GAMES PEOPLE PLAY. Parent Coordination Runs Amok
The appointment of judicially appointed “parent coordinators” to try to get some of the lesser child custody issues resolved without full hearings in court “on the merits” has been around since 2013. The march to that system was arduous as Pennsylvania has long embraced the idea that only judges can decide custody issues. So, even when it was adopted, the rules were quite specific about the territory in which the parent coordinator could navigate and the overlay was that judges were free to intervene to “correct” coordinators’ recommendations.
This brings us to the March 15 ruling in Morris v. Morris by the Superior Court. We are not given the history of the proceedings but in Fall 2023 the Court issued a final order of shared custody involving three children. The order contained provisions over the always contentious “right of first refusal” and a fairly specific rendition of how birthdays were to be celebrated.
Alas, the paragraphs addressing these topics produced conflict, so the court reached for the parent coordination bottle in the medicine cabinet. The coordinator heard the parties and issued two recommendations. Under the rule (1915.11-1;modified in 2019), an unhappily coordinated parent has five (5) days to ask a court to review the matter. The recommendation has the effect of a temporary order unless the court stays its effect. (Pa.R.C.P. 1915.11-1 (f)(6). Then the court is to conduct proceedings as soon as practicable to consider the recommendation and to vacate, remand or modify it. (f)(5). Technically, the court can act on the recommendation at any time after it is issued even if no objection is filed. This provision illustrates just how uneasy the Supreme Court was with this new rule. One conjures a judge dozing on the bench to be awakened by a tipstaff or clerk with: “Hark your honor, a coordinator has published a recommendation. Dost thou wish to review before anyone complains?”
Well, in this case Mother Morris filed timely objections to both efforts to clarify the right of refusal and birthday provisions of the 2023 order. A proceeding was scheduled before the trial judge five weeks after the recommendations. We don’t know whether the hearing was full record or merely oral argument. What we do know is that the trial court sustained mom’s objections and issued a revised order clarifying the two issues.
Enter Father Morris with a motion to reconsider. The judge didn’t bite so he appealed. The gravamen of the two appeals was that the court modified the 2023 order such that there should have been a full modification hearing. The Superior Court parsed through the changes and affirmed both orders on the basis that these clarifications were not a modification of the underlying 2023 order.
If anything, the Superior Court ruling demonstrates why parent coordination needs more teeth. These decisions on right of first refusal and, yes, birthday parties, do not affect the welfare of children. If anything, they illustrate just how an extra overnight or a missed birthday event is ramped up by adults to make children’s lives conflict-ridden and miserable. Litigants wait in line to have hearings on really turbulent subjects like drug addiction or relocation only to learn that the delay is exacerbated by the need to evaluate whether the birthday arrangements of the Morris children are in their best interests. Meanwhile a ten year old is sitting at the kitchen table trying to understand fractions while her fractious parents are arguing with each other, parent coordinators and lawyers over whether this years’ cake is cut at mom or dad’s. Do we wonder why kids are anxious and depressed? “Daddy, have the judges in Philadelphia decided if you get an extra overnight when Mom has to go to New York for business?”
The Morris’ share physical custody. And as I tried to explain to my clients, in a world of 365 days, someone always gets more than half. And even if the calendar should happen to fall such that you end up with 175 and you lose three more nights because of out-of-town travel, the extra time with the other parent is unlikely to lead to substance abuse, psychosis or suicide. What does cause that is a childhood in which parents are in unrelenting conflict. Sad to say, my advice was often overruled. “You don’t understand Ashton, the mother IS EVIL.”
Earlier this week I read an article in a British journal describing a child custody litigation crisis on that isle. The demand was for more resources to process these cases. The problem the Morris case illustrates is that in the world of custody disputes, the litigation cup will runneth over no matter how large you make it. Disputes over birthdays and what constitutes being “away” such as to trigger a right o’ first refusal are not worthy of judicial involvement. Courts are suited to decide big picture issues-not the minutiae of everyday life. Parent coordinators can resolve whether the ten year old should play soccer or football and where the 2025 birthday celebrations will be held.
The case: