Parental Alienation in the United · English speaking jurists have grappled with ... Alienation Study Group, the Vanderbilt University’s Center for Knowledge Management has created

6/17/2020

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Parental Alienation

in the United States :

1985 - 2018DEMOSTHENES LORANDOS, PH.D., J.D.

W W W. P S Y C H LAW. N E T

9 8 9 - 3 3 5 - 5 1 3 4

D R . L O R A N D O S @ P S Y C H LAW. N E T

English speaking jurists have grappled with family members alienating children from one of their parents for more than two hundred years.

King v. De Manneville, 5 East 221, 102 Eng. Rep. 1054 (K.B. 1804)

Shelley v. Westbrook, 37 Eng. Rep. 850 (Ch. 1817)

Earl of Westmeath v. Countess of Westmeath, 162 Eng. Rep. 992 (1826)

In re Barry, 42 F. 113 (S.D.N.Y. 1844)

In re Burrus, 136 U.S. 586 (1890)

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Social Scientists have been addressing this phenomena for decades David M. Levy - “derogatory attitude … towards the father, which was in several instances fostered by the mother.”

DAVID M. LEVY, MATERNAL OVERPROTECTION 153 (1943).

Wilhelm Reich - “[t]he true motive is revenge on the partner through robbing him or her of the pleasure in the child. … In order to alienate the child from the partner, it is told that the partner is an alcoholic or psychotic, without there being any truth to such statements.”

WILHELM REICH, CHARACTER-ANALYSIS 265 (Theodore P. Wolfe, trans. 3d ed. 1949).

Juliette Louise Despert - “a sharp temptation for the parent who remains with the children to break down their love for the one who has gone. … but it can do only hurt to the child.”J. LOUISE DESPERT, CHILDREN OF DIVORCE 63 (1953).

Here’s a 1974 illustration from the ABA’s nationally syndicated Family Lawyer

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Then there was Gardner’s early formulation of a parental alienation syndrome in 1985

◦ Gardner, Richard A. (1985). Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation. Academy Forum, 29(2), 3-7.

Now, there are hundreds of peer-reviewed articles concerning this topic. . .

Under the auspices of the non-profit Parental Alienation Study Group, the Vanderbilt University’s Center for Knowledge Management has created an electronic bibliography of over twelve hundred books, book chapters, and articles published in mental health or legal professional journals on parental alienation or closely related topics.

http://mc.vanderbilt.edu/pasg/.

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But a meme has developed that PA does not exist.

Between 1994 and 2018, we find Notes, bar journal and law review articles, lectures, newspaper stories, and websites where law students, attorneys, ex-lawyers and law professors write about PA and science. . . . . . .. . . . and social workers, psychologists and a

nurse writing about PA and evidence law.

Remember

“knowledge” – “connotes more than subjective belief or unsupported speculation”.Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, 509 US 579; 113 S Ct 2786, 2795 (1993)

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So let’s test these hypotheses

Parental Alienation (the concept) does not exist

The concept – Parental Alienation – is not admissible

Even if someone brings up the concept of PA in some court case somewhere. . .it’s not discussed much

Method

A query was developed and the ALLSTATES Westlaw database

was searched.

The query was (alienat! /s (mother father son daughter parent!)) & da

(aft(1984) & bef(2019))

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This search delivered only cases, which met all three of these criteria:

1. It contains the root word fragment ‘alienat’ (which would include any of the following words: ‘alienate,’ ‘alienated’, ‘alienating’ or ‘alienation’);


2. The ‘alienat’ word appears within the same sentence as with one of these words: ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘son,’ ‘daughter,’ or the root word fragment ‘parent’; and

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3. the case was published after 1984 and before 2019.

/

The query obtained 3,555 case reports in

the initial United States query

pool.

A digital copy of each WESTLAW case report was

obtained in Microsoft word

format and stored in a “cases to be reviewed” folder.

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Initial review of thirty-four years of reported cases documented that all of them grew out of high conflict domestic disputes.

In these circumstances many claims and counter claims concerning violation of court orders, allegations of abuse and descriptions of shared parenting violations were found.

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The records reflected that these allegations were made by the parties, their family members, their witnesses, their attorneys, their mental health professionals, the children’s mental health professionals, children’s protective services workers or court appointed guardians ad litem.

With the potential exception of the CPS workers, this class of persons: parties, family members, witnesses etc. preferred a particular outcome and were thereby biased in their sense of the circumstances of the case.

