California Divorce Blog - Courts Have the Power to Restrict Parents Speech

AN ORDER RESTRAINING A PARENT FROM “INTERFERING” WITH THE OTHER PARENT’S PARENTING TIME IS NEITHER AMBIGUOUS NOR UNCONSTITUTIONALLY OVERBROAD.
In family law cases, courts have the power to restrict speech to promote the welfare of the children.
Irmo Hartmann (2010) ___ Cal.App.4th ___(CA 2/6 – Opinion filed June 23, 2010)
In a recent divorce and child custody case the Husband asked the court to issue a restraining order preventing Wife from interfering with his custodial time. Husband complained that Wife told the children every detail of the trial, told them that he lied to the court and told them they do not have to follow the court’s orders. She also told the children their father lied to reduce his child support obligation. In October 2007, after an evidentiary hearing, the trial court found Wife treated the court orders as if they were a “work in progress.”
The trial court also found Wife was attempting to alienate the children by her actions, words and demeanor and issued an order restraining her from interfering with Husband’s custodial time. Undaunted, Wife carried on the campaign. She appealed this order and the appellate court decided that In family law cases, courts have the power to restrict speech to promote the welfare of the children.
Thus courts routinely order the parties not to make disparaging comments about the other parent to their children or in their childrens presence. (See In re Marriage of Candiotti (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 718, 725.) If a court is unable to order the parties not to interfere with a custody.

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