Hinds v. Hinds-Holm
| Decision Date | 27 January 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20200586-CA |
| Citation | 505 P.3d 1136 |
| Parties | Bradley HINDS, Appellee, v. Rachel HINDS-HOLM, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Theodore R. Weckel, Salt Lake City, Attorney for Appellant
Jonathan G. Winn, Salt Lake City, Attorney for Appellee
Opinion
¶1 Bradley Hinds (Father) and Rachel Hinds-Holm (Mother) married and had a son (Child). After the parties divorced, the district court awarded custody of Child to Father. Mother challenges the court's discretion in weighing the statutory custody factors and the court's denial of her motion to continue the trial. We affirm.
¶2 Father and Mother married in May 2015. Within a few weeks of the wedding, they experienced marital difficulties, and Mother left the family home. But after discovering Mother was pregnant, the parties reconciled, and Child was born in February 2016.
¶3 Father, who was in the military, was transferred to New Mexico, where Mother and Child joined him. For a period of about fifteen months, Mother and Father shared the parental duties of raising Child. However, Father contended that Mother interfered in his relationship with Child by not including him in medical decisions, not supporting his family's relationship with Child, and giving contact with her mother (Grandmother) priority over his involvement with Child.
¶4 In June 2017, Father reported an incident of domestic violence. Father alleged "that he was physically assaulted by [Mother] and [Grandmother] resulting in a bruise on his arm, that he called the police, that base personnel intervened, and that the incident was investigated as domestic violence perpetrated by [Mother]." Mother claimed that "she was yelled at and verbally abused by [Father] during that episode." While the report from the military labeled Mother as the perpetrator, it determined that the incident "did not meet the criteria for physical maltreatment and entry into" the military's database. (Cleaned up.)
¶5 Mother then left New Mexico with Child to live with Grandmother in Utah. Thereafter, Father had difficulty reaching Mother and was unable to have contact with Child until September 2017, shortly after he filed for divorce in Salt Lake City, Utah. Under a temporary custody agreement reached by the parties and approved by the court, Mother was awarded sole physical custody, and the parties shared joint legal custody. Pursuant to this arrangement, "[t]he parties were ordered to cooperate with each other in terms of making decisions about the minor child, his health care, his education, and other decisions relating to the parties’ joint exercise of legal custody."
¶6 However, on at least two occasions, Mother "declined to follow either something she and [Father] agreed to or something she was ordered to do by" the court commissioner. In December 2017, Father filed for an order to show cause in which he raised multiple issues regarding payment of certain expenses and Mother's failure to follow court orders about joint custody arrangements.
¶7 In early April 2018, the parties attended mediation but were unable to reach an agreement. About a week later, Mother's first attorney withdrew "as a result of [Mother's] conduct that appear[ed] to be in bad faith."
¶8 Mother hired a second attorney, and the parties attended a hearing on Father's first motion for an order to show cause in May 2018. The court commissioner ruled in Father's favor, ordering Mother to, among other things, involve Father in daycare and medical decisions regarding Child and to follow parent-time orders.
¶9 In September 2018, the commissioner ruled in Father's favor on a second motion for an order to show cause, which also concerned matters of parent-time and shared expenses. In that order, the commissioner warned Mother about the consequences of future violations: "The Court admonishes [Mother] that if a third Order to Show Cause is raised before the Court for her inability to facilitate [Father's] ordered parent-time, the Court will sentence [Mother] to five days of jail for every count of contempt for parent-time which is missed." The commissioner also ordered Mother to respond to all discovery requests.
¶10 In September 2018, Mother's second attorney withdrew as counsel. That attorney stated that she was "incredibly frustrated" with Mother and Mother was "acting in bad faith."
