33rd / 424th District Courts

American Lawyer Media's Law.com has an interesting article entitled Divorced Parents Must Consider Ex if Moving Away. The lead-in is:

With a decision that sharply divides children's rights advocates, the California Supreme Court on Thursday held that several factors -- including the relationship with non-custodial parents -- must be considered before children of divorced couples can be moved out of town.

The court's 6-1 decision clarifies an 8-year-old ruling which courts had widely interpreted as holding that custodial parents had the "presumptive right" to relocate unless it would be detrimental to their children or if the move was in bad faith. Thursday's ruling said that was a misinterpretation.

The ruling is In re the Marriage of LaMusga, 04 Cal. Daily Op. Service 3687 (but was not retrievable through Lexis but found it here: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S107355.PDF. A huge cache of resources is found at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/lamusga/ for those who wish to dig into the topic deeply. Also an extensive site with a lot of background here: http://members.aol.com/asherah/lamusga.html.