What is parental alienation?
Parental alienation is where one parent adversely influences their child in a way that causes the child to develop hostile feelings towards the other parent for no valid reason.
Examples of behaviour that can lead to parental alienation can range from frowning or ignoring the child whenever the other parent is mentioned, to one parent bad mouthing the other parent. Behaviour that can cause parental alienation is in essence, anything that causes the child to perceive the other parent in a negative light, such as one parent encouraging the child to be disrespectful towards or behave badly towards the other parent, lying to the child to make the other parent appear in a negative light or not passing on telephone messages or gifts.
It should be noted that the court has absolute discretion to make any order it sees as necessary when considering the arrangements for children and therefore if the court determines that there has been parental alienation it can make an order to alter the amount of time that the child spends with each parent, or it can in exceptional cases make an order changing which parent the child lives with.
Related FAQs
This will depend on the arrangements your mum (or dad, as the case may be) and her spouse have made. They may have made ‘mirror Wills’ or ‘mutual Wills’. Alternatively, they may have simply made their own Wills which have totally different provisions.
If your mum and your step-dad made ‘mirror Wills’, then the surviving spouse can revoke that Will and make a new one. They may not leave you anything under their new Will, and a dispute may rise.
If your mum and your step-dad made ‘mutual Wills’, they make a legal promise not to change their Will unless they both agree to this.
Complex family structures can lead to issues and fallouts when someone dies. These circumstances are very fact-specific. You can contact us for advice and we can advise you whether we think you have a claim.
If a contract contains a force majeure clause this may become operative due to the coronavirus pandemic and related emergency legislation. Such clauses exist to ensure that if some unforeseen event prevents a party from being able to perform their obligations under a contract, either on time or at all, they will be excused from their obligations and not be held liable for non-performance.
The clause must actually be written into the contract to have effect – a force majeure clause cannot be implied into a contract. Whether it can be relied on by a party will depend on the wording of the clause itself as it may only be applicable in certain limited circumstances.
You should seek legal advice at an early stage if you think that force majeure is relevant, because a number of potentially complex issues must be addressed, many of which will turn upon the exact wording of the force majeure clause in the contract in question:
- Has a force majeure event actually arisen?
- What notification process do you have to follow to rely on the provision?
- What mitigation steps do you have to take?
- What is the effect of the force majeure event – is the contract suspended, or can it be terminated (which might not be what you want)?
In appropriate cases, disciplinary action and then dismissal may be fair if an employee refuses to wear a face covering in the workplace. For example, if this is in breach of the government guidance or if employer has issued a reasonable management instruction to this effect due to an identified health and safety risk.
It is important that employers use a fair and reasonable procedure when deciding whether to discipline and/or dismiss an employee and that its actions does not unlawfully discriminate against employees who have legitimate reasons for not wearing masks, such as those individuals who have health conditions like asthma.
Commercial partner Damien Charlton explains the basic principles of force majeure, and how they are relevant in the current extreme circumstances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
As discussed above, Covid-19 will inevitably deplete the workforce of housing providers in the foreseeable future. It would be prudent to consider making short-term policy changes to deal with this situation and manage the expectations of tenants going forward. A key policy change to consider is the extension of the standard lead-time for completing all non-urgent repairs and inform tenants of this change.
Such a change will also reduce pressure on landlords and front-facing staff.
As above, employers must protect the interests of their staff, particularly regarding health and safety. Extra care should be exercised when assessing the level of emergency of a repair on a case by case basis. All efforts should be made to reduce the number of attendances at properties by repair staff, whilst keeping all tenants safe.
As ever, communication is key – the pandemic cannot be used as a blanket excuse for abstaining from all duties and obligations. Housing providers must take a pragmatic approach in safeguarding customers whilst considering the interests of is workers. Maintaining lines of communication with all parties remains paramount.