Maryland Family Law Maryland family law opinions and commentary

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Relatives of a 7-year-old boy who suffered horrific abuse before being killed by his stepmother and father and fed to pigs have filed a lawsuit alleging social service workers in Kansas and Missouri knew the boy ...

In a landmark family-law ruling, Maryland’s top court has held that grandparents seeking custody of a grandchild need show only by a preponderance of the evidence that the parent is unfit. The Court of Appeals ruled as unnecessary the harder-to-show ...

DENVER — A Denver social worker can be sued for violating the constitutional rights of a boy when she recommended that he be placed in his father’s custody despite knowing that the father was a convicted sex offender, a federal ...

MINNEAPOLIS — Being partners in both marriage and business can be a tricky affair, as a recent Minnesota Court of Appeals decision is showing. In a decision published last week, the appellate court found that when the marital interest in ...

HARTFORD, Conn. — The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state’s child welfare agency cannot vaccinate children placed temporarily in its custody when the parents object. Justices said in the 7-0 decision that state law allows the Department of ...

A married couple can agree that property they buy as husband and wife belongs solely to him or her without expressly stating in the agreement that the property is “non-marital,” Maryland’s top court has ruled. The Court of Appeals decision ...

COLUMBIA, SC — A Marine’s fling with a woman while he was stationed at Parris Island in Beaufort about 16 years ago unleashed a messy paternity case that has prompted the South Carolina Court of Appeals to do something it’s ...

Maryland’s top court knew it was going where no state supreme court had gone before in ruling that a battered spouse who hires a hit man to kill her husband can claim imperfect self-defense, which, if successful, could turn what ...

AIKEN, S.C. — A former South Carolina legislator who opposed placing restrictions on people charged in abuse cases was sentenced Monday to five years’ probation after pleading guilty to a domestic violence charge in an attack on his wife. Chris ...

RICHMOND — In the breakup of a cash-poor but land-rich couple, a Norfolk judge has ordered the wife to advance legal expenses for the husband, with a right of reimbursement on final divorce. Norfolk Circuit Judge David W. Lannetti took ...