Taylor v. Taylor

646 S.E.2d 238, 282 Ga. 113, 2007 Fulton County D. Rep. 1711, 2007 Ga. LEXIS 412

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: June 4, 2007
• Docket: S07F0358
• Status: Published

Opinions

Benham, Justice.

After appellant Mark Q. Taylor (Husband) and appellee Melinda C. Taylor (Wife) married in 2001, Husband adopted Wife’s minor child who was born in 1996. Wife filed for divorce in April 2005 and the parties filed a settlement agreement resolving all issues other than disposition of the marital home, as to which Husband filed a demand for jury trial. After an interlocutory hearing, the trial court required Husband’s visitation with the child be supervised pending the divorce. Wife amended her petition to seek attorney fees, to seek approval of the settlement agreement as to property, and to seek termination of Husband’s parental rights. When the case came on for trial, Husband withdrew his jury demand and the case was tried before the trial court. In the final decree, the trial court awarded the marital home to Wife, divided other property, awarded sole custody of the child to Wife and denied Husband any visitation, and awarded attorney fees to Wife, but no child support. Husband’s timely-filed application for discretionary review of the final judgment and decree of divorce was granted in accordance with this Court’s Family Law Pilot Project, pursuant to which this Court grants all non-frivolous applications seeking discretionary review of a final judgment and decree of divorce. Maddox v. Maddox, 278 Ga. 606, n. 1 (604 SE2d 784) (2004).

1. The trial court denied Husband any visitation with the child, a ruling he contends is not supported by the evidence.¹

The express policy of this state is to allow visitation rights to divorced parents who have demonstrated the ability to act in their minor children’s best interests. [Cit.] Therefore, only in exceptional circumstances should the non-custodial parent be denied the right of access to his child. [Cit.]

Woodruff v. Woodruff, 272 Ga. 485 (1) (531 SE2d 714) (2000). In the present case, the trial court made extensive findings regarding conduct of Husband relating to his fitness as a parent: chronic use of illegal drugs by Husband, sometimes in the presence of children, and by members of his family, including a niece who babysat for the child; a complete lack of parenting skills and a lack of motivation to improve in that regard; an absence of judgment, exemplified by having the child spend the night with him in an apartment he shared with an unmarried man who brought home intoxicated women who spent the night; abuse of religion to defame Wife and frighten the child, in direct violation of a court order to refrain from doing so; erratic behavior, rage, and violence which led Wife’s older two children to live with their father to avoid Husband; and the recommendations of the child’s therapist and the guardian ad litem that the child have no contact with Husband.

Where parents contest the issue of custody of a child, [which includes visitation (Ledford v. Bowers, 248 Ga. 804 (1) (286 SE2d 293) (1982)),] the trial court has very broad discretion, looking always to the best interest of the child. [Cit.] When the trial court has exercised that discretion, this court will not interfere unless the evidence shows a clear abuse of discretion, and where there is any evidence to support the trial court’s finding, this court will not find there was an abuse of discretion. [Cit.]

Frazier v. Frazier, 280 Ga. 687, 689 (2) (631 SE2d 666) (2006). Since the trial court’s findings regarding Husband’s fitness as a parent are supported by some evidence and amount to the “exceptional circumstances” to which this Court made reference in Woodruff, supra, we conclude the denial of visitation to Husband was not an abuse of discretion.

2. Husband contends the trial court’s judgment must be reversed because a holding in the decree that Husband had contemptuously refused to obey prior orders of the court was not supported by evidence showing disobedience by him of a single order he was capable of obeying. If there is any evidence to support a trial court’s findings, they must be sustained. Namik v. Wachovia Bank of Ga., 279 Ga. 250 (2) (612 SE2d 270) (2005). The parties to the present case were ordered to abstain from disparaging remarks about the other and from providing their own interpretation of scripture because Husband, while exercising visitation with the child, had used his interpretations of the Bible to disparage Wife and her decision to divorce him. Notwithstanding that order, the testimony at trial established that Husband continued to express the same negative judgments of Wife and purported to justify his opinions by his interpretation of the Bible. It appears, therefore, the trial court’s finding of Husband’s disobedience was supported by some evidence and cannot, therefore, be deemed erroneous. Id.

3. Finally, Husband complains of the trial court’s award of attorney fees to Wife, contending there was insufficient evidence to support the award. The trial court found Husband had conducted himself during the litigation in a manner intended to prevent completion of the case, to harass and annoy Wife, and to cause her attorney fees to increase, citing as examples Husband’s conduct regarding removal of his property from the marital home, his filing of a jury demand and subsequent withdrawal of that demand on the date of the hearing, and his agreement during a hearing regarding division of the equity in the marital home to buy the home, followed by his subsequent failure to keep that agreement. Under OCGA § 9-15-14 (b), a trial court can award attorney fees against a party who has unnecessarily expanded the litigation or acted to cause delay or harassment. The evidence of Husband’s conduct during the litigation met that standard. Wife’s counsel’s statement in her place of the amount of fees incurred by Wife and the reasonableness of those fees was sufficient to support the trial court’s award (Hibbard v. McMillan, 284 Ga. App. 753, 757 (3) (645 SE2d 356) (2007); Campbell v. Beak, 256 Ga. App. 493 (5) (568 SE2d 801) (2002)) and Husband’s failure to question Wife’s counsel or seek more information waived his complaint regarding those issues. Hadlock v. Anderson, 246 Ga. App. 291 (2) (540 SE2d 282) (2000). Since the award was sustainable under OCGA§ 9-15-14 (b), we need not consider whether it was sustainable under the other statutory provisions cited by the trial court.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur, except Sears, C. J., and Hunstein, P. J., who dissent.

1 In two enumerations of error, Husband complains of the trial court’s termination of his parental rights, contending it was done because he is an adoptive father rather than a biological father and that the evidence did not meet the standards for termination of parental rights. The record shows, however, the trial court did not terminate Husband’s parental rights and made no reference to a distinction between adoptive and biological parents, but denied Husband any visitation with the child.