In re Rosenstock, 091120 NJSUP, A-2470-18T1
| Opinion Judge | PER CURIAM. |
| Party Name | IN THE MATTER OF JENNIFER ROSENSTOCK, an Incapacitated Person. |
| Attorney | Weinberger Divorce & Family Law Group, LLC, attorneys for appellant Joel Rosenstock (Jessica Ragno Sprague, on the briefs). Meyerson Fox Mancinelli & Conte, PA, attorneys for respondent Sandra Rosenstock (Lawrence N. Meyerson and Matthew M. Nicodemo, on the brief). |
| Judge Panel | Before Judges Fisher and Accurso. |
| Case Date | September 11, 2020 |
| Court | New Jersey Superior Court |
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
Submitted January 28, 2020
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Essex County, Docket No. CP-0227-2007.
Weinberger Divorce & Family Law Group, LLC, attorneys for appellant Joel Rosenstock (Jessica Ragno Sprague, on the briefs).
Meyerson Fox Mancinelli & Conte, PA, attorneys for respondent Sandra Rosenstock (Lawrence N. Meyerson and Matthew M. Nicodemo, on the brief).
Before Judges Fisher and Accurso.
PER CURIAM.
Joel Rosenstock, father of Jennifer Rosenstock, the subject of this guardianship proceeding, appeals from the fee provisions in two orders resolving the petition of his ex-wife Sandra Rosenstock, Jennifer's mother.1We affirm the provisions of those January 3, 2019 orders directing Joel to pay fifty percent of the fees to the limited guardian appointed to replace Joel and Sandra as Jennifer's co-guardians and denying his application to have Sandra pay his fees in this matter. We reverse those aspects of the fee order directing that Joel pay sixty percent of the court appointed attorney and temporary guardian's fees and assume $6000 of Sandra's fees, agreeing with him that the court improperly premised those fee shifts on the hearsay statement of the court-appointed counsel and temporary guardian regarding Joel's unwillingness to resolve the fee issues in mediation.
Jennifer has a variety of developmental and intellectual disabilities and at fifteen was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder necessitating an out-of-home placement. She was declared an incapacitated person when she turned eighteen in 2007, with Joel and Sandra appointed co-guardians of her person and property. Her parents thereafter engaged in a very acrimonious divorce after a twenty-three-year marriage. In their property settlement agreement executed at the time of their divorce in 2010, Joel and Sandra acknowledged Jennifer's continuing special needs and their role as her co-guardians. They also agreed to "exert every reasonable effort" to ensure that Jennifer had unhampered access to each of them and that they would foster feelings of affection between each of them and Jennifer. In an acknowledgment of the bitterness of their divorce, the parties agreed "that all issues concerning Jennifer," including parenting time, selection of doctors and schools, applications for aid, the funding of a special needs trust and their percentage share of Jennifer's, unreimbursed expenses would be addressed by a parenting coordinator.
At the time of Joel and Sandra's divorce, the parenting coordinator reported that Jennifer, who was then in a residential treatment facility in Massachusetts, regularly communicated and wanted a relationship with both her parents, and was clear that she didn't want to be put in the middle of their disagreements. By 2013, however, after nearly three years of working with the family, the parenting coordinator reported a breakdown in the relationship between Jennifer and Joel, and concluded that Jennifer "had been encouraged to reject her father because of his remarriage." In a report to the court, she recommended the appointment of a forensic psychologist "experienced in issues of parental alienation" because she believed that Sandra was transmitting her feelings about Joel to Jennifer, and that the only way to forge a reconciliation between them was therapeutic treatment.
The court appointed a forensic psychologist but therapy was not successful. In 2013, the family judge restrained Sandra from further acts of alienation and by 2016 had relieved Joel of any and all support obligations for Jennifer based on Sandra having cut Joel out of Jennifer's life and prevented him from acting as her co-guardian, and awarded him half his fees on the motion. Except for court ordered appearances, Joel had not been able to see Jennifer since 2012.
A little more than two months later, Sandra filed this action in the Probate Part to convert Jennifer's plenary guardianship to a limited guardianship and to remove Joel as Jennifer's co-guardian. As to Joel's removal, Sandra averred that Jennifer had "chosen not to have a relationship with her father," and, notwithstanding her wishes, Joel persisted in his efforts to "force Jen into therapy and visitation against her wishes." The Probate Part judge issued an order to show cause why the relief requested in Sandra's petition should not be entered and appointed an attorney for Jennifer.
Joel answered and filed a cross-petition in which he recounted Sandra's acts in alienating Jennifer from him, the Family Part's findings, and the order relieving him of any further financial responsibility for Jennifer. He averred based on "the information available to [him]," that Jennifer continued to need a plenary guardian, and asked that he and Sandra continue to act as her co-guardians, or, alternatively, that Sandra be removed or a neutral third-party be appointed in their stead.
As the Probate Part judge acknowledged in his opinion on the fee applications, he had limited involvement in the case. The parties went to mediation in April 2017, where they agreed that Jennifer had made substantial progress toward independence in the four years she...
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