by Andy Chen | Oct 23, 2019 | Family Law, New York
Last time, I described the concept of an Automatic Temporary Restraining Order (ATROS) in a California divorce case as authorized under Section 2040 of the California Family Code. The idea of an ATROS is not unique to California, however. New York has it as well and that’s the subject of this blog post. Before I begin, my usual disclaimer for New York content applies: I have been licensed to practice law in New York since 2012, but I do not (as of the date of this post) maintain a physical office in New York state. Under Section 470 of the New York Judiciary Law, I therefore cannot practice law in the state of New York. This post is meant to simply go over a New York statute that is publicly-available for free to any member of the public. If you have a case in New York involving an ATROS, do feel free to get in touch in the event I can make a referral for you. Anyway, that said, in my California ATROS post, I described how some marriages involve a disparity in earning power. One spouse might, for example, stay at home to raise the children while the other works a job to support the family. This can, in the event of divorce, sometimes result in a situation where the spouse who works tries to exercise an unfair advantage over the spouse who stayed home in retaliation by, for example, concealing marital property or cancelling the family’s health insurance. In California, the Section 2040 ATROS is intended to prevent this. New York has a similar ATROS under New...
by Andy Chen | Oct 21, 2019 | California, Family Law
Everyone’s divorce is different. I haven’t checked every state, of course, but I would venture a guess that that applies to divorces all over. It is not specific specific to any one state in the US. One scenario that sometimes occurs is the following. Spouse A and B are married, but there is a disparity in earnings between the two. For example, only A works a job while B stays home to raise the children. Suppose that A and B then divorce. What, unfortunately, sometimes occurs is that A then attempts to exercise financial leverage to coerce B during the course of the divorce. I’ve seen this happen both in situations where A has filed for divorce and B has filed for divorce. In the former, A may feel entitled to, for instance, hide significant community property because A feels that property belongs to them since it came from their earnings. In the latter, A may feel entitled to cut B off financially by, for example, hiding assets as a way of retaliating for B filing a divorce in the first place. What is the spouse in B’s position to do to protect themselves? In California, B is protected by something called an Automatic Temporary Restraining Order — commonly called an “ATROS” — as defined in California Family Code section 2040 and that is the subject of this post. Most people have heard of the term “restraining order” which is generally a court order prohibiting (i.e. “restraining”) one party from doing something. A restraining order might be issued by a family court in a domestic violence situation, for example....
by Andy Chen | Jun 14, 2019 | California, Estate Planning
I previously described how it is sometimes possible – at least in California – to handle a deceased person’s estate informally without the need to go to court, hire lawyers, etc. In California, this is often referred to as the Small Estate Affidavit process. I even made a video about it on my Youtube channel. While you’re at it, throw me a subscribe if you wouldn’t mind. The Small Estate Affidavit process in California is only available if the deceased person’s estate meets various criteria. I’m not going to go over every single criteria, but the two big ones are: (1) the gross value of the estate has to be less than $150,000, and (2) at least 40 calendar days has to have elapsed since the person passed away. If you’re looking for the language of the affidavit, I’d recommend you check out Section 13101 of the California Probate Code for a start. However, let’s say that you’ve met all the criteria to do the Small Estate Affidavit process in California (e.g. the estate is definitely worth less than $150,000 and 40 calendar days definitely have passed), but the person or business you’re trying to use the Affidavit at won’t honor it. What then? The answer to that question is in Section 13105 of the California Probate Code which provides that the person presenting the Affidavit is entitled to whatever property or items he or she is seeking as long as the person has met the requirements contained in Sections 13100 to 13104 of the California Probate Code. Sections 13100 to 13104 are fairly straightforward and include requirements like...
by Andy Chen | Apr 23, 2019 | California, Criminal law
Is it possible in California to get charged with drunk driving (aka “driving under the influence”) if you’re high on drugs instead of intoxicated on alcohol? Absolutely. I’m guessing that that isn’t widely known given the fact that I snapped the above picture on April 21, 2019 on Highway 99 in Merced County, California. Weirdly, there are several laws that apply here. I’m going to mention four of them. First, there is California Vehicle Code Section 23152(f). It’s short and sweet. It specifically says: “It is unlawful for a person who is under the influence of any drug to drive a vehicle”. You would think that this would be clear enough to not need another law, but you’d be wrong. The problem that arises under Section 23152(f), however, is that there isn’t a specific standard by which “under the influence” of a drug can be proven like it can be with a Blood Alcohol Content of 0.08 or more for alcohol intoxication. To address this problem, California has two additional laws — Vehicle Code sections 23220 and 23221 — which forbid the driver and passenger of a vehicle from using alcohol, marijuana, and marijuana products while the vehicle is being driven. Lastly, Vehicle Code section 23152(g) makes it “unlawful for a person who is under the combined influence of any alcoholic beverage and drug to drive a vehicle.” As always, this post is not intended to be a comprehensive discussion of the topic, but I hope you found it helpful nonetheless. If you have a situation involving a drug DUI or other topics described in one of my blog...
by Andy Chen | Apr 21, 2019 | California, Law, in real life
I’ve never bought a new vehicle in any state other than California. I’m guessing this happens in other states too, but the way it works in California is that you won’t get your actual metal license plates from the California Department of Motor Vehicles until several weeks after you actually drive your vehicle home from the dealership. It used to be that during this time, the only license plate you would have is a paper license plate that usually just had the name and logo of the dealership on it for advertising purposes. Once you got your metal license plates in the mail, you’d install them and throw your paper dealership license plates away. As you can probably guess, having no way to uniquely identify a vehicle for several weeks caused problems. There was no way to catch drivers who would evade automated toll systems at bridge crossings, for instance. FasTrak is a common system in California while in the Midwestern US and East Coast, E-ZPass is more common. Drivers of new vehicles could avoid parking tickets too. It was difficult to track vehicles used in crimes (e.g. bank robberies) as well. If you live in California, you may have noticed that starting in 2019, new vehicles started coming from the dealership with temporary license plates that look like this one. Instead of a paper plate that just had the dealership’s name and logo on it, the new temporary license plate comes with a unique identifying number that is assigned to that particular vehicle until the metal permanent license plate arrives. The reason behind this change is — not...