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Due to these potential biases and the high conflict nature of the disputes, it was important to adopt a conservativeinclusion/exclusion criteria set for the study.

Inclusion/exclusion criteria

Only cases which met one or both of these criteria were

included as “relevant PA cases”

An independent evaluating expert

testified on the subject of PA, whether or not the expert found PA –

or -

The court determined that

there was PA whether or not

there was expert testimony.

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For this research, none of the following were considered “experts” on PA or qualified a case report for inclusion:

the parties, their children,

their therapists,

their children’s therapists,


their attorneys, Guardians ad litem, Child advocates, mediators,

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Parenting coordinators

custody conciliators

law enforcement officers –or-

CPS personnel.

Inclusion/exclusion criteria

Further, if the court did no more than speculate concerning PA . . . .

or if the court’s action was to appoint an expert to examine

the extent to which there may be PA, the case was not included for further review.

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Review process

Over the course of the research, the investigator trained and supervised six assistants to carefully review each of the 3,555 cases.

Review process

The research assistants were a college certified paralegal, a junior associate attorney, three law school graduates awaiting their bar examination results and one third year law student who had attained a doctoral degree before law school. Three of the research assistants were male and three were female.

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Computing results

Individual, annual tally sheets were created for each year

1985 ~ 2018

and every case citation from the included group was pasted into the tally sheet for the year in

which it occurred.

Computing resultsA designation of the number of included cases of PA for that year was madeEach tally sheet also held a ✔ mark for alienator a ✔ mark for alienator or a ✔ mark if the gender of the alienator could not be determined.

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Computing results

Each yearly tally sheet held:

the number of female alienators

the number of male alienators

the number of non-determined

the number of custody changes

-AND- a percentage proportion of each of these three categories was made as well.

Computing results

Research assistants used the annual tally sheets to back check the “non-relevant cases” and “selected cases” electronic folders to make sure no relevant case was left out of the electronic database.

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When a case was selected

Cases not meeting the inclusion/exclusion criteria were saved in a “non-relevant cases” electronic folder.

Thus, all 3,555 case reports originally stored in the “cases to be reviewed” folder were therefore saved in a “non-relevant cases” or a “relevant cases” electronic folder.


The case report was relocated to a “relevant cases” electronic folder.

Every case summary was double checked for accuracy and brevity

The case citation format was checked with The Bluebook of legal citations and that was added to the tally sheet.

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When a designation of gender of the alienating parent and the target parent was made by the court it was denoted in the annual tally sheet with ♀ or ♂ .


If the court ascribed equal responsibility for alienation

or if the case report was unclear as to the gender of the alienator

the ♀ or ♂ designation was not assigned in the summary.

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As the review of each case report was underway another variable was coded: substantial change in custodial environment.


For purposes of this research this was defined as whether there was a substantial difference in the parenting time allocation after the parties were in court versus before the parties were in court.

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When a case was selected A master tally sheet for 1985–2018 was compiled with each variable of note tallied and reported in real numbers and percentages.

Results

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Data Analysis

The query:

(alienat! /s (mother father son daughter parent!)) & da (aft(1984) & bef(2019))

Found 3,555 cases

Data Analysis

Found 1,181 cases of PA

Application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria:

An independent evaluating expert testified on the subject

of PA, whether or not the expert found PA -or-

The court determined that there was PA whether or not there was expert testimony.

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Data Analysis

1,181 “relevant cases” out of 3,555cases found by the query

Application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria rejected 67 percent of the cases the query found.

A4

Statistical analysis & graphs

The four figures below illustrate the results.

Figure 1 shows the number of PA cases in trial and appellate courts in the U.S. between 1985 and 2018 that made it through the inclusion/exclusion criterion analysis.

The graph indicates that the number of cases has grown over the years, suggesting that U.S. courts and their participants have increased their awareness of PA and/or increased their reliance on PA theory over time.

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2 4 4 6 73

710 10 9

1914 16

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2924

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34 3229

3944

55 55

72

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62 62

68

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103

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1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015Num

ber o

f PA

Case

s Ea

ch Y

ear

Year, 1985 - 2018

Number of PA Cases in U.S. Courts 1985-2018


Figure 2 shows the proportion of cases each year involving female alienators, male alienators, or some “other” category of alienator.

The graph indicates that during 1985–2018, about 63 percent of the identified alienators were female and 23 percent were male.

