Jeff Hale: Welcome to From Separation to Settlement, a family law podcast.
Kevin Rosenquist: Hey there. And welcome back to From Separation to Settlement with Jeff Hale. Jeff is a litigation partner at Kroner Hale Law Firm where he focuses exclusively on family law in Ohio. With decades of experience helping parents navigate custody disputes and legal emergencies, Jeff brings clarity and calm to some of life's most stressful moments. My name is Kevin Rosenquist and today we're talking about emergency custody in Ohio. What it means, how it works, and what steps to take if your child is in danger. Jeff, welcome back. Good to see, you, Good to see you, Kevin.
Jeff Hale: Glad to be back.
Kevin Rosenquist: Can you just explain, start by explaining what emergency custody is under Ohio law and, and how it differs from regular custody.
Jeff Hale: So emergency custody is, it's when there's a situation when the child is in immediate danger. And there was a time when courts kind of went away from emergency custody and they kind of, they just expected you to go and acquire a civil protection order, which is, it's very similar to emergency custody because it's an immediate action. as of late, some more courts are coming back to the emergency custody. Typically if you file for emergency custody, they're going to have a hearing probably within about seven to 10 days. So it's a much faster turnaround than if you just file for standard custody, which then the other side's going to have 28 days to respond. They're going to set it out as a pre trial so you have a lot more time to respond, a lot more time to prepare, depending on what side of that custody petition you're on. And with the emergency they, they take, they treat it as an emergency and they try to get you in as soon as possible.
Kevin Rosenquist: Okay, so what, what are the types of situations that qualify for emergency custody?
Jeff Hale: It really differs. It's just a lot of times we'll have clients come in that they want emergency custody because they just don't like how one parent is parenting the child on their, during their time, which that's not an emergency. So that's, we have to tell them this, this is not an emergency. If you have a problem with that, this is something that will just go through the normal channels of custody. And an emergency situation would be if a parent were to be arrested and the children are being left at home, obviously someone's going to have to go pick up the children and then you're going to want to file an emergency petition to have this individual named, the, either the custodial parent or just the legal guardian in Order to, if they need to go to the doctor, if they need to be enrolled in school, depending on the time of year. Those are the types of emergencies if a, if a child is in immediate.
Kevin Rosenquist: Danger, how quickly can someone file for emergency custody and how fast does the court respond?
Jeff Hale: Typically when we can, you can file as quick as we get the information. We can fill out the paperwork and get it filed with the court and the courts will typically respond. here, lately I've noticed they respond a lot faster. They've started getting you in, if not that same day, just for that emergency hearing, and it'd be the next day or the day after.
Kevin Rosenquist: Okay, so pretty fast.
Jeff Hale: Yeah, they'll get you in quick under the guise that this is a true emergency. So the idea with free filing for that is you also need to have enough in your petition to support that this is an emergency. If not, if the court does not agree that your facts are an emergency, you run the risk of having it just kicked out to the standard, custody petition docket and going down that path.
Kevin Rosenquist: Okay, okay, so in your example before, where, I think you said, like, you don't like the way of another parent. Parent. Is parenting not really considered an emergency? So the court. You're not even going to try that. Can you give us an example of what kind of, you know, request might get, I don't know, denied or overruled by the court saying this is not an emergency that a parent might think is an emergency? Is there some gray area there?
Jeff Hale: Typically we'll have people come in that they'll ask, they'll want to file for emergency custody. And when we sit down and begin talking to him, some of the facts are like my example. They don't like how this parent is parenting. They, you know, they don't like that they allow their child to spend too much time on their phone or their video games or. Well, it's, it's an emergency custody because, you know, we've had cases where we have, blended families and one child's older than the youngest child and the complaint from one parent will be, well, they're just using my child as a babysitter. Well, those aren't emergencies. The child's not in immediate danger. They may not enjoy babysitting. They may, they may
00:05:00
Jeff Hale: enjoy video games too much and the other parents a little too lenient. But those aren't emergencies, Kevin. Those are, those are just typical differences in parenting. And in some instances, that won't even raise, that won't even raise a red Flag on a standard custody petition.
Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. Right. Mm Yeah. What, what, what what an emotional parent might see as an emergency doesn't always coincide with what the law would consider an emergency.