¶11 Later that month, the court ordered that a custody evaluation be conducted by a licensed clinical social worker (Evaluator). The court ordered the parties to "cooperate as reasonably requested by" Evaluator, including participating in appointments and "[s]ubmission of any documents, names of collateral contacts, and other pertinent material for review during the first month of the evaluation process." Mother did not comply with the evaluation order. Specifically, she (1) did not timely return the completed evaluation agreement; (2) did not timely provide the initial parenting questionnaire; (3) did not fully complete the parenting questionnaire when she did return it; (4) was dismissive concerning the information requested by Evaluator; (5) provided no helpful information by merely answering "yes" or "no" to Evaluator's questions or by telling Evaluator, "Ask [Father], this is [Father's] responsibility not mine"; (6) was slow in providing information; and (7) failed to provide Evaluator all the information requested.
¶12 In December 2018, Mother hired a third attorney for the limited purpose of "settling and preparing the final documents."
¶13 In May 2019, as relevant here, the commissioner certified for trial the determination of physical custody, legal custody, and parent-time. The commissioner also heard Mother's request to reopen discovery to appoint a rebuttal expert to Evaluator, but the commissioner "declined to rule on it and reserved the issue to be raised by [Mother] before" the judge. Moreover, the commissioner ordered Mother to "complete the outstanding discovery requests," as the commissioner had ordered in September 2018, and "provide her responses" to Father within twenty-one days. Subsequently, the parties agreed to proceed by informal trial, see Utah R. Jud. Admin. 4-904, and the matter was referred back to the commissioner. A trial was scheduled for September 4, 2019.
¶14 In August 2019, Father filed a third motion for an order to show cause, alleging that Mother was not observing ordered parent-time and had failed to include Father in medical decisions. On August 28, Mother requested that the trial be continued, which the commissioner granted, resulting in a new trial date of November 5. In early September, Mother informed the commissioner that she no longer agreed to the informal trial, and the commissioner recommended that the parties contact the district court for a trial date. Mother's third attorney withdrew in January 2020.
¶15 After the court scheduled a trial for March 9, Mother hired a fourth attorney on February 11. But he moved for permission to withdraw just fifteen days later, stating, On February 27, the court entered an order granting the motion, stating that the pending trial of March 9 would not be continued.
¶16 On the morning of trial, Mother, proceeding pro se, informed the court that she had filed a motion to continue on February 26 but that the court clerks informed her that the motion had never been received. She then made an oral motion to continue so that she could retain counsel. The judge noted that Mother's fourth attorney "represented ... that [Mother] wanted him to withdraw, that it was at [Mother's] request that he was withdrawing, ... that [Mother] understood that the trial would not be continued, and that [Mother] understood that [she] would be representing [herself] at the trial." Mother responded that when she asked him to withdraw, she thought she would still "be able to have [someone] that would be able to advocate and be there for" her. The court denied the motion.
¶17 At trial, as a threshold matter, the parties agreed that a joint custody arrangement "was not feasible" or in Child's best interest. Thus, Mother and Father differed only as to which of them should receive sole legal and physical custody. Because the parties lived more than 1,000 miles apart and had an acrimonious relationship, the court determined that joint custody was, indeed, not feasible.
¶18 The court heard testimony from Father, Mother, and Evaluator. Evaluator provided extensive testimony concerning the best interest of Child in light of the statutory factors. Evaluator opined it was in Child's best interest for Father to be awarded sole legal and physical custody of Child, with Mother receiving parent-time.
¶19 The court was "persuaded" (1) that Evaluator "did a thorough and careful evaluation that included an appropriate analysis of all the pertinent factors" and (2) "by a preponderance of the evidence that [Evaluator's] expert opinions [were] in the best interests of the minor child in this case."
¶20 In reaching the conclusion that it was in Child's best interest that Father be awarded sole legal and physical custody, the court noted that it had not "delegate[d] decision-making responsibility" to Evaluator but had conducted "an independent analysis on the custody factors" set forth in Utah Code section 30-3-10(2) and applied "the evidence presented at trial" to arrive at a determination of Child's best interest. The court then proceeded to address the custody factors.
¶21 The court found the following factors weighed in favor of Father:
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