When a Deadline Ends Your Rights
This guide is about New York Family Court. Other states run on different rules.
Most deadlines just make you late. A few deadlines are different. Miss one of those, and the right itself is gone. This guide covers two of them.
Objecting to a Support Magistrate's order
Under FCA 439(e), you can file written objections to a final order. There are two possible deadlines. Which one applies depends on how you received the order.
- If you received the order in court or by personal service, you have thirty days from that date.
- If not, and it was mailed or sent electronically, you have thirty-five days from when it was sent.
Many self-represented parents were not in court when the order was entered. They get the order later, by mail. That puts them in the thirty-five day branch.
Appealing a Family Court order
Under FCA 1113, an appeal has three possible triggers. Whichever one happens first is the one that controls.
- Thirty days after the order is served on you by a party or the child's attorney.
- Thirty days from receiving the order in court.
- Thirty-five days from when the order is mailed or sent electronically.
Which deadline applies to you?
Which branch applies depends on how the order actually reached you. That is a question for an attorney, not a number this guide can hand you. Do not guess, and do not wait to ask.
Sources
- FCA 439(e) — objections to a Support Magistrate's final order: thirty or thirty-five days, depending on how you received it.
- FCA 1113 — the time to appeal a Family Court order, with three possible triggers.
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