Jeff Hale: Absolutely. And that's, that's part of our job. When you come in and I've, I've turned clients away to tell them, you know, I can take your money, but nothing's going to change. You don't, you don't need to pay for this. This is not an emergency and this is not on a regular custody. You need to show a change of circumstance and best interest. And I have to tell people quite, quite a bit that this is not going to qualify.
Kevin Rosenquist: Do both parents get notified right away? Is the court capable of acting without.
Jeff Hale: Notice in an emergency situation? They can, but that's typically through a cpo. Now with emergency custody, the court will send the sheriff out to get notice on the other party. So that's typically in an emergency situation they use the sheriff to get service, which is usually, that's pretty efficient and it's usually immediate.
Kevin Rosenquist: So let's say emergency custody is granted. What happens next? What's the process look like?
Jeff Hale: So typically emergency custody is a temporary thing and they'll make the ruling based on the petition. But then once the emergency custody has been granted 9 out of 10 times, the other side is going to file their petition for custody. And then you go down the standard custody path where you have maybe two parents or a parent and a grandparent arguing over custody. And then it just goes the normal course. Once the emergency has been abated, then you go back down the normal course of custody.
Kevin Rosenquist: And is there a general rule for how long the emergency custody lasts or is it case dependent?
Jeff Hale: it's until further order of the court.
Kevin Rosenquist: Okay.
Jeff Hale: Now and it's, it's hard because CPO's civil protection orders and emergency custody can kind of intertwine and because like with a civil protection order that is temporary, that can be anywhere from six months up to five years. And it's not meant to decide custody. You're meant to take that and then go file for custody. And that gives you time to do that and still protect that individual. But with the emergency custody, once that order is put in place, that is the order until further order of the court. Now if the other side decides to walk away and doesn't want to argue over it, then that's what custody will be. like I said, nine out of ten times the other side is going to then file their petition and they're Going to argue to either have custody restored, get their parenting time back, whatever it may be.
Kevin Rosenquist: Does this, sometimes affect the outcome of like a long term custody case? Does the court consider the fact that they had to go to an emergency custody situation when ruling on long term custody?
Jeff Hale: Oh, you, you better believe that those factors are coming in M. Because the individual who filed for emergency custody, that's going to be, that'll be, you know, quintessential. That's their first attack is the, the facts that led to this emergency custody determination. They're going to try to use those right from the start and then as the case goes along, they'll, there will be other information. The other side is obviously going to build their case to, you know, fight against this or to offset anything that, you know, that this really, this truly wasn't an emergency. And you know, the, the magistrate making that decision made a mistake. So. Yeah, but that's the facts. If they get emergency custody, the facts that led up to that, they will definitely use those.
Kevin Rosenquist: Again, what kind of evidence or documentation would a parent need to bolster their case that they need emergency custody?
Jeff Hale: Anything that they can think of. Text messages, social media messages, pictures, videos. In today's age, cameras are everywhere.
Kevin Rosenquist: True.
Jeff Hale: So there's always a video. And you just, you still cannot believe the stuff people will post on, social media that then gets pulled off by an attorney and used against them.
Kevin Rosenquist: Right.
Jeff Hale: So the, the information is usually out there if it's that type of situation.
Kevin Rosenquist: What about if a child is in real danger? Like, like where it's, where it's. Could be where it's something like that. There's neglect, things like that.
00:10:00
Kevin Rosenquist: Is there, is there a process to move along even faster?
Jeff Hale: honestly, if it comes down to a neglect or an abuse situation, then your best bet is to involve the police and to contact Child Protective Services because both, both of those agencies have the ability to step in and immediately remove the child.
Kevin Rosenquist: Right.
Jeff Hale: So they don't. Child Protective Services can make a phone call to the judge and have the child out of there the same day. So they, if it's, if it's that type of situation, then you, you definitely want to involve the police and Child Protective Services.
Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah.
Jeff Hale: Because filing a motion, it takes time. The court has to review it and then they'll set it out for a hearing. And if it's that serious, you know, you don't want to wait three or four days to pull the child out of the, home.
Kevin Rosenquist: You've been doing this a long time. What would you Say is something that someone should not do if they suspect a child is in danger.
