Background
Vernon Dale Tabor, Jr. and Mercedes Vaughn Howard disputed parental responsibilities for their three-year-old child. Father sought primary parenting time in Colorado, while mother intended to move to California with the child.
A child and family investigator recommended that, if mother moved, the child live primarily with her during the school year and spend school breaks and holidays with father. After a hearing, the district court allowed the move, gave mother primary parenting time, and awarded father most of the summer, other school breaks, and optional monthly four-day school-year visits.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. When a parent intends to relocate before permanent orders, the court must accept the intended relocation and allocate parenting time according to the child’s best interests. The district court’s findings adequately addressed the relevant circumstances, including both parents’ domestic violence, the child’s bonds with each parent and extended family, the child’s relationship with a half-brother, and the parents’ difficulty supporting the child’s relationship with the other parent.
The record supported the district court’s conclusion that mother was better able to encourage the child’s relationship with father, which the court treated as a critical consideration. The appellate court also rejected father’s challenge to the CFI recommendation: father did not identify information from his unreviewed narrative that the CFI had not otherwise received, and the trial court was entitled to credit parts of the CFI’s testimony while rejecting others.
Key Takeaways
- In a pre-permanent-orders relocation case, the court accepts the relocating parent’s intended move and decides parenting time under the child’s best-interests standard.
- A court need not make express findings on every statutory factor if its findings explain its ruling and are supported by competent evidence.
- A trial court may rely in part on a CFI recommendation while declining to adopt all of the investigator’s findings or recommendations.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the broad discretion Colorado trial courts retain in parenting-time disputes involving a proposed move. Even where a child has strong relationships with both parents and families, a court may award primary parenting time to the relocating parent when the evidence supports that parent’s ability to foster the child’s relationship with the other parent.