Title: California: Court of Appeals Held Trial Court Should Have Granted the Father’s Motion
The Court of Appeals of California held in re the marriage of Christina Adams and Jack A. Adams v. Jack A. 209 Cal. App. 4th 1542; 148 Cal Rptr. 3d 83; 2012 Cal. App. Lexis 1078 that the trial court should have granted the motion of the father to have the evaluator removed from the case. Trial court had found the evaluator had lost his objectivity and the findings had been supported by evidence that the evaluator had been acting on the mother’s complaints. The trial court has award the mother sole legal custody based at least in part on a biased report and the statements from the minor child.
Both parties had disagreed fundamentally the best way to raise their highly intelligent son who had been diagnosed at the age of two with Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a form of high functioning autism. Both parents care deeply for their son but have opposed views on the extent of their son’s disabilities and the types of treatment for autism.
The court reversed the order denying the father’s removal motion and the legal custody modification order, including an order for each party to pay half of the evaluator’s fees, with directions that on remand the trial court appoint a successor special master in accordance with the provisions of the stipulated divorce judgment and review the evaluator’s billing statements and determine fair compensation.
Cal. Rules of Court, rule 5.220, governs child custody evaluators appointed under Evid. Code, § 730, and requires them to maintain objectivity, provide and gather balanced information for both parties and control for bias. A court appointed evaluator in a child custody proceeding under the Family Code is prohibited from engaging in ex parte communication with a party’s counsel or with the court, except in limited circumstances.
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