Payson v. Hennessey

2018 Ohio 2437
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 25, 2018
DocketCA2017-03-030, CA2017-03-036
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 2018 Ohio 2437 (Payson v. Hennessey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Payson v. Hennessey, 2018 Ohio 2437 (Ohio Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

[Cite as Payson v. Hennessey, 2018-Ohio-2437.]

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS

TWELFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO

WARREN COUNTY

SUSAN PAYSON, : CASE NOS. CA2017-03-030 Plaintiff-Appellant/Cross- : CA2017-03-036 Appellee, : OPINION - vs - 6/25/2018 : G. DANIEL HENNESSEY, : Defendant-Appellee/Cross- Appellant. :

APPEAL FROM WARREN COUNTY COURT OF COMMON PLEAS DOMESTIC RELATIONS DIVISION Case No. 15 DR 37939

Thomas G. Eagle, 3400 North State Route 741, Lebanon, Ohio 45036, for appellant/cross- appellee

Timothy A. Tepe, 255 East Fifth Street, Suite 1900, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202, for appellee/cross-appellant

HENDRICKSON, J.

{¶ 1} Appellant/cross-appellee, Susan Payson ("Mother"), appeals the decision of the

Warren County Common Pleas Court, Domestic Relations Division, which ordered shared

parenting of Mother's and appellee/cross-appellant, G. Daniel Hennessey's ("Father"), three

children and which designated Father as the residential parent for school purposes. Father

cross-appeals with respect to the court's order concerning marital real estate. For the Warren CA2017-03-030 CA2017-03-036

reasons discussed below, this court affirms the decision of the domestic relations court.

{¶ 2} Mother and Father wed in 2002. Mother was an emergency room physician

and Father was a self-employed political lobbyist. Both were producing excellent incomes.

Father eventually left his business in favor of managing rental real estate that the couple

purchased.

{¶ 3} The marriage produced children born in 2006, 2007, and 2013. Mother began

working less in favor of staying home with the children. As the real estate market suffered in

or around 2008, the rental properties Father was managing stopped producing income or

produced negligible income. Eventually, the properties went into foreclosure. Between 2010

and 2013, Mother's and Father's joint annual income averaged approximately $15,000.

{¶ 4} In 2013, Mother allowed her emergency room certification to lapse. This

decision would later render Mother unable to obtain another position as an emergency room

physician. Both parents agreed that Mother would home school the children. In early 2013,

Father left the marital home for a political job in Michigan while Mother stayed home with the

children and home schooled the two older children.

{¶ 5} On average, Father would return home every other weekend. Father lived and

worked in Michigan for almost two years. He left Michigan to run a political campaign in

Kentucky and then returned to Michigan. Finally, Father moved to Indianapolis for

employment with a different political campaign.

{¶ 6} In 2015, Mother filed a complaint for divorce and requested custody of the

children. The court initially granted Mother temporary custody of the children and granted

parenting time to Father. In his answer, Father requested to be named residential parent.

{¶ 7} Mother moved the court to appoint Dr. Gordon Harris, a psychologist, to

perform a custody evaluation for the purposes of making a parenting recommendation to the

-2- Warren CA2017-03-030 CA2017-03-036

court. Likewise, Father moved the court to appoint a guardian ad litem ("GAL") for the

children. Father's motion alleged that he was concerned that the children were not receiving

an adequate education through Mother's home schooling efforts and that Mother refused to

place the children in a traditional school. The court granted both motions and appointed Dr.

Harris and a GAL for the children.

{¶ 8} After meeting with the family on multiple occasions, Dr. Harris produced a

lengthy written report recommending that the court designate Father the residential parent

and that Mother should receive parenting time. Dr. Harris found that Mother was a highly

inflexible individual who exhibited poor judgment and that there were serious concerns about

the educational aptitude of the two older children whom Mother was homeschooling. After

assessing and testing the children individually, Dr. Harris found that the children were not

functioning at an appropriate educational level, and that it was difficult to understand how

Mother, a highly-intelligent person, could believe that her children were at an appropriate

educational level for their age. Dr. Harris opined that Mother's perception of her children was

"distorted."

{¶ 9} Similarly, the GAL's report recommended that the court designate Father the

residential parent. The GAL found serious deficiencies in Mother's care for the children with

respect to the children's education, health care, and social development. The GAL also

found that Mother failed to recognize that there were any issues with her children and that

Mother was defiant in defense of her parentings skills.

{¶ 10} The matter proceeded to a trial where parenting rights was the most contested

issue. Mother called various expert and lay witnesses who criticized Dr. Harris' and the

GAL's reports and recommendations. Mother testified that she was ameliorating Father's

and Dr. Harris' educational concerns by enrolling the children part-time at a local Montessori

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school. Mother was working every other weekend at an urgent care center, averaging 40

hours a month.

{¶ 11} Father testified that he was employed through the end of the year with a

political campaign in Indiana but that he was seeking a permanent, stable position through

his political connections in Indiana. He had recently moved to a residence that was within

walking distance to a Catholic school where he wanted to enroll the children if the court

designated him residential parent. While the divorce was pending, Father hired a tutor to

work with the children during his parenting time. Father had begun a new relationship with a

woman he met through one of his political jobs and was engaged to marry her.

{¶ 12} A magistrate issued a decision recommending that Father be named

residential parent for school purposes and that Mother receive parenting time. The

magistrate found that there were various concerns with Mother's care of the children, e.g.,

the cleanliness of the home and the children's lack of social interaction with friends and their

community. However, the magistrate's overriding concern was the children's education. The

magistrate concluded that Mother could not provide for the children's education and was only

willing to make changes following the damaging reports submitted by Dr. Harris and the GAL.

However, the magistrate recommended that Mother receive equal parenting time if she

moved to within fifteen miles from Father's residence in Indiana.

{¶ 13} Both parties filed objections to certain aspects of the magistrate's decision.

While these objections were pending, and several months after the children had been

residing primarily with Father, Mother moved for a modification of parenting rights. In support

of her motion, Mother alleged that she could now demonstrate the falsity of the grounds upon

which the court named Father residential parent for school purposes, i.e., the children's

alleged educational deficiencies. Specifically, Mother argued that the two older children were

-4- Warren CA2017-03-030 CA2017-03-036

assessed by their new grade school shortly after beginning school and that they both scored

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Bluebook (online)
2018 Ohio 2437, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/payson-v-hennessey-ohioctapp-2018.