Justia Louisiana Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

On May 29, 2009, Plaintiff Rose McCann filed a petition for divorce against Defendant Walter McCann in the Family Court. A judgment granting the divorce was later signed in early, 2010, leaving the identification, valuation, management, and partition of the community property as the remaining issues in the case. Plaintiff filed a petition for partition of community property, moving the court to appoint various experts to assist in the partition. The Family Court appointed real estate and financial experts to inventory and value the real estate, and determine the value of the remaining property. Thereafter, a “Notice of Filing of Succession” was filed, stating that Defendant's succession had been opened in the District Court under Probate. Plaintiff filed a motion to substitute the succession executrix the decedent's daughter, as the party defendant in the partition proceeding. The succession executrix filed a “Declinatory Exception of Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction and Motion to Transfer,” seeking to have the partition action transferred to the District Court. The Family Court overruled the exception, denied the motion to transfer, and signed a judgment substituting the executrix into the partition action as the defendant, in place of the deceased Defendant. The executrix unsuccessfully appealed the Family Court's decision. The Supreme Court granted Defendant executrix’s writ application and remanded the matter to the appellate court for briefing, argument and full opinion. On remand, the appellate court by a majority decision again denied the executrix' writ application. The issue now before the Supreme Court was the correctness of the lower courts’ rulings. Upon review, the Court concluded that the Family Court no longer had exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over the partition of community property when one of the former spouses died. Thus, the Family Court erred in overruling the Defendant executrix’s exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "McCann v. McCann" on Justia Law

Jason and Christy Gray were divorced in 2005, and pursuant to a consent judgment, the parties were awarded joint custody of their son Jayden. Mr. Gray was designated as the domiciliary parent. Mr. Gray gave notice of his intent to relocate with Jayden to Alabama to join his fiancée. Mrs. Gray objected to the relocation and sought to become the domiciliary parent. The trial court approved of Mr. Gray's relocation and denied Mrs. Gray's motion to modify custody. In Spring 2009, Mrs. Gray eventually moved to dismiss her appeal the Alabama move. Mr. Gray petitioned the court again for another move, this time to Kansas. Mrs. Gray objected to this second move. A new judge presided over the second relocation hearing and prohibited Mr. Gray from relocating Jayden to Kansas. The trial court determined that Mr. Gray did not meet his burden of proving the proposed relocation would have been in the best interest of the child. The court further found that Mrs. Gray had established a material change in circumstances warranting modification of custody based on the father's violation of an ex parte order by moving the child to Kansas without court approval. Alternatively, the court found that Mrs. Gray had satisfied her burden of proof to merit a change in domiciliary custody. The appellate court reversed these decisions, concluding the trial court abused its discretion in denying the relocation and modifying custody. Upon careful consideration of the trial record, the Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court. The Court held that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the domiciliary parent's request to relocate. The Court remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Gray v. Gray" on Justia Law

Robert Gathen filed for divorce from his wife Vanessa in 2005. At the time, the couple had two children, one of which had been born in the State of Louisiana. The couple was granted joint custody, but Mrs. Gathen was the domiciliary parent. Over the course of three years, Mrs. Gathen requested for leave to move to Washington State with the children, and each time, the court denied her requests. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Mrs. Gathen argued that the trial court did not perform a thorough analysis of the family's circumstances to make its determinations. The Court found that while state law mandated that the trial court consider all factors listed in the code to make its determination for relocation, it is not an error of law that warrants appellate court review. The Court affirmed the trial court's decision to deny Mrs. Gathen's relocation requests.