Background
Lydia Baker and Bradly Smith are the parents of H.B.-S., a ten-year-old child whose custody arrangement has been the subject of protracted litigation in the Eighteenth Judicial District Court of Gallatin County, Montana. After an initial week-on, week-off parenting plan entered in November 2021, the district court issued an April 2024 Amended Parenting Plan placing primary residence with Bradly and giving Lydia parenting time every other weekend and one weeknight. That plan expressly reserved a ruling on Bradly’s request to relocate with the child and directed a residential-schedule review in August 2025.
On October 7, 2024, the district court held an evidentiary hearing on Bradly’s relocation petition and a slate of pending contempt motions. It received testimony from both parents, the child’s stepmother, a family counselor, a police sergeant, and a DPHHS child-welfare worker, as well as a psychological assessment of Lydia, a letter from H.B.-S., and a song the child had written. Fourteen months later, on December 11, 2025, the court issued its order: it granted relocation to Cut Bank, Montana; found Lydia in civil contempt for numerous violations of the parenting plan; awarded Bradly attorney’s fees; and restricted Lydia to supervised parenting time — one weekend per month, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day for three consecutive days, with Lydia bearing the cost of supervision.
Lydia appealed pro se, challenging multiple aspects of the order. Critically, she did not obtain or provide the Montana Supreme Court with a transcript of the October 7, 2024 hearing.
The Court’s Holding
The Montana Supreme Court affirmed the district court in all respects except one: it reversed the portion of the December 2025 order imposing supervised parenting time and remanded for further proceedings. The court held that because the district court waited more than fourteen months after the evidentiary hearing to issue its ruling, the severe restriction on Lydia’s parenting time was premised on outdated information about her mental health and substance abuse treatment — and therefore constituted an abuse of discretion.
On the bulk of Lydia’s challenges, the court declined to find error. Because Lydia failed to provide a hearing transcript, the court applied the presumption that the trial court’s decision is correct and concluded it could not determine whether the district court’s factual findings were unsupported by the evidence. The court also rejected Lydia’s due-process argument about the missed August 2025 review, noting that the December 2025 order superseded the April 2024 plan and thereby extinguished that review provision.
As to the supervised-parenting restriction, however, the court found the delay itself dispositive. Lydia represented that during the fourteen-month gap she had continued counseling, complied with treatment recommendations, participated in drug testing, and implemented additional supervision measures. Without assessing the truth of those claims, the court concluded the district court was obligated to obtain current information before imposing such a severe limitation. On remand, the district court must give both parties an opportunity to present updated information on Lydia’s mental health and substance abuse treatment, on the child’s circumstances, and on the status of individual and family therapy, then issue new findings and a revised order.
Key Takeaways
- A district court abuses its discretion when it imposes severe parenting restrictions based on evidence that has grown significantly stale — here, fourteen months old — without first obtaining updated information from the parties.
- An appellant who fails to provide a hearing transcript cannot obtain reversal of factual findings; the appellate court will presume the trial court’s decision is correct and affirm on an incomplete record.
- Implied findings doctrine: a district court need not make express findings on every element (such as changed circumstances) so long as the necessary finding is clearly implied by the findings actually made and supported by the evidence.
- A superseding parenting plan order extinguishes earlier procedural provisions, such as a scheduled review date, contained in the plan it replaces.
Why It Matters
This decision signals that Montana courts must account for the passage of time between an evidentiary hearing and a final order, particularly when imposing restrictions as drastic as supervised-only parenting. Where months or years elapse and a parent claims to have made meaningful progress on the very issues driving the restriction, due process requires that the court work from current facts rather than a stale snapshot. The ruling does not disturb the relocation or contempt findings, but it prevents the district court from locking in punitive parenting conditions without a fresh look at Lydia’s circumstances.
The case also underscores a practical appellate lesson for self-represented litigants: the duty to compile the record falls on the appellant, and courts will not go behind the written order to find error that only a transcript could reveal. Pro se parents who challenge custody rulings without securing hearing transcripts risk losing on procedural grounds even when substantive errors may exist.