A drug problem in the workplace or even at home can be a major problem. Are you concerned about an individual that you have hired or are looking to hire? Are you worried about a love one and want to get them the help they need? We know it all when it comes to a substance abuse investigation.
The breakup of a marriage is never a happy event. Usually hurt feelings and anger occur with both parties, making for a contentious future between former spouses. Adding insult to injury, many spouses refuse to pay the amount of alimony or spousal maintenance required by law, or, conversely, try to get more money than they are legally entitled to collect. If you suspect that you are paying or receiving too much or too little spousal maintenance or alimony, modification of the support order may be needed.
Spousal maintenance is determined on a case by case basis because, unlike child support, there are no state or federal guidelines that determine the amount of the award. Essentially, an award of spousal maintenance requires three showings:
- Need of a party for spousal maintenance
- Ability of a party to pay spousal maintenance
- Sufficient length of marriage to establish "entitlement".
Spousal maintenance decisions are based on the following main factors:
- Length of the marriage
- Standard of living during the marriage
- Income of both parties
- Living expenses of both parties
- Age of both parties
- Property apportioned to each spouse in the divorce
- Education and employability of the spouse seeking maintenance
- Any disability status affecting employability
- The contributions of each party to the marital estate
If you believe your case was not decided correctly based on these factors, or if these factors have changed since the spousal maintenance order was issued, you will need to go back to court to have the order modified. Often, the discovery of hidden assets on the part of the payer or the payee will substantially alter the original award. Fraudulent claims of disability, or inflated estimates of living expenses will also have a great deal of bearing on how much spousal support must be paid or received.
A private investigator will use a variety of methods including hidden assets investigation, video and covert surveillance, skip tracing, and public records search to discover the real story behind the sob story that the payee or payer plans to presented to the court. Faced with the evidence of their deceit, the party in the wrong may decide to drop their unwarranted claim to avoid being charged with perjury in court. In the event that the request for modification does go to court, any evidence discovered by the private investigator can be used as solid evidence to help you win your case, and get the fair deal that you deserve.
Properly handling a possible substance abuse problem is important. We first get a detailed background on the individual. This includes all their work habits to their physical appearance. Then we setup surveillance on them. With surveillance we typically follow the individual with a video camera and also take detailed notes. Once we have surveillance established, we are usually able to get close enough to them to do a number of things. We can get oil samples off their car door handle or even test a strand of their hair for a possible narcotic.Here is an example of a substance abuse form that can be filled out by a company and one of their management team:
http://www.cityofgainesville.org/hr/common/docs/subabuseform.pdf
This is the definition of "substance abuse" according to Wikipedia:
"Substance abuse is the overindulgence in and dependence of a drug or other chemical leading to effects that are detrimental to the individual's physical and mental health, or the welfare of others." "The disorder is characterized by a pattern of continued pathological use of a medication, non-medically indicated drug or toxin, that results in repeated adverse social consequences related to drug use, such as failure to meet work, family, or school obligations, interpersonal conflicts, or legal problems. There are on-going debates as to the exact distinctions between substance abuse and substance dependence, but current practice standard distinguishes between the two by defining substance dependence in terms of physiological and behavioral symptoms of substance use, and substance abuse in terms of the social consequences of substance use."
Substance abuse may lead to addiction or substance dependence. Medically, physiologic dependence requires the development of tolerance leading to withdrawal symptoms. Both abuse and dependence are distinct from addiction which involves a compulsion to continue using the substance despite the negative consequences, and may or may not involve chemical dependency. Dependence almost always implies abuse, but abuse frequently occurs without dependence, particularly when an individual first begins to abuse a substance. Dependence involves physiological processes while substance abuse reflects a complex interaction between the individual, the abused substance and society."
No matter what you're looking to do when it comes to a substance abuse investigation, ICS can solve all your problems.
(2/20/2013)
See the following case studies for examples of this case type:
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Forensic Surface Drug Testing Case Study
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