Summary
The North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed a judgment awarding Christopher Morrissey primary residential responsibility for the parties’ children and granting Micah Green parenting time. The court held that any challenge to the prima facie showing for an evidentiary hearing was moot after a full trial, and that the trial court’s best-interest findings were not clearly erroneous. The court also upheld the admission of a parenting evaluation and redacted social services reports.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the district court erred in finding that Morrissey established a prima facie case sufficient to obtain an evidentiary hearing on modification of primary residential responsibility.
- Whether the district court clearly erred in modifying primary residential responsibility and awarding it to Morrissey.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting Dr. Gregory Decker's expert testimony and parenting-evaluation report, including information derived from medical or psychological records.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting redacted Grand Forks County Social Services reports.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting a recorded telephone call between Green and a jail inmate.
- Whether the district court improperly allowed Monica Morrissey to testify as an expert.
- Whether the district court clearly erred in limiting Green's parenting time to every other weekend, subject to additional holiday and agreed parenting time.
Holdings
- Any issue concerning the evidentiary basis for the district court's determination that a prima facie case for modification was established becomes moot once the court conducts the full evidentiary hearing.
- The district court did not clearly err in modifying primary residential responsibility and awarding it to Morrissey because the evidence supported the finding that the children's present environment with Green endangered their physical and emotional health or impaired their emotional development, and that modification served their best interests.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion by permitting Dr. Decker to testify as an expert or by admitting his parenting-evaluation report.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the redacted Social Services reports.
- The district court did not clearly err in awarding Green parenting time every other weekend with alternating holidays and additional time permitted by agreement.
Key quotations
“any issue regarding the evidentiary basis for a court’s decision that a prima facie case has been established under N.D.C.C. § 14-09-06.6(4) is rendered moot once the evidentiary hearing is held.” (¶ 9)
“The trial court must award primary residential responsibility to the parent who will better promote the child’s best interests.” (¶ 13)
“This Court will not reweigh evidence, reassess witness credibility, retry a custody case, or substitute its judgment for the trial court’s decision merely because this Court may have reached a different result.” (¶ 14)
“An expert need not be a specialist in a highly particularized field if the expert’s knowledge, training, education, and experience will assist the trier of fact.” (¶ 25)
“A non-custodial parent’s parenting time may be “curtailed or eliminated entirely if it is likely to endanger the child’s physical or emotional health.”” (¶ 41)
Factual background
Green and Morrissey were the unmarried parents of three children, and a 2008 judgment awarded Green primary residential responsibility. After that judgment, Green was investigated three times by Grand Forks County Social Services, had problems involving drug use, mental-health concerns, incarceration, and an attempted suicide, and the children were temporarily removed from her care after being found deprived while in her custody. Following a bench trial with testimony from numerous witnesses and nineteen exhibits, the district court found that the children's environment with Green endangered their physical and emotional health and awarded primary residential responsibility to Morrissey while granting Green parenting time.
Procedural history
Green and Morrissey were unmarried parents of three children. After the trial court initially awarded Green primary residential responsibility, Morrissey moved to modify that responsibility in September 2010. The district court found a prima facie case, held an evidentiary hearing, awarded Morrissey primary residential responsibility in January 2012, entered a fourth amended judgment in February 2012, and denied Green's post-judgment motions. The North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed.