In any Maryland child custody case, the judge’s overriding concern must be protecting the “best interest of the child.” That means that every decision made in connection with the case, including procedural matters, must be viewed through this lens. The parents may be the parties to the litigation, but the child is ultimately the subject.

Judge Imposes Escalating Series of Sanctions Due to Parent’s Failure to Respond to Discovery Requests

A recent published decision from the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, Kadish v. Kadish, highlights just how seriously the courts take this responsibility. This case involved a trial court’s decision to impose a series of sanctions against a parent in a custody case because they refused to comply with certain discovery obligations and related court orders. The Court of Special Appeals found these sanctions were appropriate in the name of protecting the child’s best interests.

Here is some additional background on the case. The mother and father married in 2014 and had one child the following year. The parents separated in 2018, at which time the mother moved from Maryland to Nevada. The divorce became final in 2019.

The parents agreed to a shared custody arrangement where their child would live with the mother in Nevada during the school year and the father in Maryland during the summer. Each parent also had certain “access periods” with the child while they were living with the other parent.

In November 2019, the father filed a petition in Maryland circuit court to hold the mother in contempt for failing to follow the terms of their agreement. A few months into this litigation, the father served a series of discovery requests on the mother. She did not respond or appear at a scheduled deposition. This prompted the father to file another petition, this time to impose sanctions on the mother for not responding to his discovery requests.

The court ordered the mother to comply with discovery but did not initially impose any further sanctions, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the mother still failed to comply. The judge then imposed an additional sanction, specifically barring the mother from introducing any evidence to rebut the father’s allegations in his original contempt petition.

The mother’s non-compliance continued. The trial court responded by escalating the discovery sanctions, to the point where the judge said there was not a “rebuttable presumption” the father was entitled to sole custody of the child. The mother could only rebut this presumption by presenting “evidence directly bearing on the best interests of the child.”

This last point was critical, the Court of Special Appeals observed, because it ensured the final custody decision was still based on the child’s best interests. For that reason, the appellate court said the trial judge did not commit legal error in imposing the escalating series of discovery sanctions to address the mother’s willful noncompliance with the discovery orders.

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This article has been provided by the Law Office of Robert Castro. For more information or questions contact our office to speak to an experienced lawyer at (301) 870-1200.

Source:

https://www.courts.state.md.us/data/opinions/cosa/2022/0275s21.pdf