Defending a Contempt Motion Over Alleged Visitation Violations in Connecticut

Attorney Answer

You do not have to prove you obeyed the order. The parent who filed the contempt motion has to prove you disobeyed it, and has to do it by clear and convincing evidence. That burden is your strongest asset, and most contempt motions fail on it rather than on anything the defending parent affirmatively proves.

The court's power to hold a parent in contempt for violating a visitation order is inherent and procedural, exercised under the family rules in Practice Book chapter 25. It does not come from Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-87. What § 46b-87 actually does is shift fees: where a person is found in contempt of an order entered under the sections it lists — the annulment, alimony, property-assignment, and modification provisions — the court may award the petitioner a reasonable attorney's fee and the officer's service fees, and it may award fees to the respondent when no contempt is found. Note the limit, because it is easy to be misled here: § 46b-56, which is where custody and visitation orders come from, is not on that list. Do not count on a fee award either way in a visitation contempt.

To win, the moving party must show a clear and unambiguous order and a wilful violation of it. That gives you three real defenses: the order does not say what they claim it says, you did what it required, or compliance was impossible for reasons outside your control. Ambiguity in the order is a defense, not a technicality.

Proving the other parent violated the order is a separate proceeding, not a defense to theirs. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-87a directs that forms and instructions be made available for an application for a contempt order based on violation of a visitation order — that is the vehicle for bringing your own motion.

What you can do

1. Get a certified copy of the current operative order and read the exact words. Later modifications control over the original. 2. Build a date-by-date table answering each specific violation the motion alleges. Vague denials lose; dated answers win. 3. Pull contemporaneous proof for those dates — texts, emails, the co-parenting app log, exchange-location receipts or camera footage, and names of third parties who were present. 4. Where their own conduct made compliance impossible, attach the message or record for that exact date next to their allegation. 5. File your own contempt application under the § 46b-87a process for the dates they failed to comply, rather than raising it only as an argument. 6. Appear at the hearing. Failing to appear on a contempt motion is the most common way people lose one. 7. If the order really is ambiguous, file a motion to clarify or modify at the same time so the same problem does not recur.