In 2010, Troy Bragg, a post-9/11 veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, discovered he was the biological father of a daughter and immediately filed a petition for paternity on his own. His petition was granted, and he and his daughter’s mother reached a mutually agreeable parenting plan and time-share agreement. The judge’s order provided Bragg with majority time-share, which was successful for 10 years. But in August 2019, the girl’s mother began to take from Bragg’s time with their daughter and tried to alienate her from Bragg. That fall, the mother unilaterally modified the time-sharing agreement and refused to provide Bragg any time with his daughter. Over the next two months, Bragg made repeated attempts to spend time with his daughter, but the mother intervened every time to stop it. Finally, in January 2020, Bragg threatened her with a lawsuit to enforce the time-sharing agreement. After that discussion, she hired an attorney and filed a petition to strip Bragg of his time-sharing, claiming among other things that he was unfit to care for his daughter, despite his having done so successfully as the majority time-sharing parent for the previous 10 years. After her attorney obtained a two-month delay in the proceedings, Bragg approached JALA for assistance. Declan Duffy in JALA’s Veterans Services Unit immediately drafted motions seeking to provide Bragg access to his child and to enforce the time-sharing agreement established in the final judgment from 2010. A hearing date was set. However, due to the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders that went into effect in March 2020, the court date was pushed back. Eventually, after two subsequent hearings, the court finally determined that the child should be returned to Bragg. Eventually, after significant litigation, Duffy was able to negotiate an agreement under which he reduced his time share, while still retaining the majority of time. However, the mother would now be required to pay child support.
