Knutsen v. Cegalis (2017 VT 62)

Acting pro se, Mother appealed a trial court’s denial of her motion to modify parental rights and responsibilities for son L.C. Through their actions, father and stepmother deprived mother of any contact with L.C. for many years and “destroyed the child’s formerly good relationship with mother.” The trial court found father and stepmother solely responsible for the trauma caused by this alienation; despite this egregious behavior, the trial court declined to modify parental rights and responsibilities for the child. The Vermont Supreme Court upheld this decision on appeal, “not because the father and stepmother are correct in their accusations, or to reward or endorse the course of conduct in which they have engaged, but because the trial court’s judgment regarding the best-interest criteria was factually based and legally correct.” The Supreme Court emphasized that mother was not without recourse should father and stepmother continue to interfere with her attempts at reunification or should they defy the trial court’s orders. In the pendency of a 2015 appeal, father and stepmother continued to wage war against mother. In October 2015, mother filed the emergency motion to modify at issue here, arguing father continued to deliberately and repeatedly undermine and defy the court’s orders. The trial court agreed. At a September 2016 hearing, the court concluded that father’s serious and blatant violations of its prior order constituted a real, substantial, and unanticipated change of circumstances. The court explained, it had expressly prohibited the parties from publishing L.C.’s medical records to any third person, yet stepmother had provided L.C.’s private medical information (a trauma therapy report) to the media, which father had at least “tacitly condoned.” Father’s attorney also submitted this same report as an exhibit to a motion to stay father’s deposition in a separate civil suit that mother had filed. The court observed that father did not repudiate his attorney’s actions or attempt to rescind this filing. Regarding mother’s emergency motion, although the trial court found that mother had shown a real, substantial, and unanticipated change in circumstances, it concluded that transferring custody to mother at this juncture was not in L.C.’s best interests. Mother argued the court’s findings did not support its conclusion, particularly given its determination that father and stepmother were not credible witnesses. The Vermont Supreme Court concluded the trial court acted within its discretion in assessing L.C.’s best interests and therefore affirmed its decision. The Court emphasized that the trial court set a clear benchmark for father and stepmother’s behavior, and any further attempts at alienation may well affect the best-interest analysis and warrant a change in custody. View "Knutsen v. Cegalis (2017 VT 62)" on Justia Law