A trial court can award joint legal custody to two parents even if they are found to be nearly incapable of communicating and reaching shared decisions about their children, Maryland’s top court has ruled. The Court of Appeals also found ...

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The chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee wants married couples with minor children to have the same path to divorce that childless couples do.

Tagged with: child custody child support divorce

Maryland’s top court has agreed to decide if the former same-sex partner of a child’s mother has the parental rights of custody and visitation because the decision to conceive the child was mutual and the couple married – but later divorced – after the child’s birth.

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A Maryland appeals court has revived a father’s challenge to a judge’s award of primary physical custody to the child’s mother, saying the jurist was wrong to have simply approved a family magistrate’s recommendation regarding custody after the father objected.

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The former same-sex partner of a child’s mother has asked Maryland’s top court to review lower-court decisions denying that person the parental rights of custody and visitation, though the decision to conceive the child was mutual and the couple married — but later divorced — after the child’s birth.

Tagged with: child custody parental rights same-sex divorce same-sex marriage

A New York man cannot say Maryland courts lack jurisdiction over him in a child-support proceeding after he sought a Prince George’s County Circuit Court order for a paternity test and for information regarding the support request by the Maryland mother who claims he is her child’s father, a Maryland appeals court has held.

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In a family-law dispute involving three generations, a Maryland appeals court has said custody of twin boys should be awarded to their mother — even though a Baltimore judge concluded they would be better off with their maternal grandparents.

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Two contrasting child custody bills came before a Senate committee Tuesday, with one measure saying the focus of judicial decisions must be solely on the best interests of the child and the other stating that judges should begin with a presumption that the estranged parents be given joint legal and shared physical custody of the child.

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Two contrasting views of Maryland child custody law came to the fore at a Senate committee meeting Thursday, with a state commission saying the focus of judicial decisions must remain solely on the best interests of the child and several lawmakers responding that courts should begin with a presumption that the parents be given joint legal and shared physical custody of the child.

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