McGuire Law Firm, PLLC

10/03/2024

eCourts expanding in all 100 counties in 2025 and N.C. Business court — Neuse News

RALEIGH — Plans to complete the eCourts expansion to trial courts across all 100 counties in 2025 and the North Carolina Business Court were announced today by the Administrative Office of the Courts (NCAOC).

07/30/2024

Child Custody - Subject Matter Jurisdiction | McGuire Law Firm, PLLC

Before a Court can enter a child custody Order, the Court must have "subject matter jurisdiction," which is governed by Chapter 50A of the North Carolina General Statutes, also known as the "Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA)."  There are four ways that a trial court ca...

07/26/2024

House Bill 657 (2023-2024 Session) would shorten the mandatory waiting period for filing for divorce in North Carolina from one year to six months, with a provision allowing parties to waive the six-month waiting period for uncontested divorces that do not involve children. The bill also proposes abolishing the marital torts of Alienation of Affection and Criminal Conversation. The bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. An identical bill has been filed in the North Carolina Senate (S.B. 703). It is also in Committee.

Bill Text (2023-04-19) Amend 1-Yr Sep/Repeal Alien. of Aff/Crim. Con [Re-ref to the Com on Judiciary 1, if favorable, Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House]

07/25/2024

Grandparent Visitation Rights in North Carolina | McGuire Law Firm, PLLC

1.  NCGS 50-13.1 - to prevail under this statute, a grandparent would need to establish that the natural parents are 'unfit' or have acted in a manner inconsistent with their constitutionally-protected status.  This is a high bar, and it is fairly difficult to prevail under this statute absent som...

01/14/2022

12/06/2021

North Carolina House Bill 525 would allow a family member (blood, marriage or adoption), spouse, former spouse, dating partner, former dating partner, persons who have a child in common, domestic partner or persons who have a parent-child relationship with a person (parent, step-parent or grandparent), law enforcement officer or healthcare provider to file a petition to have a person’s firearm seized. The petition must allege a danger of ‘imminent harm to self or others due to having the possession of a firearm.’ The petition can be granted ex-parte (meaning that the judge only hears one side of the story and the respondent is not there to defend himself or herself), and if the ex-parte order is entered, a full hearing will be subsequently scheduled. A judge has the authority to order a mental health evaluation if he or she chooses. The bill has stalled in committee currently, and a petition has been filed by certain N.C. House Democrats to bring the bill up for debate on the House floor. I won’t get into the gun control politics of the situation, but I will weigh in as a family law practitioner. As written currently, this bill would be extremely easy for a current or former spouse, current or former romantic partner or family member to abuse. As currently written, I can tell you that it would be used frequently as a revenge tool and false allegations would be common. And those false allegations would result in a huge number of unintended consequences that have everything to do with revenge and nothing to do with ‘saving lives.’ I’ve included a link to the text of the proposed bill below.

10/11/2021

A little about Divorce from Bed and Board and its uses.

DIVORCE FROM BED AND BOARD | Co-Counsel Benefits

10/07/2021

This is the text of North Carolina General Statute Sections 50-90 through 50-100. It defines and spells out the authority of a parenting coordinator. A parenting coordinator is a person appointed by a judge to try to help resolve certain disputes that may come up in a child custody situation. These can include things like exchange times, holiday or summer visitation issues, extracurricular activities or phone contact issues. The custody order will likely address most of the issues that can come up between parents in a custody dispute, but no custody order can address every issue that can come up over the years. For parents in districts that use parenting coordinators, it can be a great resource for relatively minor issues. And it can avoid the aggravation and expense of going back to court for a modification trial. I think it is especially helpful post-pandemic, since currently many domestic court calendars are backlogged for months. The parenting coordinator may be a great option for those who want to address a problem more quickly and cheaper than the traditional court route.

07/09/2021

Interesting case from September, 2020. Unpublished opinion. Basically, Mom filed Contempt Motions against Dad for failure to follow Orders to pay her attorney’s fees in a child custody case and in an Order to Compel, as well as failure to pay her a distributive award in an Equitable Distribution case. The trial court found Dad in Civil Contempt in the custody attorney’s fees case and in the E.D. case, but did not find Dad in willful contempt in the custody attorney’s fees case because he didn’t have the ability to pay. The trial court did, however, modify the payments due in all three previous Orders as purge conditions. That means Dad doesn’t have to go to jail if he makes the modified payments. So Mom ‘won,’ more or less, but she appealed anyway. The Court of Appeals upheld the purge conditions in the Order to Compel attorney’s fees case and in the E.D. distributive award case, but NOT in the custody attorney’s fees case because the Court of Appeals held that since Dad was not held in Civil Contempt on that issue, there could be no purge condition. The COA further held that changing the payment in the original Order was thus an improper modification of the Order. So basically, Dad has to pay the higher amount that was in the original Order. The interesting part is that Dad would have been much better off if the judge had found him in Civil Contempt in the first place!! And I’m curious how much Mom spent on the appeal, because she didn’t get any more money out it. The monthly payment amount changed, but the total amount that Dad has to pay stayed exactly the same. The lesson for both is that sometimes when you win, you lose.

07/08/2021

Recent Court of Appeals Child Support case involving self-employment income. I didn’t see the hearing or review the evidence presented, so I may not have all the relevant facts, but I’m stunned that the trial court order wasn’t more specific about how it arrived at the income figure. Self-employment income for child support purposes is determined by subtracting ordinary and necessary business expenses from revenue, and it can be complicated. The Court of Appeals remanded this case, and it will be interesting to see the new Order after this case is reconsidered.

07/04/2021

Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th!!

06/24/2021

The issue was whether a school can regulate off-campus speech, which in this case was a Snapchat post containing profanity. The Court ruled that the school could not because the post was not disruptive or threatening. Basically, the ruling means that the school could have disciplined the student if she had bullied another student with a post, for example, but in this case, the post was simply profane, and thus the student’s First Amendment right of free speech outweighed the school’s interest in promoting ‘good manners.’ It was the first time in 5 decades that the Supreme Court has sided with a student in one of these school free speech cases.

The court ruled 8 to 1 that the punishment was too severe, although it declined to say schools never have a role in disciplining students for off-campus speech.