The Best Interest of the Child (BIC) is used as a magical incantation that the states use to force parents into traumatic litigation. We show you how they have been tricking you, give you more information about what best interest really is, and offer you the secrets that attorneys don’t want you to know.

We use an excerpt from an appellate brief from one of our students. This mom is challenging and claiming that Connecticut’s best interest of the child statute is an unconstitutional state statute that allows a judge to determine “best interest of a child” despite the fact that the child has at least one fit parent; in fact he has two fit parents. We are doing this special segment on this appeal snippet because the example below still gets a few things a little confused. This mom has graciously put herself out there so that others can learn the best argument available to save them and their child from the extensive litigation trauma that she and her autistic son have been through, and we are very proud of her.

When this mother came to us, she had spent thousands of dollars on attorneys and not one of them told her that her rights allow her to object to a judge imposing their viewpoint on her, which is how the best interest statute was used in her case. She didn’t know to even question the judge until she found us and took our online course, got our book and motions, and attended our webinars. Before that, she had no idea about any of this at all really. Instead she was struggling to figure out the rules. She thought she had to please the judge, so she changed careers, got a new job, worked more, and changed her lifestyle. But this did not change her child custody and did not get her equal possession time. Attorneys weren’t helping either. They were just making her broke. So she found us.

Most attorneys will tell you that best interest has been tested and found to be constitutional. Keep reading before you buy their claim. Literally, you are paying for attorneys to remain ignorant and in denial when you don’t do your homework first. We are going to let you in on the secrets that attorneys have been keeping from you.

Ron B Palmer after analyzing tons of caselaw, doing other research, and then analyzing further, he discovered that best interest of the child (BIC) is actually nothing more than viewpoint discrimination, nothing more than a judge’s opinion, and violates First Amendment rights. Ron’s revolutionary breakthrough allowed him to see that this problem was being argued all wrong by family law attorneys. So what you see in this appeal excerpt is the result of this mother having available to her Ron’s insights. This gave this mother information that was not available anywhere else because Ron is the first one to articulate best interest of the child as infringing First Amendment rights. This information allowed her to understand better ways to tackle her child custody problems, “the monster” as she puts it, and more effectively demonstrate to the appellate court that her family court judge violated hers and her child’s civil rights and are acting unconstitutionally.

How did this mom get access to the information that helped her build her appeal pro se and make strong arguments? Ron created an online course, and some example declaratory judgment motions, white papers, and wrote some books, “NOT in the Child’s Best Interest,” “28th Amendment: Protecting Parent-child Bonds,” and “Oath Breakers: Lies Family Courts Tell.” All of these materials reveal breakthrough arguments, and tie these discoveries to language that federal appellate courts use to disprove what the states are doing, so that you can track the arguments to any state cases that might exist in your state as well, (if they are not already in our materials).

Ron’s teachings that best interest is over broad, arbitrary, and vague, and allows the judges to make up the rules as they go ex post facto, give you the foundation to make the argument that best interest is unconstitutional. Ron’s strategy of using First Amendment to fight the unjust practices create the paradigm shift necessary to destroy the family court lies. Ron’s breakthrough exposes best interest as nothing more than a judge’s opinion based on their personal beliefs. Ron leads you through viewpoint discrimination arguments as well as leads you through the legal language for a higher level of scrutiny.

What this means is that the judge (who is a state actor) is not allowed to substitute its own judgment over the objections of either fit parent. These teachings led this mother to argue that her state statute was vague and overbroad. Part of what makes a statute unconstitutional is overbreadth, and that it is arbitrary, and nothing more than a judge’s opinion. In other words, it is viewpoint discrimination when a judge imposes his personal beliefs on you to violate fundamental rights.

Ron teaches that best interest of the child infringes on free speech and association protected by the First Amendment. Ron teaches that before a judge is allowed to interfere with your fundamental rights there are more stringent and strict rules that require a constitutional balancing test to protect you and protect children from error.

This enabled this parent to find caselaw in her state that supports these parental rights ideas. She learned that it is error and called “ex post facto” for a judge to make up the rules as they go and then strip you of fundamental rights based on nothing more than the judge’s opinion of what is best for your child. She learned that being made to guess at what a judge wants or expects violates your rights. She learned that a judge telling you who to be or who not to be violates your rights, and “violates the first essential of due process of law.”

In a nutshell, your judge’s discretion is limited by the constitution but the state statutes are extending unconstitutional power to judges. Legislators are not allowed to convey power to judges that the constitution prohibits, period, the end.

