Child Custody and Visitation Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Legal Remedies for Denied Parenting Time

More In This Category

View Transcript

Our state recognizes that parenting time orders are to be followed and expects parents to follow both their agreements as well as court orders. So, if the court orders somebody to cooperate and provide a child at a particular time for a particular period of time and they don’t do that, the court has had the remedy of finding that other parents in contempt, imposing sanctions including jail time, fines, things such as this, and then also awarding what we call compensatory parenting time. The existing statute has been looked at and tweaked to a certain extent and the new statute that will go into effect on August 1st, in which the court has clarified what types of deprivation of parenting time trigger an award of compensatory parenting, and then also make it clear that the court must award parenting time to compensate unless it finds that would be a detriment to the child. So, again, as I’ve said with regard to the custody statute and other areas, the focus is going back on how does this meet the best interests of the child? So, for instance, if the result would be that the child would not get to see the other parent because of the compensatory parenting time, I would see a court probably not ordering it all at once but maybe spread out over a period of time in blocks of two or three days here and there to add on so that they would still see both parents, perhaps giving more vacation time, giving more summer vacation, having opportunities to spend more time on school breaks, things like this, but I wouldn’t foresee a court outright taking away all other parenting times so that the child doesn’t get to see the other parent.

Minneapolis, Minnesota family law attorney Marc Johannsen explains what a parent seeking more parenting time can do.

More Videos From This Lawyer