The mother prevented the father from seeing the children and was ordered to pay compensation.
Reality shows that couples who separate or divorce often find themselves waging difficult battles among themselves over a long period of time on a variety of issues.
Usually the main thing The disputes revolve around the division of property. But Many disputes concern visitation and custody arrangements regarding shared children.
However, reality also shows that sometimes anger, the desire to take revenge, and make things difficult for one’s spouse harm not only the spouses, but also acutely harm children who grow up in an environment filled with passion, incitement, and hatred.
A dispute of the type described caused the mother to thwart twenty-four meetings that were supposed to take place between her children and their father.
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Home Family Law It ruled that the woman must pay her ex-husband compensation in the amount of 12,000 NIS for thwarting the aforementioned meetings.
The woman did not give up, and filed an appeal against the Family Court’s decision.
The appeal was filed as part of a procedure Bar-A-Ra 7489-07-14 Mother n Father, and was tried before the Haifa District Court.
What led to the filing of the lawsuit and the appeal?
The applicant and the respondent divorced in May of this year. They have three children together, ages 11, 9, and 6.
The couple were in the process of Divorce And separation since 2009, when they already reached agreements that were given the force of a judgment by the Family Court, among other things, regarding the arrangements. Custody of the children.
It was agreed between the parties that the children would be in the mother’s custody, subject to custody arrangements that were not specified in the ruling.
Not long after, the father filed a lawsuit for custody of the children, claiming that the mother was not allowing him to see them. This lawsuit was heard by a family court, and an appeal was filed.
It should be noted that “within the framework of this claim, the father claimed that the applicant does not allow the existence of visitation arrangements between him and his children, uses the minors as playthings in her hands, and causes them to be separated from him.
In his opinion, this behavior of the mother indicates poor parental capacity, and therefore requires the transfer of the minors to his custody.”
In Family Court, the mother denied the allegations.
According to her, the lack of connection between the children and their father is solely due to the father’s behavior and his rigidity towards them.
She also claimed that it is the children in general who refuse to meet their father, and that she does not at all hinder or make meetings between them difficult.
Various reports were submitted to the Family Court on behalf of social workers, as is customary in child custody cases.
Family Court Decision
The Family Court ruled, based on submitted reports, that the mother “does not give full permission for the relationship between the father and the minors and does not encourage this relationship.”
In several interim decisions issued by the Family Court, it was determined that the mother must respect the visitation arrangements. It was determined that she is not permitted to prevent the divorced man, the father of the children, from meeting and being with his children.
Despite everything, the mother remained in her position and prevented the father from meeting with his children. For his part, the father submitted various applications to the Family Court in which he argued that the mother was still preventing him from meeting with his children.
Finally, the court determined, after hearing the parties, that the mother prevented and thwarted 24 meetings between the father and their children, and therefore ordered her to pay the father 500 NIS for each meeting.
In total, the mother was ordered to pay the father 12,000 NIS. It was also determined that for each meeting that the mother thwarted, she would pay the father 500 NIS.
Read more: Violation of visitation arrangements by the father
The appeal process filed by the mother
The mother appealed the decision, claiming that it was a wrong decision. She even repeated the arguments she had raised before the Family Court.
The rule in appeals in general and in the field of family law in particular is that an appellate court does not interfere with the facts determined by the trial court.
An appeal is not an allocation of improvements but an opportunity to examine whether the trial court erred in the legal conclusions it reached.
The court that heard the appeal stated that under these circumstances the Family Court did not err in its conclusions. To wit: “I am not convinced that the trial court erred. The decision is well-founded in all the material at its disposal, and especially in the reports by the social worker, who specifically supported the father’s version and attributed the failure to comply with the visitation arrangements to the mother.”
The appeals court also harshly criticized the mother’s behavior, stating that her behavior lacks good faith and indicates deficient parental authority that is not exercised by her in practice. It also stated that “the mother is entrenched in her position, treating the minors as if they were her private property.”
The Court of Appeal also ruled that, in light of the circumstances, there is no reason to interfere with the amount of the fine imposed on the mother by the Family Court, as it is a reasonable amount appropriate to her behavior.
The court rejected the appeal and even ordered the mother to pay the father legal costs of 3,000 NIS.
From the ruling and the results of the appeal, we can learn that parents can disagree, but it is recommended that parents who reach a breaking point regarding their relationship not forget that breaking up a family unit is much harder on children, and therefore unnecessary wars that mainly harm children who have done nothing wrong should be avoided.
Cases such as the above can be very expensive, if only due to the fact that the mother chose to “use her children” in order to get revenge on her ex-husband. In addition to the expensive legal proceedings, the investment of energy and wasted time, the court also ruled that the mother was liable for a substantial amount of compensation.
The bottom line is, remember that it is highly inadvisable to engage in power struggles at the expense of the children, even after divorce proceedings and despite the prevailing hostility. It harms the children and is costly to the parents.
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