Background
Darwin Airola, III, and Rejani Raveendran divorced in Waushara County, Wisconsin. A November 2020 order established legal custody and physical placement of their three children, and a September 2022 order from a related Portage County CHIPS proceeding — adopted by the Waushara County court — became the controlling custody order, providing Airola with supervised visitation upon reasonable request. Child support was set in August 2021.
Over the ensuing years, Airola filed approximately 600 documents in the circuit court challenging custody, placement, child support, and the guardian ad litem’s appointment. In October 2023, the Waushara County Child Support Agency moved to hold Airola in contempt for nonpayment, serving him with an order to show cause and incurring a $60 service-of-process fee. By the February 2024 hearing, Airola had caught up on his payments and the contempt motion was withdrawn, but the agency still sought reimbursement of its service fee. Airola simultaneously moved for the circuit court judge to recuse.
In September 2024, Airola moved again — seeking return of the service fee, modification or discontinuation of child support contingent on the mother keeping the children in Wisconsin, and a prohibition on her removing the children from the country. Following an October 2024 hearing, the circuit court denied all of Airola’s requests and imposed restrictions on his future filings, prohibiting custody-and-placement motions unless they contained a legitimate averment of new circumstances, and barring child support modification motions unless initiated by the child support agency. Airola appealed both orders.
The Court’s Holding
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed both orders in a per curiam opinion. On recusal, the court held that the circuit court judge properly applied both the subjective and objective tests for judicial bias. The judge’s subjective determination that he could act fairly and impartially was dispositive on the subjective prong. On the objective prong, the appellate court found that the judge’s extensive comments about Airola’s worldview, his resistance to therapy for his children, and his insistence on homeschooling reflected factual findings from the CHIPS record and legitimate concerns about Airola’s ability to take steps toward reunification — not bias against his religion or parenting philosophy.
The court also affirmed denial of the fee-waiver request. The prior court order waiving Airola’s own filing and service fees did not extend to fees the child support agency independently incurred to initiate contempt proceedings; Airola bore responsibility for those costs because the agency’s action was prompted by his nonpayment. The court rejected Airola’s argument that the contempt filing was “fictitious,” noting he offered no record citations or legal authority to support that claim.
The court affirmed the denial of Airola’s conditional child support modification request — that support be tied to the mother remaining in Wisconsin — finding no legal authority for such a condition. The court also affirmed the filing restrictions, concluding that Airola failed to develop any legal argument, supported by authority, establishing that the circuit court lacked the power to impose them given his history of incessant and confusing filings.
Key Takeaways
- A circuit court judge’s subjective determination of impartiality under WIS. STAT. § 757.19(2)(g) is entitled to deference on appeal; the appellate court’s review is limited to whether the judge made a determination requiring disqualification.
- Judicial comments that accurately reflect the record and address a party’s conduct — rather than targeting protected characteristics like religion — do not constitute objective bias, even when they are pointed or extensive.
- A waiver of a litigant’s own filing fees does not automatically extend to service-of-process costs incurred by a child support agency that was separately required to initiate contempt proceedings.
- Courts may impose filing restrictions on litigants with a demonstrated history of excessive, disorganized, and repetitive motions when the litigant fails to establish legal error in the restrictions imposed.
Why It Matters
This unpublished decision illustrates the broad deference Wisconsin appellate courts extend to circuit court judges on recusal questions, particularly where a judge’s challenged remarks stem from the evidentiary record rather than extraneous personal animus. The opinion also reinforces that a party claiming objective judicial bias faces a high bar — only cases with extreme facts presenting a serious risk of actual bias will succeed — and that comments reflecting legitimate case-management concerns or factual findings from prior proceedings will not clear that threshold.
The case also serves as a practical reminder that pro se family-law litigants who flood the docket with hundreds of filings risk both judicial frustration and formal filing restrictions. While the opinion is unpublished and may not be cited as precedent under WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3), it reflects circuit courts’ willingness to use their inherent authority to manage abusive litigation patterns, and the Court of Appeals’ readiness to affirm such measures when the appellant cannot point to a specific legal error.