Jeff Hale: I would say don't ignore it. Don't pretend that it's going to go away. So if, if I have a client who comes in and is kind of questioning whether or not they should take this, this route, the conversation we have is really for me to determine do they have enough for an emergency custody and if they do have enough, is this a situation where we need to call the police or call child protective services? Everybody will question themselves in the beginning, but I just say it's not something to ignore. If you see a problem, you can always. Most attorneys give free consultations. Our office does. So if you come in, we're first determining is there enough for an emergency order. But then as it goes on and if you have that, then the question really becomes should you move even faster?
Kevin Rosenquist: There's kind of like three levels. There's like the extreme child in danger need to call police or protective services services. And then there, on the other side there's the, it's. This is not emergent. We don't need to do this. And then in the middle is what is, is that part where emergency custody is, is necessary. How often does, does that fall into that middle group of, of that there legitimately do need emergency custody? Is, is it often? Is it more rarely?
Jeff Hale: I have not seen a lot of emergency custody cases. I've had people that want to file for emergency custody and I've had to basically advise them. My opinion was that this isn't going to rise to the level. The issues they're having may very well work on a standard custody where you're looking at a change of circumstance or the best interest of the child. But this is not an emergency. And so I would, I would, in my, at least in my experience they're, they're pretty rare.
Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. Because it seems like again, if it's real bad, you, you go the extreme route. The other side is that most of the time I could see where most of the time it's more of a, hey, we just need to go through the regular channels here, talk about what's going on and see, you know, have a court decide on that. Not necessarily an emergent situation.
Jeff Hale: Yeah, absolutely. We, we've had, we. I've handled a lot of civil protection orders and I've done a ton of just standard custody proceedings. And so that, that middle emergency, at least in my practice, has been a pretty rare thing.
Kevin Rosenquist: M. But it's still, you know, if you get that Sense. If your spidey senses go up a little bit, at least you can talk to a lawyer and you can get some advice on, on what the best course of action would be.
Jeff Hale: Be.
Kevin Rosenquist: That's step, absolute step.
Jeff Hale: Huh?
Kevin Rosenquist: what point should someone call a lawyer? Should they, like, right away? Like, is it something that, that they should, if they want to at least chat about it and see what their situation is, or should they wait? Like, what is the usual timeline for, for that?
Jeff Hale: I, I would say if it's, if it's a free consultation, just call. Yeah, we've had, we've had many, many clients that their initial call was just, hey, I just want to know what my rights are and I want to know if this, you know, if this rises to the level of abuse. And then we talk through it and that's where we start that process of talking about, okay, does this raise the level of emergency? If it does raise to an emergency, does it go further and need immediate action, or is this more of a standard proceeding?
Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. So, and then how do you, I mean, obviously you're, you can only coach in these situations. You can't tell someone what to do. But are people pretty, pretty, pretty good about listening to you? because again, this is emotional. Right. It's an emotional situation and people don't exactly always react well to emotional situations. So do you find that people are, are pretty good about, like, are you able to kind of talk them down a little bit and say, okay, let's
00:15:00
Kevin Rosenquist: just relax here. This is not as, as serious, as maybe you think it is. Are you able to kind of get that across?
Jeff Hale: I would say I have a pretty high success rate being able to talk them off the ledge or to talk them and give them the courage that, yes, you do have what it takes to get an emergency or even to push them further and say, I think this is either a civil protection order or you should probably call the police. And so I, I would say that people do listen because initially, you know, I've said it before, is people just want to be heard. So once you hear them and you begin picking through what they give you, then you can be that outside third party that is looking at everything without the emotion.
Kevin Rosenquist: Right, Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're not, you don't have the anger towards your ex spouse that, that they do in, in trying to make these decisions correct?
Jeff Hale: Yes.
Kevin Rosenquist: Yeah. Well, it can be scary stuff. Glad, glad to know that you're there to help people. And thank you for joining us for this episode of From Separation to Sett if you believe your child is, at risk and need immediate legal help, visit kronerlaw.com to schedule a consultation with Jeff Hale. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel, leave us a review and, share the episode with someone who you think may need it. Jeff, always great seeing you. Thanks so much.
Jeff Hale: Thank you, Kevin. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
00:16:31