How does domestic violence impact a Louisville divorce case? Domestic violence is a serious issue here in Louisville and presents genuine and deep concerns during a divorce for other parties including spouses and children alike. Kentucky domestic laws have recently been expanded and strengthened to provide additional protections for those who suffer physical, emotional or control-related abuse.
What is considered to be domestic violence in Kentucky and how does domestic violence affect a Louisville divorce case? Domestic violence is the abuse of an intimate partner, former partner or family member resulting from the purposeful or reckless use of physical force, threatened abuse, or attempts to exert consistent extensive control. In the context of this blog, domestic violence can be perpetrated by present or former spouses, domestic partners, fiancé(e)s, cohabitants and co-parents.
Our domestic violence laws now extend to “coercive control.” Coercive control is an abusive pattern of behavior inflicted by a spouse, domestic partner or significant other which involves a combination of actual violence or the threat of violence in order to intimidate, isolate, humiliate and control a party and to subordinate them to the will of the perpetrator. This includes financial isolation (which can be an important issue in a divorce case).
The ways in which domestic violence impact a Louisville divorce case are quite extensive. For example, we are an equitable marital property division state and that means each party is entitled to an equitable share of the marital property. The Judge will usually consider the financial consequences of past and present property destruction and damages to marital assets during marital property division. Domestic violence can have a substantial impact on child custody and visitation. Kentucky’s Family Laws create a “rebuttable presumption” against the award of child custody to any person who has been found to have committed domestic violence in the past five years. This presumption also extends to prohibit those who perpetrate domestic violence from receiving support payments from those they have abused.
How does domestic violence impact a Louisville divorce case? In many profound and important ways. This is why it is important to contact the divorce and family law attorneys at Dodd & Dodd.
We invite you to review the strong recommendations of our former clients and contact us or call 502-584-1108 to schedule an appointment with one of our experienced divorce and family law attorneys.
