Show Cause

upvotersfortruth · 2026-01-21T11:28:37+00:00

Petition for rule to show cause why the respondent should not be held in contempt of court for failing to follow an order of the court. In essence, she will need to come before the court and explain why she didn’t comply. If she complies between the time you file and the time of the hearing, the hearing goes forward but usually with few consequences so sometimes it better under those circumstances to tell the court you’d prefer not to proceed as she’s complying, in your effort to save the courts time. However, the court doesn’t have to listen to you and may still proceed depending on how seriously the judge takes these petitions and yahoos disregarding their orders.

Pitfalls:

Ambiguity lack of clarity in the order
Physical inability to comply
Lack of very good evidence

A few common examples:

The order sets forth a clear thing that must be done, but does not set out a clear time within which it must be done - ambiguity
The order is clear as to an amount and date of payment but the respondent can prove they do not have the money - inability

Edit: expect to do more than one of these motions (albeit for different acts of noncompliance) - people are stupid and stubborn so they need the stick a few times before they learn - a good judge won’t get tired of seeing you (if you do your work to the best of your ability) they’ll get tired of seeing them and hearing their weak excuses.

warwww · 2026-01-20T20:44:39+00:00

I’m not sure which county in America you live in but absent her running off to another state with your child I don’t think there exists many judges that will reprimand a mother for what you describe.

Many times I thought “there’s no way they’ll allow her to treat the kids this way”….I was severely wrong

CRobinsFly · 2026-01-20T17:23:53+00:00

It's time for contempt.

Research the elements of contempt. Despite hundreds of hours of research, I am admittedly still unclear whether it's 3 or 4 elements, it might be caselaw specific for the state.

The three primary elements: Clear order. Knowledge of order. Ability to comply.

The fourth: willful refusal to comply. Some people might call this "intent". It seems to also be required.

It's the fourth that gets most people out of contempt in my jurisdiction, I even found adverse caselaw where fathers failed to get mom found in contempt for parenting time issues because she tried to comply but couldnt (could say this is also technically "ability") and the court classified the violation as nonwillful.

In my case, practically a facsimile of yours down to even the PC, I have a hearing in 90 days for violations of my parenting time. I expect a sweep, infact I already got additional parenting time ordered coming out of the summary hour hearing - I deployed requests for admissions (targeting all elements) that she defaulted on (basically impossible to undo) and now they just sent me essentially unanswered rogs. She's all-but lost and is changing attorneys as we speak.

Title	Show Cause
Author	NotYours25
Upvotes	6
Comments	5
Date	January 20, 2026 4:39 PM UTC (6 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1qi60xv/show_cause/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/show-cause.1571604 https://theredarchive.com/post/1571604

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