Background
The parties’ 2022 dissolution judgment incorporated their separation agreement and parenting plan, including joint legal custody and a nondisparagement clause barring either parent from estranging the children from the other or harming the children’s opinion of the other parent.
After the defendant moved to Ukraine in 2024, the plaintiff sought changes to custody and visitation. The defendant moved for contempt, alleging that the plaintiff’s website and social-media posts about an abusive former spouse, as well as her conduct concerning the children’s contact with him, violated the nondisparagement provision. The trial court found the plaintiff in contempt, awarded the defendant $2,425 in fees, gave the plaintiff sole legal custody, and entered a visitation arrangement to be agreed upon by the parties with notice.
The Court’s Holding
The Appellate Court affirmed. The plaintiff, who was represented by counsel and signed the parenting plan, validly waived her federal and state constitutional speech rights through the contractual nondisparagement clause. Enforcing that privately agreed provision did not create an unconstitutional prior restraint. The court also upheld the contempt finding and the limited fee award.
The court further held that the trial court acted within its broad discretion in awarding the plaintiff sole legal custody after the defendant voluntarily relocated to Ukraine, which was actively at war. The defendant retained access to the children’s records, rights to attend appointments and activities, communication rights, and visitation rights. The “by agreement” visitation provision governed scheduling and did not give the plaintiff unilateral authority to deny or suspend visitation.
Key Takeaways
- A represented party may contractually waive speech rights through a nondisparagement provision in a divorce parenting plan.
- A parent’s voluntary relocation abroad may support a best-interests modification from joint to sole legal custody.
- A flexible visitation order requiring parental agreement is permissible when it schedules visitation without authorizing one parent to eliminate the other’s visitation rights.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that Connecticut courts may enforce privately negotiated nondisparagement clauses in family-law judgments, even when the restrained speech concerns the former spouse. It also illustrates the substantial discretion trial courts retain to tailor custody and visitation orders to the practical realities of a parent living in a war-zone country.