Justia Family Law Opinion Summaries

An Alaskan superior court terminated a mother’s and father’s parental rights based on a finding that they caused mental injury to their child. Relevant to this finding, the child in need of aid (CINA) statutes provided that a court may find a child in need of aid due to parental conduct or conditions causing the child “mental injury”; they also provideed that a “mental injury” exists when there was “a serious injury to the child as evidenced by an observable and substantial impairment in the child’s ability to function in a developmentally appropriate manner and the existence of that impairment is supported by the opinion of a qualified expert witness.” The primary issue before the Alaska Supreme Court in this case was one of evidence rule and statutory interpretation in the context of a judge-tried CINA matter: did the statutorily required expert witness have to be offered and affirmatively accepted as a qualified expert witness by the superior court? The Supreme Court concluded the answer was “yes”; that it would review a claim of error in this regard despite a lack of objection in the superior court; and that it would conclude any such error is harmless only if - considering the parent was not necessarily on notice to make an on-record challenge to the expert’s qualifications - the Supreme Court could conclude the putative expert clearly was qualified to render the specific testimony required by statute. View "C.G. v. Alaska, Dept. Health & Social Serv." on Justia Law

Mayle, a self-proclaimed Satanist, is a follower of The Law of Thelema, a set of beliefs developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley. As part of this religion, Mayle participates in what he calls “sex magick rituals” that he believes violate Illinois laws forbidding adultery and fornication. He claims that he reasonably fears prosecution for practicing his beliefs. He also says that he wants to marry more than one person at the same time and that if he were to do so, he would violate an Illinois law against bigamy. Mayle’s first challenge to the laws was dismissed. Mayle did not appeal, but the next year he filed another suit challenging the same statutes.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the second suit, first rejecting a challenge to the district court’s grant of a two-day extension to allow Mayle to file a notice of appeal. Mayle’s bigamy claim was precluded by the 2017 final judgment on the merits. Mayle lacked standing to challenge the state’s adultery and fornication laws because he still showed no reasonable fear of prosecution; those laws are no longer enforced. View "Mayle v. Illinois" on Justia Law

Cleveland Karren and Jayda Roman had a daughter, born March 2012 in Washington, D.C. Jayda and the daughter moved in July to Mount Vernon, Washington, to live with Jayda’s parents. The family moved to Anchorage in April 2013. Cleveland later took a job at Joint Base Lewis-McChord; he moved to Washington in April 2014, and Jayda remained in Anchorage with the daughter. In May 2015 Cleveland took a different job and moved to Washington, D.C. Jayda filed the parties’ marital dissolution petition in Anchorage in May 2015. Jayda and Cleveland testified that they both had “live[d] in Alaska six continuous months out of the past six years.” Jayda appealed the Alaska superior court’s child custody order, arguing that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) or that it abused its discretion by failing to decline UCCJEA jurisdiction on inconvenient forum grounds. She also contended the court gave disproportionate weight to the custody investigator’s trial testimony and, under the statutory custody factors, to maintaining the father-daughter relationship. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded that the superior court had UCCJEA jurisdiction because Alaska was the child’s home state when the proceeding commenced; the Court also concluded that the court properly weighed the statutory inconvenient forum factors and did not abuse its discretion when it determined that deciding custody in Alaska was most practical. And because the court had broad discretion in making a custody determination — including the weight to give a custody investigator’s testimony — the Supreme Court concluded the court did not abuse its discretion when weighing either testimony or statutory custody factors. View "Roman v. Karren" on Justia Law

Samantha Schweitzer appealed a district court order dismissing her petition for a child custody order. Schweitzer and Blake Miller have one child together, born in Wisconsin in 2014. Schweitzer had primary custody of the child after the child’s birth. On January 6, 2017, Schweitzer and the child moved from Wisconsin to North Dakota. On January 13, 2017, Miller petitioned in Wisconsin for joint custody and parenting time. After an August 2018 hearing, the parties stipulated they would have joint custody of the child and Schweitzer would move to Madison, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin court entered an order on the basis of the parties’ stipulation. In January 2019, Schweitzer petitioned for an emergency child custody order and initial child custody determination or modification of child custody determination in North Dakota. Miller moved to dismiss the petition, arguing the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to decide Schweitzer’s petition. Miller claimed the Wisconsin court had jurisdiction to decide custody issues relating to the child. The North Dakota district court determined it lacked jurisdiction to decide Schweitzer's petition, and the North Dakota Supreme Court concurred with that judgment. View "Schweitzer v. Miller" on Justia Law

