking you into custody until this specific date unless you pay the purge amount, which is $5 thousand. That’s easy because it’s just a question of money. And either you pay the money or you don’t pay the money. If you pay the money great. It will be discharged and you’ll be fined. You’ll still be looking at paying the other attorney’s fees if he makes a petition for that, but you’ll be okay. With visitation, it’s a little different because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

David Siegel: What’s likely going to happen? What is a judge likely going to do when both parties are appearing in court and maybe the other party has filed a response? What is the court going to do?

Jesse Barrientes: What’s probably going to happen is that you’re going to get make up visitation and you’re going to have to pay for my attorney’s fees.

Divorce Book

Child custody

Written response on a child custody filing

Custody agreements

Parenting class requirement

Divorce court costs & fees

Guardian ad litem cost

604B evaluation

Fighting over child custody

Visitation

Rule to show cause

Custody Formal Hearing