[NOTE: WHILE WE DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU COPY THIS APPELLATE BRIEF ARGUMENT INTO YOUR APPEAL, we do recommend that you learn from how other parents are interpreting these concepts, go to the source where they learned about these parental rights, and create your most powerful manuscript, write your story to the appellate court more effectively, and ensure that your grievance has the best shot to prevail. THERE ARE SECTIONS THAT YOU WILL NEED TO ARGUE DIFFERENTLY. IF YOU WANT THE MOST PERSUASIVE ARGUMENT AND YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR RIGHTS ARE DESIGNED TO PROTECT YOU FROM LEGAL ABUSE GO HERE You will also find the information you need to adjust the argument there. DO NOT COPY THE FOLLOWING APPEAL EXCERPT DIRECTLY INTO YOUR APPEAL. BECOME A MEMBER and find out why. GET THE BENEFIT OF THE MOST UP-TO-DATE PARENTAL RIGHTS ARGUMENTS TO HELP YOU WIN* PROTECTION OF YOUR EQUAL RIGHTS IN SHARED PARENTING as a Member.]

–BEGINNING OF APPEAL SNIPPET– [We added the bolding to call your attention to some of the areas that need updating. Plus there are additional steps that you need to know before you challenge a statute.]

Plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of state statue §46b-56(b) that allows the court to determine what is in the child’s best interests and substitute its judgement over the judgment of a fit parent.

The requirements placed on parents in a custody dispute are patently unconstitutional in that parents don’t know the “rules” of their case until after judgement is rendered. When two fit parents are forced to litigate to preserve their natural rights in state court, the ultimate best interest standard comes down to nothing more than an opinion of a state judge, who, under the privilege of wide discretion, applies ex post facto rules to the “losing” parent. The best interest standard is used as a penal code because it is used as a tool to strip a parent of civil liberties and should be treated as such for purposes of challenging it. §46b-56(b) is unconstitutionally vague in violation of the United States Constitution. “Under the requirements of due process of law mandated by our federal and state constitutions, a penal statute must be sufficiently definite to enable a person to know what conduct he must avoid.” State v. Proto, 203 Conn. 682, 696, 526 A.2d 1297 (1987). In Proto, it was concluded that “persons of ordinary intelligence” lacked fair warning of what conduct was illegal and what was permitted. The Connecticut Supreme Court concluded that the statute in question was impermissibly vague, in violation of the Defendant’s constitutional rights to due process of law. See also: State v. Pickering, 180 Conn. 54, 59-60, 428 A.2d 322 (1980); see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 77, 96 S. Ct. 612, 46 L. Ed. 2d 659 (1976). “[A] statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law.” Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S. Ct. 126, 70 L. Ed. 322 (1926); State v. Williams, 205 Conn. 456, 469-70, 534 A.2d 230 (1987). “‘[P]erhaps the most important factor affecting the clarity that the Constitution demands of a law is whether it threatens to inhibit the exercise of constitutionally protected rights. If, for example, the law interferes with the right of free speech or of association, a more stringent vagueness test should apply.’ Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489 (1982).” State v. Indrisano, 228 Conn. 795, 803-804, 640 A.2d 986 (1994). Because the “best interest” standard is designed to infringe on free family association, a stringent vagueness test should apply to §46b-56(b).

The court applied the best interest standard set forth in §46b-56(b) to deprive Plaintiff and her son their rights, using a mere preponderance of evidence standard. The statutory best interest standard is not a trigger for the state to intervene in a fundamental liberty interest. There’s nothing “standardized” about the best interest standard, and it’s not a set of rules any parent can refer to and reasonably uphold. Under the “best interest” standard, fit parents lose fundamental rights for failing to live up to the opinion of a judge for parental or lifestyle choices made within the marriage and were perfectly legal and acceptable within the marriage. In this instant case, even if the court’s negative opinions about the Plaintiff were true, the court applies ex post facto punishment to the Plaintiff, because she could not have predicted that her private thoughts and feelings that were not in evidence would later be punishable. The “rules” in her case were formulated at the time of the final judgement. This is commonplace in Family Law.

Plaintiff asserts that under the best interest standard, there is no legal standard or statute an otherwise fit parent to live up to, to win the theoretical approval of a judge that will rule in future proceedings. The “best interest” standard is unconstitutional and can only be applied in the context of parens patriae when the child has no fit parents, or with the application of the constitutional balancing test. Parents entering divorce proceedings are subject to a higher scrutiny by the state on their parenting style, their health, hobbies, and personalities, all in the clear absence of unfitness. It’s unconstitutional for fit parents to be subject to loss of rights for the protected choice to dissolve their marriage.”

