Parents File Monster Class Action

Alabama Parents Join Federal Class Action.

BIRMINGHAM, AL (PRWEB) October 5, 2004 -- A shot heard round the world was fired in Montgomery, Alabama on Monday September 20, 2004 as Alabama parents joined in one of the largest national class-action suits in history. Dr Richard Weiss of Auburn, Alabama, acting as principle plaintiff for an estimated 250,000 non-custodial parents filed the suit(Case #2:04cv876-A) in Federal District Court in Montgomery on Monday.

In what has been referred to as the mother of all lawsuits" the parents will challenge widespread practices by the state in determining care, custody, and support of children. The state has far over reached its authority and jurisdiction in its over zealous intrusion into family matters," according to Dr. Weiss.

Similar cases will be filed in all 50 states as an estimated 22 million non-custodial parents seek to bring widespread attention to what they allege as years of disparate taxation and willful financial mismanagement.

Alan Rusmisel vice-president and co-founder of the Alabama Coalition for Fathers and Children stated, This is truly a landmark event, this kind of action is long, long overdue and I hope and pray that it is successful for our childrens sake."

In addition to challenging standard practices pertaining to family law, the coalition also alleges that while nearly every state has recognized catastrophic budgetary failures, the states still recklessly refuse to consider the financial devastation involved with encouraging routine awards of sole custody, reminding that such patterns dramatically increase crime, poverty, drug use, suicides, dropouts, teenage pregnancies, and other forms of direct harm and costs against children, families, taxpayers, and society in general. Professor Stephen Baskerville, distinguished master of political science at Howard University, and one of the world's foremost experts on various custody and child support issues, explains: "Politicians often spend money to avoid confronting problems. Yet marshaling the government to strengthen families seems especially pointless when it is government that weakened the family in the first place."

The parents say that common inequities in state family courts are also directly and indirectly responsible for murders and suicides amongst the most estranged families. Every week, they note, approximately 300 fathers and 75 mothers commit suicide in this country, with the majority of these senseless deaths directly attributable to victimization by family courts. These suicides are often committed by passive parents, due to hopelessness in a system fraught with injustice, but the more aggressive parents occasionally snap at the weight of suffering such anguish, and violently take out their desperation on estranged partners, sometimes even murdering them, and possibly the children, before also killing themselves.

"We're trying to protect the right of all fit parents to share equally in the custody and care of their children," says Torm L. Howse President of the Indiana Civil Rights Coucil. "The time has come for a drastic reform of government practices that harm children and parents. "Kids need both parents,"

For more information contact:
Torm L. Howse
President, Indiana Civil Rights Council
president@indianacrc.org

Contact: Dr. Richard Weiss
Phone: (334)844-2666
Email: info@legalactioncommittee.org

# # #