What to Do if Denied Visitation with Your Children in Missouri

If you are being denied your court ordered visitation in Missouri, you may file something called a Family Access Motion. The Family Access Motion was created statutorily to help people when they are not receiving either custody or visitation rights that have been court-ordered. No attorney is required to file a Family Access Motion, and many people file these motions pro se, meaning they represent themselves without the services of an attorney.

To file a Family Access Motion, you must file in the court where the original custody or visitation was court-ordered. This means the county where the divorce or paternity action was decided. Before you file, you should get a copy of your original judgment if you do not have one. This is important, because it will contain the court case number and the Social Security number of all of the parties. The case number and Social Security numbers are required to file. You also need to have a current address for the person who is denying visitation. The Circuit Clerk's office is required to explain the proper procedure to you regarding what documents or forms to file. There is also a filing fee, which depends on the county. If you are unable to pay a filing fee, you should ask the clerk about filing as a poor person, or in forma pauperis. There are forms for this in the clerk's office as well.

After you file your Family Access Motion, the sheriff will serve it on the person you have filed against. This means that they will hand-deliver a copy of the motion to the other party. Once they have been served by the sheriff, the other party will have ten days to file an answer to your motion. The motion will be set for a court date and it must be within sixty days of the date that the other party was served. This is not the same as your filing date usually. The date can be set out farther than sixty days if both parties agree.

At the hearing, the judge will decided whether or not you were denied visitation, and if you were, whether there was a good reason. If the judge decides there was no good reason for the denial of visitation, then there are several things he can do. He can give you extra visitation at your convenience to make up for the visitation you lost. He can also order the other party to participate in counseling to educate them about child having a relationship with both parents, assess them a fine of up to $500, require them to post a bond to make sure you have visits in the future, and can order them to pay for counseling to re-establish the relationship between the child and the parent denied visitation. You may also recover reasonable expenses, including attorney fees and court costs. The court cannot change or modify custody through a Family Access Motion. It is only to ensure that the previous court-ordered visitation schedule is followed.