This proportion has remained approximately the same over the years.

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0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Number of PA Cases Each Year

Year, 1985 ‐ 2018

U.S. Cases by Sex of Alienator 1985 ‐ 2018

Female Alienators Male Alienators Other


Figure 3 displays the percent distribution of male to female to “other” in pie chart format.

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Male23%

Female63%

Other14%

% Alienator by Gender 1985 - 2018

Male Female Other


Figure 4 shows the proportion of cases each year in which the court significantly changed child custody arrangements, such as transferring custody from one parent to the other or substantially changing the parenting time schedule.

The graph indicates that over time, a significant change in the child custodial environment occurred in 61 percent of the cases.

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Percent in which custody changed

Year, 1985 ‐ 2018

% PA Cases Custody Changed 1985 ‐ 2018

An important digression . . . . .

The 3,555 cases analyzed in this study demonstrate experienced jurists, litigators, and mental health professionals across the United States are increasingly recognizing the construct PA, as well as its materiality, relevancy, and admissibility for determining child custody disputes.

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As for the PA detractors and their memes of unreliability or hidden domestic violence etc., it is noteworthy that none of the 3,555 case reports documented a family court judge changing the custodial environment to a physically abusive parent.


Together with the fact that at least 23 percent of the 1,181 cases returned in the search involved male alienators and female targets, this refutes the claim of some deniers that parental alienation was no more than “fabricated by male perpetrators of intimate partner violence.”

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. . . . .and why is this important?

Many of the 1,181 cases are listed as UNPUBLISHED

This is because the facts of each case are idiosyncratic (horrible)

More about this digression . . . . .

But wait! Every one of these 1,181 cases which made it past the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the study. . . .

dealt with PARENTAL ALIENATION

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made it past the inclusion/exclusion criteria set . . . .

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So. . . come on evidence fans.... you know that admissibility is a multi-step process. . . . .

Remember your if. . . thenreasoning . . . . .

Here’s how a court decides

If the court determines:

(1) expertise of this sort is needed; and

(2) the proposed witness is actually an expert; and

(3) what the expert is offering is material to the issues in the case; and

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Here’s how a court decides

(4) what the proposed expert has on offer is probative of a

fact in issue; and(5) the proposed testimony is

also relevant; and

(6) the proposed expert evidence should not be

prohibited because it may be more prejudicial than

probative - then and only then will it be deemed

admissible.

So. . . come on evidence fans.... if a case report made it into the data pool. . . . .

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. . .it had to be MaterialMateriality concerns the fit between the evidence and the case. It looks to the relation between the propositions for which the evidence is offered and the issues in the case. . . .

◦ Brown, Kenneth S. et. al. (Eds.) (2006) McCormick on Evidence 6th Edition. Thomson/West, St. Paul, Minnesota, pages 306-307

. . .it had to be Probative

Probative value in the common law tradition has been defined as “evidence that tends to prove or disprove a point in issue.”

◦ Garner, Bryan A. & Black, Henry C. (2004) Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th Edition.Thomson/West, St. Paul, Minnesota, page 598.

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so it was therefore RelevantEvidence is relevant if:

(a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and

(b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.

F.R.E. Rule 401 Pub. L. 93–595, §1, Jan. 2, 1975, 88 Stat. 1931; Apr. 26, 2011, eff. Dec. 1, 2011.

and if we’re reading about it. . . . it was. . . .

Material. . . . .Probative. . . . .

Relevant. . . . .

and. . . . . . say it with me . . . . .

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Admissible!

And those hypotheses ?

Parental Alienation (the concept) does not exist - Falsified

The concept – Parental Alienation – is not admissible - Falsified

Even if someone brings up the concept of PA in some court case somewhere. . .it’s not discussed much - Falsified

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First, for the most part the cases included in the final list are from appellate reports.

Study Limitations

Second, because litigation, and the appellate process, in the United States are so arduous, expensive and time consuming, it is a reasonable conjecture that for every appellate case represented here, there are dozens of trial-level decisions that were never appealed.

Study Limitations

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Third, the residual effects of patriarchy may account for some of the skew in the numbers of female to male alienators.

Study Limitations

Fourth, the inclusion/exclusion criteria may be too restrictive.

Study Limitations

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Fifth, there are numerous cases the query did not find that reviewers would have qualified as PA or PA-related. This occurred because some PA and PA-related cases do not actually use any derivation of the term “alienation” and so they would not have turned up in the query data set.