—- END OF APPEAL SNIPPET —–

You can learn to argue like this too. Discover the path that we took this parent on that helped her understand parental rights, revolutionize her thinking, and write this appeal. Go into our member site to see the secrets attorneys keep from you. This appeal brief argument should not be copied into your brief as is. The vagueness argument is not the strongest argument you can make. Ron discusses best interest being used to punish you in his courses in a way to communicate a concept. This should not be mistaken as a penal code. If you use it this way it can hurt you. You want to be as technically precise as you can in order to have the best shot at winning your appeal. You can get this and more information in the members only site and make the best argument you can make so that you can fight for justice and overcome the abuse and suffering the courts have put you through unconstitutionally. Be the best by making the best argument. You and your child deserve the full protection of this country’s promises.

Quote from mother in Connecticut thanking Fix Family Courts.
A mother in Connecticut thanks Ron and Sherry Palmer of Fix Family Courts for providing her with the education to make constitutional arguments in her child custody case.


We are proud of our students and how they are using the information that we teach. This mom has graciously put herself out there so that others can learn the best argument available to save them and their child from the complex litigation trauma and high conflict that she and her autistic son have experienced.

After studying some of our earlier training materials and discussing them with us personally, this parent has done one of the better jobs that we have seen with getting some of the basic ideas that we teach into her brief (we do not teach you to argue best interest as a criminal code). These are difficult concepts to grasp and that’s why we are adding additional training to clarify these concepts based on how we see people understanding them. We are continuously improving these arguments for your benefit. When we started there was nothing. We are the original architects of the core concepts, ideas, and arguments that this mother makes in her brief and her video. While she does a decently good job, remember the ways that they got argued in this appeal snippet may not be precise enough or technically correct, may not apply the way the parent has argued them, and may be incomplete, so we are developing more training here to help you be the one to make that successful appeal argument in your brief that prevails and changes this forever for everyone.

If you want to fight this way, you don’t have to struggle anymore, your first steps are to get on our member site and get the basic knowledge through our training, then you can more effectively work with us one on one to iron out specifics and to help your attorney get these arguments right.  

We encourage all of you to do your best with the arguments as you can. We know that this is not something that you were trained to do, or ever thought you would need to learn, and it is sad that attorneys won’t do it for you. But that’s why we try to make it as easy as possible for you and give you examples and templates to help simplify and speed up your progress.

Attorneys go to school for several years to learn to understand law. Unfortunately, they are only required to spend a semester or two on constitutional law. Because it is so difficult for parents to find an attorney who will acknowledge these rights, let alone argue them, parents throughout the United States are being forced to learn parental rights pro se. We encourage you to learn from what other parents are doing by becoming a member here where you will have the most revolutionary, persuasive, breakthrough arguments available today. Always check what you have learned before you use it with an attorney however. Yes, they may be resistant, but they can provide you with how they believe the law is applied and their feedback can help you identify if one of your arguments needs some work. Also, the technical rules in your county may require some customization from the federal arguments we make here. We make the federal arguments that you and your attorney can adapt to the specific rules of your state. Remember that federal laws and the federal constitution overrule any state law or state constitutional provisions, but you must still follow your state and local rules when arguing these federal issues. Your attorney is always the best source of information for technicalities in local and state rules. You don’t have time to mess up. You might not get another chance before your child ages out.

If you have taken our course, read our books, and used argument from the sample motions, we would like to see how you interpreted what you learned. Please send us how you are arguing your rights in your appeal so that other parents can benefit from your learning as well.

A ruling has not been made on this appeal yet. Become a member to receive updates. Do not be complacent in thinking that this is all you need to challenge the constitutionality of a statute. We will share with you the simple steps we use to formulate a comprehensive argument and why you need to get as much argument into your trial court record before undergoing an appeal.

If you choose to continue to do this alone and without the support and shortcuts you get as a member, you need to know where to start. Each state has different rules for challenging statutes. Please consult an attorney to find out what those rules are. For instance, in Texas, a parent must notify the Attorney General when they are challenging a statute. There is a government form to do this. If you do not follow these rules you could have your argument thrown out, dismissed, or denied.

Also check out our daily tool post we made on challenging the best interest of the child doctrine in your family court trial.

*There are no guarantees in any legal case of winning.

DISCLAIMER: We are not attorneys, are not trained in the law, do not practice law, and are not a substitute for an attorney. These arguments however are unique to us and they did not exist before we started teaching them. These arguments are copyright protected. Please get permission before you re-print or re-publish any of our materials. You may use the materials for your own case as you see fit. If you would like someone else to use the argument please refer them to us so that we can make sure that they are getting the most up-to-date information.