If someone in your case has used the word “Siegenthaler,” you are probably wondering whether it is a rule, a form, or something your lawyer made up. It is none of those. It is shorthand for a parenting time schedule, named after a Missouri appeals case from 1988, and what the case actually ordered is a little different from what the phrase has come to mean.
What Is an Every Other Weekend Custody Schedule?
An every other weekend custody schedule gives one parent the majority of the overnights and gives the other parent alternating weekends, a share of school breaks, a block of summer time, and a rotation of holidays.
It is the most familiar shape a parenting plan takes, and for decades it was the default starting point in a lot of Missouri cases. In St. Louis the version of it people name out loud is the Siegenthaler plan.
What Is a Siegenthaler Custody Plan?
A Siegenthaler plan is local shorthand for a parenting time schedule modelled on Siegenthaler v. Siegenthaler, a 1988 decision of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District.
The citation is Siegenthaler v. Siegenthaler, 761 S.W.2d 262 (Mo. App. E.D. 1988), decided by Division Two on 29 November 1988. The Eastern District is the appeals court for St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis, St. Charles County and Jefferson County, which is why the name stuck here and not elsewhere in the state.
It is not a statute, not a form, and not a rule of court. It is a case that produced a schedule other judges found workable and reused.
What Did the Siegenthaler Case Actually Order?
The Eastern District replaced the trial court’s schedule with a six part arrangement covering weekends, summer, Christmas, spring break, Thanksgiving and the three day holidays.
The father in that case had three children and had been given, by the trial court, “the second and fourth weekends of each month and on certain alternating holidays,” plus the right to visit at “all reasonable times upon reasonable notice.” He appealed on the ground that this was too little, and the appeals court agreed.
Here is what the court put in its place.
- Weekends. “two weekends per month.”
- Summer. “up to six weeks during each summer, between June 1 and September 1.”
- Christmas. “six consecutive days including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day during alternating Christmas holidays.”
- Spring break. Alternating spring breaks.
- Thanksgiving. Alternating Thanksgiving four day weekends.
- Three day holidays. A rotation including Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day.
That is the schedule. Anything described as a Siegenthaler plan that departs from it is a local variation rather than the case.
Does a Siegenthaler Plan Include a Midweek Overnight?
Not according to the opinion. The Siegenthaler court ordered two weekends per month and said nothing at all about a weeknight.
This is worth knowing, because the phrase is very commonly used to mean “every other weekend plus one night during the week.” Two of those three pieces are not in the case.
- The opinion says “two weekends per month,” which is twenty four weekends a year. Every other weekend is twenty six. Close, but not identical, and in a year of exchanges the difference is real.
- There is no midweek overnight anywhere in the schedule the Eastern District ordered.
None of that makes a midweek overnight a bad idea. Plenty of families are better off with one. It means that if someone tells you a midweek night is standard “because that is the Siegenthaler plan,” the case is not the reason.
Why Did the Appeals Court Change the Schedule?
Because it concluded the children needed something different from what the trial court had ordered.
The court’s own words were that “This court believes that the welfare of the children requires some other disposition.” Not that the trial court had applied the wrong law, and not that the father had a right to more time as such. The children’s welfare called for a different arrangement, so the appeals court wrote one.
Two things follow from that, and they matter more than the schedule itself.
- The reasoning was child centred, not parent centred. The father won, but he won on an argument about his children rather than about his entitlement.
- It happened to be a father asking for more time in 1988. The schedule concept applies to either parent, and it does not carry an assumption about which parent has the majority of overnights.
Is a Siegenthaler Plan Still Used in Missouri Courts?
The name is still used, the schedule is still a common reference point, and the law around parenting time has moved since 1988, so it is a starting place rather than a rule.
Some honest limits on what anyone can tell you here.
The terminology has changed. The 1988 opinion talks about temporary custody and visitation. Missouri parenting plans today are written in terms of legal custody, physical custody and parenting time, and a modern plan has to address more than a schedule.
Parenting time is decided on what is best for the children, which means it is decided on your family’s facts. Distance, work schedules, the children’s ages and their school and activity calendars all change the answer.
And we are not going to tell you on a web page what any particular judge prefers. Pages that claim to know what local judges “now favour” are guessing, and a guess dressed as inside knowledge is worse than no answer. What we can tell you is how these schedules are built, what the St. Louis County Family Court process looks like, and what tends to work for a family shaped like yours.
How Do You Decide Which Schedule Fits Your Family?
Start from the logistics rather than from a named plan, because the calendar has to survive an ordinary Tuesday.
- Distance and drive time. A midweek overnight that means a forty minute drive at 7am is a different proposal than one across the neighbourhood.
- Work schedules. Shift work, travel and on call weeks decide more schedules than legal argument does.
- The children’s ages. What works for a fourteen year old and what works for a three year old are rarely the same plan.
- School and activities. Practices, games and homework routines are the part everyone forgets until the first month.
- How well the two of you communicate. More exchanges need more cooperation. A plan that assumes goodwill you do not have will fail.
Where parents are close on the schedule but stuck on details, mediation often resolves it faster and cheaper than a hearing.
Who Can Help You Build a Parenting Plan in St. Louis?
The right schedule for your family comes out of your actual week, and that takes a conversation about logistics before it takes anything about case law.
Bardol Law Firm practices only family law, and we are in the Clayton, St. Louis City, St. Charles and Jefferson County courts regularly, which means we know how parenting plans get written and reviewed here. If someone has used the word Siegenthaler in your case, we can tell you what they probably meant and whether it fits your children. Our child custody page covers the wider picture, and our other family law questions and answers cover what comes next.
Every client gets a named paralegal on the file, and we generally return calls within one business day. Call 314.918.0100 or reach us through our contact page. Family Law, Simplified. Fill out the form or call to set up a consultation.
This page is general information about Missouri law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.