A Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled in January that a firefighter could not be granted joint custody of his children because his job requires him to work often odd hours.

In June 2000, Lt. Gerald E. Burton, a divorced firefighter employed by the District of Columbia, won joint custody of his son and daughter after a judge ruled that “both parties were fit and proper to have care and custody” of the children. The judge insisted, however, that Burton change his job hours to accommodate a five-day a week, 40 hour schedule.

Burton told the judge that he would soon be receiving a transfer to an administrative position, but when that had still not happened after a month, the judge revoked the joint custody decree. Burton appealed the decision, but the Maryland Court of Special Appeals reaffirmed the verdict. The Washington Times quoted the appellate court’s decision at length,

In making the ruling, the court determined that there was already a potential for disruption in the children’s social and school lives because they do not have ‘one place where they do everything. The court found that this disruption would be amplified if Mr. Burton were to work a 24/72 shift. The court further found that a 24/72 shift schedule would be a demand of employment that would interfere with the ability of the parties to jointly parent their children.

Burton and Lt. Ray Sneed, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association, both said that firefighters routinely swap shifts to deal with these sorts of situations, but the court ruled that was not an adequate solution. Sneed added that the ruling might make it difficult to recruit firefighters and could have a serious impact on single parents already working in the D.C. Fire Department,

This is ridiculous. This is going to affect every shift worker — not just firefighters. . . .You could say they’re [other single parent firefighters] not good parents based on this decision.

Those single parent firefighters include about 60 women according to Lt. Sneed. It seems a bit bizarre to say that, as a society, we want Lt. Burton to risk his life on a regular basis to protect people from fires, but that at the same time the odd schedule firefighters must often works makes him ineligible for joint custody of his children.

Source:

Fireman’s appeal for custody rejected. Matthew Cella, The Washington Times, January 9, 2003.

The Are Firefighters Lousy Parents? by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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