It’s almost a cliché at this point to say that the year 2020 is unprecedented. Numerous articles, news stories, and social media posts have already exhausted that part of the story. However, it’s not an exaggeration to say that millions of Americans, and thousands of Arizonans, have suffered financially because of COVID-19 or the accompanying lockdowns. Read More
As one family law judge put it, in family court, parties often think that there will be a clear winner and loser; the judge will pick one person’s side completely. But that is almost never the case. When there are children involved, the judge is always required to look to the best interests of the child, even if neither parent likes it. Usually, it is in the child’s best interests if the parents can come to an agreement that works, that both will follow, even if they cannot be particularly cordial about it. Read More
“Good things come to those who wait.” At least that is what litigant Michael Pasquan hopes in the thirteen-year-old litigation following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Helvetica Servicing, Inc. v. Michael S. Paquan . Read More
In the recent decision Ibarra v. Gastelum, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division 1, found that the Arizona Residential Landlord Tenant Act (“ARLTA”) does not have the specificity required by statute to support a negligence per se personal injury claim. While this seems like a technical decision interpreting obscure and jargon-laced statutes, it has important ramifications for tenants who may be injured by a condition in their rental unit. Read More
There are several legal ramifications to a divorce (or, the legal term in Arizona, a dissolution of a marriage). Not only does it legally dissolve a marriage, it also determines important things like child support, legal decision-making authority (custody) and parenting time (visitation), spousal maintenance (historically called alimony), and division of assets and debts. In the state of Arizona, all property acquired during the marriage is considered “community property” (with a few exceptions), which means it will be split by the parties in the event of a divorce. This split is called an “equitable distribution”, which usually means the property will be divided equally, absent some compelling reason why it should not be. Read More
One bright spot in the often emotionally charged world of family law is adoption, specifically, stepparent adoption. In this scenario, many times the stepparent has already become a de facto parent to his or her spouse’s biological children. These children often live with the stepparent, may have half-siblings that are the biological children of the stepparent, and already view the stepparent as mom or dad. Read More
Everyone has that one neighbor – the neighbor who doesn’t cut their lawn, who leaves their trash or recycling bin on the street way after the pickup has come, whose mail sticks out of their mailbox, or whose Amazon boxes stay on the porch for days. If you can’t think of that neighbor, it’s probably you. Everyone can get frustrated or have disagreements with their neighbor, especially in a time we are all at home more. It almost feels like we are Jimmy Stewart in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window, imagining vast conspiracies by the couple across the street. Read More
