Court Filings

The Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed a Family Court order of protection that found the appellant—who had previously surrendered parental rights and agreed to an adoption—committed harassment in the second degree and fourth-degree stalking against the adoptive child. After a fact-finding hearing, the Family Court directed the appellant to stay away from the child except pursuant to a court-ordered visitation, through December 15, 2026. The appellate court upheld the Family Court’s credibility findings and concluded the evidence met the fair preponderance standard for the charged family offenses.

The Appellate Division affirmed a Family Court disposition finding that the mother abused and neglected her child based on her criminal convictions for shooting the child's father, but it modified the disposition because the Family Court improperly delegated to ACS the authority to decide the mother's therapeutic supervised parental access. The panel held collateral estoppel applied to give preclusive effect to the mother's guilty pleas, supporting summary judgment on abuse and neglect. The court remanded for the Family Court itself to decide whether to allow therapeutic supervised access and, if so, to set a specific schedule.

The Appellate Division reversed a Family Court order that denied the mother's objections to two Support Magistrate orders. The Support Magistrate had ordered the father to pay spousal support and ordered the mother to pay child support, based on findings that included the father's approximately $161,000 income and an imputed income to the mother. The appellate court held the Family Court erred: the father's deferred income must be included in calculating combined income, and the Support Magistrate abused discretion by imputing income to the mother above her reported earnings. The case is remitted for recalculation and further proceedings.

The Appellate Division reversed a Supreme Court order that granted the mother sole legal and physical custody of the parties' child and directed the father to pay temporary child support arrears. The appellate court held the Supreme Court erred by deciding custody without a plenary hearing and without making specific findings about the child's best interests. The case is remitted for a hearing and a new determination; meanwhile, the custody provision of the August 8, 2022 order remains in effect pending that hearing. The child-support arrears directive was vacated pending further proceedings.

The Appellate Division affirmed the Family Court order adjudicating 14-year-old Gabriel G. a juvenile delinquent for third-degree robbery and conditionally discharging him for 12 months. The court dismissed as academic the portion of the appeal challenging the 12-month conditional discharge because that period expired, but it reviewed and rejected Gabriel's motion to dismiss the indictment for due process and statutory speedy-trial violations. The court found the five-month pre-arrest delay and the prosecution's discovery timing did not violate constitutional or statutory speedy-trial rights, so dismissal was not required.

The Appellate Division affirmed a Family Court order denying a mother's 2023 petition to modify a 2018 custody order to permit her to relocate with her child from New Jersey to Michigan. The parents share joint legal custody and the mother has physical custody. After a hearing, the Family Court found the mother failed to show the move would improve the child's economic or educational circumstances and that it would not harm the child's relationship with the father. The appellate court held that the Family Court's best-interest determination had a sound and substantial basis in the record and upheld the denial.

The Appellate Division, First Department affirmed a Family Court order finding that appellant Carlos M.-J. committed a family offense amounting to second-degree harassment by intentionally bumping into the petitioner, Pascal W. The court upheld the Family Court's credibility findings and sustained the six-month suspended judgment and corresponding six-month order of protection. The appeal was not moot despite the protection order's expiration because the underlying finding can have future legal consequences. The court concluded the evidence met the fair preponderance standard and the protection order was a proper exercise of discretion.

The Appellate Division reviewed a Family Court disposition that adjudicated 17-year-old Jesus G. a juvenile delinquent after he admitted to taking a car and driving it a short distance before abandoning it. The court affirmed the delinquency finding and 15-month probation but vacated the $1,000 restitution award. The panel held the victim's statements were sufficient to establish replacement cost, but vacated restitution because the juvenile's written admission did not include an agreement to pay restitution and restitution was not sought in the charging document prior to disposition.

The Appellate Division, First Department reviewed an appeal by husband Jerome Dewald from a post-trial family court order that denied him spousal maintenance and awarded the wife $5,500 in counsel fees. The appellate court affirmed the denial of maintenance, finding the trial court permissibly deviated from statutory guidelines after considering factors such as the husband’s age, assets, prior fraud conviction, pendente lite payments, and the short time the parties lived together. However, the court vacated the counsel-fee award because the trial court failed to provide the written findings and reasons required by court rules before imposing such fees.

The First Department dismissed as moot an appeal by a father challenging a Supreme Court Bronx County temporary custody order that gave physical custody to the mother and visitation to the father. The court granted the father's appellate counsel's motion to withdraw under Anders v. California after concluding there were no nonfrivolous issues to raise. The panel held the temporary visitation order was not an appealable final disposition under the Family Court Act and, in any event, the temporary order expired and has been superseded by later custody and visitation orders that were not appealed, rendering this appeal moot.

The Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed Family Court's November 25, 2024 order allowing respondent's assigned counsel to withdraw and denying the respondent further assigned counsel in a Family Court Article 8 family offense proceeding. The court found the record shows respondent received notice and opposed the withdrawal, but the attorney-client relationship had irretrievably broken down because respondent repeatedly accused counsel of acting against him and engaged in conduct that frustrated representation. Because respondent had a persistent pattern of causing breakdowns with multiple assigned attorneys, the court concluded further appointments would be futile and that he forfeited the right to additional assignment here.