Freedman v. Freedman, <\/a><\/em>Appellate Division, Judge Geiger. Plaintiff appealed the trial court’s orders regarding the disposition of the parties’ adult son’s remains and personal property. The parties’ son died unexpectedly at age 20 while attending college in Colorado. Defendant unilaterally decided to have her son cremated without informing plaintiff that he had died, preventing him from participating in decisions regarding the disposition of the body or from attending the memorial service. Defendant further refused to divide the parties’ son’s personal effects. The parties filed contesting petitions to resolve their dispute over their son’s remains and property and to terminate child support. The trial court entered orders scheduling a plenary hearing and ultimately ruling that the disposition of the parties’ son’s remains and effects should be decided by defendant because she had a closer relationship. Plaintiff appealed those orders, while defendant cross-appealed certain aspects of the order scheduling a plenary hearing. On appeal, the court affirmed. The court noted that plaintiff had substantial opportunities to litigate defendant’s alleged alienation of their son’s affection and interference with plaintiff’s parenting time and communication with his son during his son’s minority. Because plaintiff waited until after his son’s death and the dispute over the disposition of his remains and personal effects to raise allegations regarding defendant’s interference in plaintiff’s relationship with his son, the court deemed those issues waived. The court further held that a plenary hearing was not required as the trial court was presented with overwhelming evidence that defendant had a closer relationship with the parties’ son. The court adopted a procedure for trial courts to follow to resolve parental disputes over the disposition of their deceased children’s remains. (Approved for Publication)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Divorce is hard and is, by definition, a break of a marital relationship. Sometimes, one broken the parties can maintain a civil and working relationship. As the case summary below indicates, establishing a functioning co-parenting relationship is critical and failing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-durstfirm-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6omM8-IE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":856,"url":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?p=856","url_meta":{"origin":2768,"position":0},"title":"Who pays for college after the divorce?","author":"Sandy Durst","date":"August 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"WHO PAYS FOR COLLEGE AFTER THE DIVORCE By:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sandy Durst, Esq. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lynch, Osborne, Gilmore & Durst \u00a0 The issue of who pays for the college education of unemancipated children after a divorce is often emotionally charged and financially stressful topic.\u00a0 When a divorce occurs when the children are young\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst on Divorce"","block_context":{"text":"Durst on Divorce","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?p=1331","url_meta":{"origin":2768,"position":1},"title":"NJ Supreme Court preserves pre-2010 palimony claims","author":"Sandy Durst","date":"September 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"On September\u00a025, 2014 the New Jersey Supreme Court clarified the law on the issue of palimony in the state of New Jersey when they rendered their decision in the matter of Maeker v. Ross. While many practitioners will be familiar with the concept of alimony, the topic of palimony is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst Firm News"","block_context":{"text":"Durst Firm News","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1109,"url":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?p=1109","url_meta":{"origin":2768,"position":2},"title":"Can a parent with joint legal custody make unilateral decisions affecting the child?","author":"Sandy Durst","date":"June 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"After a divorce, there is often disagreement between the parents as to what is appropriate with regard to the child's education and religious upbringing.\u00a0 Under joint legal custody, both parties are to be involved in major decisions including but not limited to education, religious training, and non-emergency medical care.\u00a0 Even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst Firm News"","block_context":{"text":"Durst Firm News","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3042,"url":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?p=3042","url_meta":{"origin":2768,"position":3},"title":"Multiple methods to resolve your divorce in New Jersey","author":"Sandy Durst","date":"November 7, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Divorce Resolution in New Jersey: Litigation, Mediation, and Arbitration Explained When a marriage ends in New Jersey, divorcing spouses have several paths to resolve their disputes. While some cases must go before a judge, many couples today choose alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods like mediation or arbitration to save time,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst Firm News"","block_context":{"text":"Durst Firm News","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"Conference room. John E. 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Court are called upon to determine when routine domestic squabbles cross the line and constitute domestic violence. When deciding if a final\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst Firm News"","block_context":{"text":"Durst Firm News","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2001,"url":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?p=2001","url_meta":{"origin":2768,"position":5},"title":"Can past acts of domestic violence be considered at my FRO hearing?","author":"Sandy Durst","date":"January 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"New Jersey takes protecting victims of domestic violence very serious. \u00a0But in doing so, the law must also protect the due process rights of the alleged abuser. \u00a0When seeking a Temporary Restraining Order or a Final Restaining Order, the victim must identify and prove beyond a preponderance of the evidence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Durst on Divorce"","block_context":{"text":"Durst on Divorce","link":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2769,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions\/2769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedurstfirm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}