Martin v. Valentine

• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware
• Decided: June 27, 2025
• Docket: 321, 2024
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

MARSHALL MARTIN,1 § § No. 321, 2024 Petitioner Below, § Appellant, § Court Below–Family Court § of the State of Delaware v. § § File No. CK21-02925 LONDON VALENTINE, § Petition No. 21-24708 § Respondent Below, § Appellee. §

Submitted: June 6, 2025 Decided: June 27, 2025

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and TRAYNOR, Justices.

ORDER

After consideration of the parties’ briefs and the record on appeal, it appears

to the Court that:

(1) The appellant, Marshall Martin, and the appellee, London Valentine,

were divorced on May 13, 2022. At Martin’s request, the Family Court retained

jurisdiction over alimony and court costs.2 On March 6, 2024, the Family Court

scheduled a case management teleconference on the outstanding ancillary matters

for May 9, 2024, and mailed notice of the teleconference to the parties at their

1 The Court previously assigned pseudonyms to the parties under Supreme Court Rule 7(d). 2 App. to Answering Br. at B-006. respective addresses.3 The notice explicitly provided that the parties were

responsible for contacting the Family Court call center to provide the court with “a

telephone number, preferably a landline, where [the court] may contact you for your

scheduled teleconference.”4 The notice further advised the parties that, “[i]f you

provide a cell phone number, we will not be responsible if the call does not go

through.”5 Finally, and critically, the notice stated, “PARTICIPATION BY YOU

OR YOUR ATTORNEY, IF REPRESENTED, IS REQUIRED. FAILURE TO

PARTICIPATE MAY RESULT IN THE CASE BEING DISMISSED OR A

DEFAULT ORDER BEING ENTERED BY THE COURT.”6

(2) Martin failed to appear at the May 9, 2024 case management

teleconference. The court twice attempted to reach Martin at the phone number that

he had provided but received a recorded message stating that the phone number was

not in service. Because Martin failed to appear to prosecute his petition for alimony

and court costs, the Family Court dismissed the petition on July 16, 2024. Martin

appeals.

3 We note that the scheduling of the case management teleconference was delayed because, among other things, Martin appealed the Family Court’s denial of his motion for property division to this Court. We affirmed the Family Court’s denial of Martin’s motion in late 2023. Martin v. Valentine, 2023 WL 8827732 (Del. Dec. 20, 2023). 4 Id. at B-040. 5 Id. 6 Id. (emphasis in original). 2 (3) We review a Family Court decision to dismiss a petition for failure to

prosecute for abuse of discretion.7 We find no abuse of discretion here. To the

extent that Martin addresses the court’s denial of his petition for alimony and court

costs in his opening brief,8 he argues that he did not have a telephone at the time of

the hearing and that the Family Court’s denial of the petition under these

“extraordinary circumstances” was an abuse of discretion. But Martin had an

affirmative duty to provide the court with a telephone number at which he could be

reached in order to participate in the case management teleconference, and Martin

was responsible for prosecuting his petition. We note that Martin, who does not

dispute that he knew of the date and time of the case management teleconference,

did not move to reopen the ancillary proceedings to present evidence of these

claimed “extraordinary circumstances” to the Family Court in the first instance. In

short, Martin has not raised a claim of reversible error.

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Family

Court be AFFIRMED.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ Karen L. Valihura Justice

7 Beck v. Beck, 766 A.2d 482, 484 (Del. 2001). 8 Martin dedicates much of his opening brief to matters irrelevant to the Family Court’s denial of his petition for alimony and costs. 3