IICLE Family Law Flash Points - November 2015

1.         Despite a relationship for seven years, a biological mother’s former same sex partner lacked standing to petition for visitation with minor child.  The First District upheld the trial court’s dismissal of a same-sex partner’s petition seeking visitation with a minor child of her former partner for lack of standing.  The petitioner alleged that for approximately seven years the parties acted as co-parents of the child, even after their romantic relationship ended two years after the child’s birth. The petitioner claimed that she continued to maintain a weekly parenting schedule with the child including picking him up from daycare and spending every other week with him.  After the relationship ended, the parties discussed guardianship and adoption, but it never came to fruition.  The Petitioner asked the Court to apply the equitable adoption to allow her standing to seek visitation. However, under the IMDMA, because Petitioner is not a grandparent, great-grandparent, sibling, or a step-parent (all of whom have standing under Section 607 of the IMDMA) and because the Illinois Supreme Court has clearly held that the concept of equitable adoption does not apply in divorce or parentage proceedings, the petitioner did not have standing to seek visitation. In re the Visitation of J.T.H., 2015 IL App (1st) 142384.

2.         A finding of contempt regarding husband’s Facebook postings reversed because contempt sanction imposed was criminal and not civil.   Husband was found in indirect civil contempt of court after he posted comments on his Facebook page stating that he had intentionally and secretly recorded a hearing in violation of SCR 63(A)(8) and encouraged other litigants to do the same.  At a rule to show cause hearing regarding the secret recording, he testified that he had lied on his Facebook page, and he in fact, did not make an illegal recording.  The trial court, on its own motion, found him in indirect civil contempt of court for the comments he made encouraging other litigants to break the law, and ordered a purge in the form of an apology on his Facebook page as well as a retraction of his claim to have recorded the hearing.  Because the purge was punitive in nature, not coercive, the appropriate contempt standard was criminal, not civil.  And because the husband was not afforded all of the constitutional rights and protections afforded to other criminal defendants, the finding of contempt was improper and reversed.  In re the Marriage of Weddigen, 2015 Ill App (4th) 150044.

3.         Maintenance review language in settlement agreement deemed ambiguous and construed against the husband.  At issue on appeal was the following language: “Charles shall pay Kimberly maintenance in the sum of $6,200 per month for a period of 60 months at which time the maintenance shall be reviewable upon the filing of a petition prior to the termination of the maintenance.”  Wife filed her petition to review the maintenance after the 60 month period and the trial court dismissed it because it was filed after the expiration of the 60 months at which point maintenance had terminated.  However, the Appellate Court held the above language was ambiguous in terms of whether the maintenance was actually reviewable or terminable after the 60 months had passed, and construed the language against the husband since he was the drafter of the agreement.  Wife’s petition to review her maintenance was allowed to proceed.   In re the Marriage of Kuyk, 2015 Il App (2d) 140733.