Background
Jenny Gonzales and Raymond Gonzales, III divorced in February 2024 and initially received joint legal decision-making authority under a parenting-time plan for their two minor children. After both parents sought modifications, the superior court awarded Father sole legal decision-making authority, required Mother’s parenting time to be supervised, ordered Mother to pay $770 per month in child support, and awarded Father $16,839 in attorney fees and costs.
The superior court found that Mother had committed one or more acts of significant domestic violence against Father and had repeatedly violated court orders. Mother appealed, challenging the court’s best-interests analysis, domestic-violence finding, supervised-parenting-time requirement, child-support calculation, and attorney-fee award. She did not provide the appellate court with a transcript of the modification hearing.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals vacated the finding of significant domestic violence and remanded that issue for reconsideration. Although the record contained evidence that could support a finding that some domestic violence occurred, the superior court did not identify the acts supporting its significance determination and had incorrectly relied in part on Mother’s altercations with Father’s new wife, a relationship that did not qualify for domestic-violence treatment under the cited statute. Given that error, the majority declined to presume that the missing transcript supported the significant-domestic-violence finding.
The court otherwise affirmed. It held that the superior court made the required best-interests findings; the record and missing-transcript presumption supported supervised parenting time and the imputation of full-time income to Mother; and the attorney-fee award was within the superior court’s discretion based on Mother’s unreasonable litigation conduct. The court noted that the superior court may revisit other findings if its reconsideration of domestic violence affects them. Judge Furuya dissented only from the decision to vacate the significant-domestic-violence finding, concluding that the record and missing-transcript presumption supplied sufficient support.
Key Takeaways
- A significant-domestic-violence finding cannot rest on conduct involving a relationship that does not qualify under Arizona’s domestic-violence statute.
- An appellant’s failure to provide a hearing transcript generally requires the appellate court to presume that the missing record supports the superior court’s findings, but the majority declined to apply that presumption to cure the expressly identified errors underlying the domestic-violence finding.
- The supervised-parenting-time order, child-support calculation, and attorney-fee award remained affirmed, although the superior court may revisit related findings if its domestic-violence reconsideration warrants doing so.
Why It Matters
The memorandum decision illustrates that a family court must distinguish between evidence of conflict or assault and conduct that legally constitutes domestic violence between qualifying persons. That distinction is especially consequential because a finding of significant domestic violence bars joint legal decision-making under Arizona law.
The decision also underscores the importance of supplying hearing transcripts on appeal. Without them, appellate courts ordinarily presume that the omitted testimony supports the challenged rulings, making fact-dependent family-law orders difficult to overturn.