A mother appealed a superior court’s child support order that was based on imputed income, arguing that the court’s finding of her imputed gross income was based on faulty weekly hour and hourly rate determinations. After review, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded that by going well beyond the mother’s previous weekly hours and hourly rate without any evidence or findings about commensurate job opportunities and the mother’s abilities and qualifications for those opportunities, the trial court failed to follow established Alaska case law. It therefore vacated the child support order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Vogus v. Vogus" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the decision of the probate and family court judge's dismissal of Petitioner's third petition for adoption due to lack of jurisdiction, holding that the probate and family court had both subject matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction.Petitioner was the biological father of the child at issue and was named as the child's parent on her birth certificate. Petitioner lived outside of the United States with his same-sex partner and the child, where the child was born outside of marriage to a gestational carrier, the child's birth mother, who lived in Massachusetts. Mother signed a surrender form indicating her desire to surrender the child to the care and custody of Father. Thereafter, Father filed three petitions in the probate and family court seeking to establish his status as the child's sole legal parent. Each petition was rejected. Father appealed the denial of his third petition, which was rejected on the basis that the court lacked jurisdiction. The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment, holding that the probate and family court had subject matter jurisdiction under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 210, 1 and personal jurisdiction over the parties in this case. View "In re Adoption of Daphne" on Justia Law

Appellant Kyle Linley Everard (Kyle) appealed a trial court's order granting reciprocal domestic violence restraining orders (DVROs) against Kyle and respondent spouse Valerie Ann Everard (Valerie). In issuing the DVROs, the trial court found, pursuant to Family Code section 6305, both parties acted as primary aggressors and neither acted primarily in self-defense in multiple domestic violence incidents. Kyle claimed the trial court erred in including him in the DVROs based on its admission of an unauthenticated 2013 police report offered by Valerie, which report Kyle claimed was allegedly the exclusive basis for the court's findings against him under section 6305. Because the Court of Appeal conclude substantial evidence in the record supported the court's findings independent of the 2013 police report, and because it further concluded the court's findings satisfied section 6305, the DVRO against Kyle was affirmed. View "Marriage of Everard" on Justia Law

M.J. (Mother) appeals the order entered following the jurisdiction and disposition hearing in the juvenile dependency case of her minor child, D.S. D.S. was living with his paternal aunt (Aunt), later determined to be his presumed mother. The Agency alleged D.S.'s father was deceased, Mother had previously caused the death of another minor, and Aunt was no longer able to care for D.S. As discussed in the detention report, Mother's parental rights were terminated after she was charged and convicted of killing D.S.'s brother. D.S. had been placed in the care of his father, who subsequently died suddenly in March 2018. Aunt assumed care for D.S., but reported to the Agency that she could not currently care for D.S. due to her own health issues. In a report prepared for the jurisdiction and disposition hearing, the Agency detailed its inquiry into whether the Indian Child Welfare Act applied to the proceedings. The Agency stated: (1) Mother denied having any Indian heritage; (2) D.S.'s great-grandmother stated that her great-grandmother (D.S.'s great-great-great-great-grandmother) was "affiliated with the Sioux and Blackfeet tribes;" (3) Aunt denied that she or [her grandmother] have ever lived on an Indian reservation, have a tribal enrollment number or identification card indicating membership/citizenship in an Indian tribe; and (4) Aunt denied she has any reason to believe D.S. was an Indian child. Mother contended the court erred by not complying with the inquiry provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Court of Appeal concluded after review that the juvenile court's finding that the Agency completed its further inquiry was supported by the evidence. Similarly, there is substantial evidence supporting the juvenile court's conclusion that "there is no reason to believe or know that [ICWA] applies." View "In re D.S." on Justia Law

At issue in consolidated appeals before the Alaska Supreme Court were the custody proceedings involving the same child before two courts of independent sovereignty: the State of Alaska and the Native Village of Barrow (NVB). A child custody case was initiated in the Utqiagvik superior court. Thereafter, NVB, through its tribal court, took custody of the child in a tribal child in need of aid (CINA) case. In 2016 the superior court ultimately denied the mother’s state court motion to modify custody. NVB sought to intervene in the state custody case, but the superior court denied its motion. The mother appealed the superior court’s denial of her motion to modify custody; NVB appealed the order denying its motion to intervene. The Alaska Supreme Court determined that under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a superior court receiving a tribal court order to determine whether the order was issued in an ICWA-defined child custody proceeding and, if it was, was mandated to follow ICWA section 1911(d)’s full faith and credit mandate. The superior court erred in ruling that the NVB tribal court lacked jurisdiction without following the procedures underlying the process for giving full faith and credit to a tribal court order. View "Native Village of Barrow v. Williams" on Justia Law

Mother, M.G., and Father, A.G., both petitioned for an extraordinary writ in the dependency cases of their children, A.G. and C.G. They challenged the juvenile court’s order after a contested review hearing. The court terminated family reunification services for Mother and Father and set a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.261 hearing for March 19, 2020. Mother and Father assert the court erred by setting the .26 hearing because there was an insufficient evidentiary showing the children would be at risk in their care. After review, the Court of Appeal agreed with the parents that Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) failed to present sufficient evidence the children would be at risk if returned to their parents. View "M.G. v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law