Background
The unmarried parents share a child born in 2016. In November 2024, the family court adopted a 50-50 parenting plan, which the Intermediate Court of Appeals later affirmed. That same month, after an alleged altercation at the child’s football game, Mother obtained a 180-day domestic violence protective order against Father. Father consented to that order without findings of domestic violence.
Mother sought to modify the 50-50 plan in January 2025. Father received notice of the June 3, 2025 hearing but did not appear and did not file a response to the modification petition. After hearing Mother’s evidence, the family court found that Father had committed domestic violence on more than one occasion, concluded that domestic violence was a statutory limiting factor rebutting the 50-50 presumption, and made Mother the child’s primary custodian while preserving Father’s unsupervised parenting time and telephone contact.
The Court’s Holding
The Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed. Father challenged the family court’s findings concerning the November 2024 incident and argued that Mother should have been treated as equally culpable. He also alleged bias and distortion of the evidence.
The appellate court did not reach those factual challenges. Because Father had notice of the modification hearing but failed to attend, challenge Mother’s evidence, present his own evidence, or object on the record, he waived his nonjurisdictional arguments. The court held that Father therefore could not establish error in the modification order.
Key Takeaways
- A parent who does not appear at a properly noticed family-court hearing generally cannot raise unpreserved factual and legal objections for the first time on appeal.
- Domestic violence found to have occurred on more than one occasion may operate as a limiting factor and rebut West Virginia’s 50-50 parenting presumption.
- The family court retained Father’s unsupervised parenting time and telephone contact while awarding Mother primary custody.
Why It Matters
The decision is principally an issue-preservation ruling. It underscores that parties in parenting-plan litigation must appear and make their evidentiary objections in family court if they want appellate review of those issues.
The opinion also illustrates how domestic-violence findings can reshape a shared-parenting arrangement under West Virginia’s statutory parenting-plan framework.