SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah man and team of lawyers are hoping to get a bill through the House and Senate committees dealing with custody agreements.
Phil Casper never thought his marriage would end or that he would fight for the right to see his children.
“I’ve always wondered why this happened to me? I thought it only happened to bad people, the ‘dead fathers’,” said Casper.
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For a while, Casper said he and his ex-wife split custody of fifty-five, but then Casper said she changed her mind and got sole custody. The two eventually agreed again to the 50:50 custody agreement.
“I’ve always felt like a good dad and my kids really didn’t have a choice on this matter,” said Casper.
The bill is designed to change a law that Casper says makes it difficult for children to spend the same time with their parents.
Senator Jacob Anderegg sponsors the bill that aims to bring custody to fifty-five but can be changed in the child’s best interests.
Sen. Anderegg’s bill takes up much of the current legal language, which Brown says removes an important legal language that could hurt children in a divorce situation.
“When I spoke to attorneys on my case, they said you weren’t turning fifty-five, you were in Utah,” Casper said.
According to Marco Brown, who has been a divorce attorney in Utah for a decade, current family law provides for a division of custody between sixty-four and twenty-eight.
“If you’re a man and you’re going to be fifty-five with your kids, it’s an uphill battle,” Brown said.
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The current law focuses on the children rather than the parents.
“About fifty to fifty parental leave seems very fair between the parents, husband and wife, not necessarily fair to the children who have to live in this situation,” Brown said.
Senator Todd Weiler rejects the bill, but does not reject Casper’s idea of fifty to fifty custody.
“Every family is unique and different,” said Weiler. “What if the parents live 50 miles apart? What if it is a newborn who is breastfeeding with the mother and the father lives with 18-year-old roommates?”
Sen. Weiler writes a replacement bill to present Casper’s idea, which was just spelled differently.
Rewriting Sen. Weiler would give judges a third way of taking custody rather than setting an automatic standard.
“This would introduce the fifty-five and it would be another tribute in the toolbox for the judge to choose,” said Senator Weiler.
The replacement draft is expected to be ready by Friday so that there is enough time to vote on it by the end of the legislative period.
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