Trial Judge Give Custody to Husband Because Wife "Hysterical and Unreasonable"

[Attorney Howard Iken]

Fuller v. Fuller, July 17, 2009, 5th District Court of Appeal

The Trial court observed most everything equal between the two parents except for the following observation:

“The Court will make a determination as to who should be the primary residential parent, based on a negative, which the wife’s predisposition to draw hysterical and unreasonable inferences from innocuous facts …. … so what we do not have unreasonable positions that were taken in so far as normal activities for the child, such as being exposed to someone having cocktails, or such as climbing a flight of stairs or being in a home that has a swimming pool.”

The trial court gave custody to the father.

The appeals court reversed the ruling and sent the case back to be heard by a different judge after noting: there was testimony that the father smoked, the child has asthma, the liquor and medicine cabinets in the father’s home were unsecured, etc” The court further noted the mother seemed to have good reasons for her complaints.

Note: this seems very unusual for the appeals court to order the case heard by a different trial court judge. Maybe because the trial court appeared to be completely hostile to the mom?




Attorney Howard Iken


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