Study Limitations

In Doe v. Roe, 2012 WL 2899327 (Conn. Super.), the court and its evaluators found the mother to be at times untruthful and willing to make repeated, false, unsupported allegations, willfully disobedient, perhaps a malingerer, and ultimately incapable of properly parenting her child alone.

An alienation case not found by the query

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Mother hired a psychologist to support her claims, but the trial court rejected these, placed sole custody with Father and ordered Mother’s contact be supervised writing inter alia:


“... [Mother’s expert] also effectively undermined the mother’s cooperation with the child’s therapy …. [Mother’s expert] did not hesitate, without ever communicating with Dr. Collins, to reinforce [Mother’s] distrust by opining that she did not believe he had a ‘clear handle’ on [Child]. For her to offer such unilateral opinions, based only on [a] record review, undermines her credibility with the court.”


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L.S. v. C.T, 760 N.W.2d 145 (S.D. 2009);Tarachanskaya v. Volodarsky, 897 A.2d 884 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2006) rev’d on other grounds Volodarsky v. Tarachanskaya, 916 A.2d 991 (Md. 2007);K.M. v. S.M.M, 2011 WL 3176534 (N.J. Sup. Ct. Jul. 28, 2011);Domenicone v. Domenicone, Superior Court, Fulton County, Georgia No. 2012CV210735 (Nov. 25, 2013); andMarks v. Schenk, 13-C-10-85215, 2018 WL 775420, at * 6 (Md. Ct. App. Feb. 5, 2018)

More alienation cases not found by the query

Reviewing those six case reports, most readers would find ample evidence of alienating behaviors by parents and serious negative effects on the children. However, as terms typically found in PA cases (alienation, parental alienation etc.) were not used, the query did not find this case.


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Discussion. . . . . . .

WHAT DOES THIS DATA TELL US?

IS THIS RELEVANT TO WHAT WE DO?

CAN WE USE THIS DATA?

WHEN? WHERE? HOW?





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When you have to update your two volume set on social work, psychology and psychiatry in the courts every year with case report illustrations of “the Good”, “the Bad” and “the Ugly” from behavioral sciences professionals. . . . .. . . . . you come across many examples of “experts” doing very questionable things.

https://store.legal.thomsonreuters.com/law‐products/Treatises/Cross‐Examining‐Experts‐in‐the‐Behavioral‐Sciences/p/102477862

Court reports illustrate that in high intensity child abuse and alienation cases, it’s taken us years to overcome “experts” relying on

Very troublesome child interviewing techniquesBielaska v Orley, Nos. 173666; 174949; 175287 LC. (Mich App. 1996)Morris v. Dearborne, 69 F.Supp.2d 868 (E.D. Tex. 1999)

The Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation SyndromeState v. J.Q., 252 N.J. Super. 11, 38, 599 A.2d 172, 187 (App. Div. 1991), aff’d, 130 N.J. 554, 617 A.2d 1196 (1993)

Repressed Memories of Childhood Sexual AbuseHoult v Hoult, 792 F.Supp. 143 (D. Mass. 1992)Phillips v. Gelpke, 190 N.J. 580 (2007)

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And where are we now?

In high intensity child abuse and alienation cases, we find Notes, bar journal and law review articles, lectures, newspaper stories, and websites where law students, attorneys, ex-lawyers and law professors write about PA and science. . . . . . .

. . . . and social workers, psychologists and a nurse writing about PA and evidence law.

They’re the Laura Ingrahams of the behavioral sciences

. . . they exercise willful blindness to decades of published reports and two centuries of court opinions

. . . they adopt positions contrary to data or evidence

and they wilt under cross examination.

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Marina Gorbis, Executive Director –Institute for the Future explains that we must “upgrade our cognitive immunity”.

Published in April, 2020This book is intended for mental health and legal professionals who are concerned about parental alienation: psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other practitioners; forensic experts who testify regarding children of high-conflict family relationships; family law attorneys and professors of family law; domestic relations and family court judges; and researchers who study the children of separated and divorced parents.

www.ccthomas.comemail: [email protected]

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DEMOSTHENES LORANDOS, PH.D., J.D.

WWW.PSYCHLAW.NET

989-335-5134

[email protected]

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Documents

Parental Alienation in the United · English speaking jurists have grappled with ... Alienation Study Group, the Vanderbilt University’s Center for Knowledge Management has created