In Re the Custody of L.B.O.; Bibi Whited v. Kenzie Quinn, Tyler Ohman, ...

CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJune 22, 2026
Docketa251474
StatusUnpublished

This text of In Re the Custody of L.B.O.; Bibi Whited v. Kenzie Quinn, Tyler Ohman, ... (In Re the Custody of L.B.O.; Bibi Whited v. Kenzie Quinn, Tyler Ohman, ...) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re the Custody of L.B.O.; Bibi Whited v. Kenzie Quinn, Tyler Ohman, ..., (Mich. Ct. App. 2026).

Opinion

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A25-1474

In Re the Custody of L.B.O.; Bibi Whited, et al., Respondents,

vs.

Kenzie Quinn, Appellant,

Tyler Ohman, Respondent,

Rachel Norgaard, et al., Respondents.

Filed June 22, 2026 Affirmed Kirk, Judge *

Dakota County District Court File No. 19HA-FA-18-326

Bibi Whited, Paul Whited, Montville, Maine (pro se respondents)

Kenzie Quinn, Woodbury, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

Tyler Ohman, Maplewood, Minnesota (pro se respondent)

Rachel Norgaard, Bennett Norgaard, Hastings, Minnesota (pro se respondents)

Considered and decided by Larson, Presiding Judge; Rasmusson, Judge; and Kirk,

Judge.

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10. NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

KIRK, Judge

In this third-party custody dispute, appellant-mother argues that: (1) the district

court erred by granting third-party custody to respondent-aunt and uncle; (2) the district

court erred by repeatedly continuing the hearing on her motion to find respondent-

grandparents in contempt for violating the original custody order and by not providing a

meaningful remedy in the contempt action; and (3) the cumulative effect of the

respondents’ violations of court orders and the district court’s lack of enforcement of its

orders violated her right to procedural due process. We affirm.

FACTS

Appellant-mother Kenzie Quinn and respondent-father Tyler Ohman 1 are the

parents of L.B.O., who was born in February 2017. Respondent-grandparents Bibi and

Michael 2 Whited are the child’s paternal grandparents. A few months after the child was

born, the parents lost their housing and moved in with the Whiteds. In September, mother

and father moved out of the Whiteds’ home, but the child remained in the Whiteds’ care.

In June 2018, the Whiteds filed a petition for third-party custody of L.B.O. The

petition alleged that the child had lived with the Whiteds full-time since January 2018. In

February 2019, the parties reached an agreement to grant the Whiteds sole legal and sole

1 Tyler did not participate in this appeal. 2 The district court’s record and respondents’ brief refer to respondent-grandfather as Michael Whited instead of Paul Whited. The caption on appeal must match the caption used in the district court, but we use respondent’s preferred name here. See Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 143.01.

2 physical custody of L.B.O. (the 2019 custody order). Relevant here, mother was awarded

weekly parenting time on Saturday mornings from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., at an agreed

upon location. The written order included a finding that mother struggles with drug

addiction and there are ongoing chemical dependency concerns. Accordingly, as a

condition of her parenting time, mother could not be “under the influence of any mood-

altering substance, including alcohol, during [her] parenting time and in the 24 hours

directly prior to [her] parenting time.” This provision also allowed the Whiteds to “impose

drug screening prior to parenting time to ensure compliance with [the] order, as the best

interests of [L.B.O.] so require[d].”

In 2020, the Whiteds moved to Maine with L.B.O. without mother’s consent.

L.B.O. was in Maine for about three years and, during this time, mother could not exercise

her weekly parenting time and had limited contact with L.B.O. other than phone calls.

Respondents Rachel and Bennett Norgaard, L.B.O.’s paternal aunt and uncle, visited

Maine three times during this period for a week each time.

In September 2023, L.B.O. started living with the Norgaards in Minnesota. The

Whiteds and Norgaards felt that contact with mother was dysregulating for L.B.O. and

restricted mother’s parenting time. Over the years, mother’s parenting time has decreased

from supervised visits to video calls, to phone calls.

In February 2024, mother filed a contempt motion against the Whiteds and a motion

to terminate the 2019 custody order. She asserted that the Whiteds violated the order by

moving L.B.O. to Maine, transferring custody to the Norgaards, and failing to provide her

court-ordered parenting time or compensatory parenting time, violating the provisions of

3 the order that granted her parenting time and provided for the possibility of compensatory

and additional parenting time. The district court determined that mother made a prima

facie case and the Norgaards denied the allegations. Mother requested a hearing date that

was about two months out, but, for judicial economy, the district court decided to “wrap

contempt in with the ultimate hearing.”

The Norgaards also filed a motion for permissive intervention because they had an

interest in the matter, as they had provided full-time care for L.B.O in the preceding nine

months. The district court granted the Norgaards’ motion to intervene. The district court

also granted the Norgaards temporary legal and physical custody of L.B.O. and the parents

parenting time if they produced a negative hair follicle test. The district court reserved

ruling on mother’s motions to terminate the third-party custody order and to hold the

Whiteds in contempt.

The matter proceeded to a three-day evidentiary hearing. Following the evidentiary

hearing, the district court denied mother’s motion for custody and granted the Norgaards

third-party custody. The district court awarded mother parenting time, subject to her

meeting certain benchmarks. The court also found the Whiteds in contempt but did not

order a remedy other than factoring their actions into its decision.

Mother appeals.

4 DECISION

Mother challenges the district court’s rulings related to granting the Norgaards’

third-party custody motion and finding the Whiteds in contempt. She argues that: (1) the

district court abused its discretion in granting the Norgaards’ third-party custody because

it improperly found that the Norgaards are interested third parties and erred in weighing

the best-interests factors; (2) the district court erred by repeatedly continuing the contempt

hearing and by not providing a meaningful remedy; and (3) the cumulative effect of the

Whiteds’ violations of the court orders and the district court’s lack of enforcement of its

orders violated her right to procedural due process.

In general, to obtain relief on appeal, mother has the burden to show that the district

court erred, that she was prejudiced by the error, and that the prejudice arising from the

error was substantial. See, e.g., Minn. R. Civ. P. 61 (requiring district courts to disregard

errors that do not affect the parties’ substantial rights); Loth v. Loth, 35 N.W.2d 542, 546

(Minn. 1949) (stating that “error is never presumed” and the appellant must affirmatively

show that the district court erred); Wibbens v. Wibbens, 379 N.W.2d 225, 227 (Minn. App.

1985) (refusing to remand for a de minimis, technical error). With this framework in mind,

we address each of mother’s arguments in turn.

I. The district court acted within its discretion when it granted the Norgaards’ motion for third-party custody.

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