Dirty Divorce Trick: Faking Violence as a Custody Play

In our Dirty Divorce Tricks blog series, we go over common plays that spouses do, in hopes they can receive a custody or financial gain or even to try to maintain their losses. In this blog, we will go over how some spouses will fake violence to win custody.

The vast majority of the time injunctions or restraining orders are filed because a party is the victim of domestic violence and truly needs protection.

Faking Violence as a Custody Play

However, in the divorce context it is not uncommon to see a party file an injunction and make outrageous allegations (example: faking violence) in order to get an upper hand in a child custody case. That’s because injunctions don’t just restrain one party from seeing another party; they can restrain a husband or wife from seeing their children on a temporary basis.

How One Party Thinks the Trick Will Work

The logic follows then that the spouse who is granted the temporary restraining order [that prohibits the other spouse from seeing the children for a term of months or even years] will have a higher degree of leverage in the child custody litigation in Family Court.

The Reality and Next Steps

The reality is that we see spouses faking violence all the time as part of a custody play. The spouse who finds himself served with injunction paperwork must take action immediately. Often these injunction trials will take place in a matter of weeks after the initial paperwork is served. These injunction hearings can be full-blown daylong trials. But the effect they can have on timesharing is so significant, that they are worth the time and energy put into defending them. 

If you suspect your spouse of doing this or something similar, is it vital for you to take action and hire an experienced Family Law attorney right away.