NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.

UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL

AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

In re the Matter of:

JACQUELINE B. ADINA, Petitioner/Appellee,

v.

ANTHONY B. ALLEN, Respondent/Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CV 21-0058 FC

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. FC2011-001576

The Honorable Bradley H. Astrowsky, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Becker Zarling & Moye Law, Avondale

By Gina M. Becker-Zarling

Counsel for Petitioner/Appellee

Law Office of Jose De La Luz Martinez PLLC, Phoenix

By Jose De La Luz Martinez

Counsel for Respondent/Appellant

FILED 4-19-2022
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

2

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Presiding Judge Peter B. Swann delivered the decision of the court, in which 

Judge David D. Weinzweig and Judge Paul J. McMurdie joined.

S W A N N, Judge:

¶1 This is an appeal from an order modifying legal decisionmaking and parenting time. We affirm because the modifications, though 

drastic, were premised on findings reasonably supported by the evidence.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 In 2004, twin children (“the Children”) were born to 

Jacqueline B. Adina (“Mother”) and Anthony B. Allen (“Father”). In 2011, 

Mother and Father separated and agreed to legal decision-making and 

parenting time. Thereafter, the parties regularly returned to court to litigate 

legal decision-making and parenting time via various filings, including

modification petitions filed in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019.

¶3 This appeal concerns cross-petitions filed in 2019 which 

sought to modify a September 2018 order entered under ARFLP 69 that 

established sole legal decision-making for Father regarding education 

issues, sole legal decision-making for Mother regarding medical issues, and 

equal parenting time. Mother, alleging “severe abuse and manipulation of 

the children [by Father] causing severe emotional distress” in the Children, 

asked for sole legal decision-making and supervised, slightly reduced 

parenting time for Father. For his part, Father asked for sole legal decisionmaking on medical as well as education issues, and for Mother’s parenting 

time to be reduced to every other weekend.

¶4 The evidence at trial established that the parties engaged in 

frequent disputes regarding their exercise of legal decision-making and 

parenting time under the September 2018 order, as follows.

¶5 First, when Mother sought counseling for the Children

starting in late 2018, Father objected to intake appointments that would 

cause the Children to miss school. He directed the Children’s school that 

on his parenting days, the school should not permit the Children to be 

removed from campus or pulled from class to talk to Mother or her agents. 

According to Mother, the school informed Father that it could not honor 
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Decision of the Court

3

those instructions. Father thereafter moved the Children to a different 

school and gave the same instructions to that school.

¶6 The Children’s intake appointments ultimately were 

rescheduled. When they took place in April 2019, the Children were 

diagnosed with anxiety disorders and were recommended therapy. In June 

2019, they completed new intake appointments with a different provider 

and were again diagnosed with anxiety disorders and recommended 

therapy. They attended only a few therapy sessions in 2019; Father, by his 

own admission, “kept canceling” their appointments. He involved the 

court as well, asking in July 2019 for contempt and temporary orders based 

partly on Mother’s failure to consult with him before scheduling 

appointments.

¶7 Father also objected and involved the court when the 

Children began attending therapy sessions virtually from Mother’s house 

in early 2020—he argued that the sessions were not private and interfered 

with the Children’s virtual school schedule, which he contended included 

the non-instructional afternoon hours. The court ruled in May 2020 that 

neither party could make appointments during required video-conferencebased school sessions; the court further noted that the case was “an 

unnecessarily highly contested matter in which both parents have taken 

actions and engaged in conduct that conflicts with the best interests of the 

children.” Around the same time as the court’s order, the Children 

informed their counselors that they wished to discontinue therapy. 

According to Mother, Father encouraged that decision. One of the Children 

later disclosed in an interview that she shared Father’s view that counseling 

is akin to chemotherapy in that it is only for people who really need it.

¶8 The parties also conflicted regarding the Children’s medical 

care. Father objected when Mother scheduled medical physicals for the 

Children in 2019 as required by their school. And according to Mother,

when the physicals ultimately occurred, Father became upset and tried to 

pull the Children from the room after she consented to them receiving the 

second in a series of three vaccinations. Mother further reported that Father 

instructed the Children to resist the final vaccination in the series.

¶9 Also in 2019, Father sought contempt and temporary orders

after Mother obtained prescription acne medication for the Children against 

Father’s wishes and without proper notice. And in 2020, Father unilaterally 

took the Children to a pharmacy to get immunizations for which Mother 

had scheduled an appointment with the Children’s pediatrician. Father 

also contested Mother’s cost-based decision not to pursue immediately 
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what the parties agreed was necessary orthodontic treatment for the 

Children, despite evidence that he was financially unable to meet other 

obligations: he failed to comply with the court’s order that he contribute to 

a best interests attorney’s fees (which ultimately led to the court relieving 

the attorney), he stated that his income had declined to the point where he 

had no money left over each month, and the Children’s school tuition was 

in arrears.

¶10 Parenting time was another area of dispute. When Mother 

proposed taking the Children on vacation during her parenting time by 

picking them up directly from their out-of-state school-break camp, Father 

objected and refused to provide the school written consent. Similarly, when 

Mother sought to obtain passports for the Children, Father refused to sign 

necessary documents until Mother obtained court orders. Finally, when 

Mother contracted COVID-19 in September 2020 and asked Father to keep 

the Children temporarily, Father failed to return the Children upon her 

recovery. At the time she requested to resume parenting time, Mother was 

still testing positive for COVID-19 but provided Father with documents 

from medical providers stating that she was no longer contagious, that she 

could return to work, and that continued testing was not required because 

she could continue to test positive even after her symptoms resolved. 

Despite that documentation, Father refused to return the Children to 

Mother based on her failure to provide her positive test results.

¶11 Mother stopped contacting the Children when she requested 

that parenting time resume in mid-October because, she explained, she 

anticipated that Father would fight her about their return, and she did not 

want them put in the middle. She did not make any efforts to communicate 

with the Children until November 5, the day of trial. After the trial, she 

tested negative for COVID-19 and provided Father with a copy of the test 

results. Father, however, continued to withhold the Children.

¶12 A psychologist completed a Focused Assessment of the 

family in March 2020. Mother admitted to the psychologist that she had 

secretly recorded conversations with the Children at her attorney’s 

direction, that she had gone through the Children’s cell phones, and that 

she had spoken negatively about Father to the Children. She stated that 

Father uses religion to convince the Children that she is a bad person, and 

“is getting them to believe it’s God’s will to live with him. They say that 

dad has God’s providence . . . .” Father stated that he never says anything 

negative about Mother or anything about the court proceedings to the 

Children unless “the children are complaining about it and I have to set the 

record straight” and “defend[ ] my position.”
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

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¶13 The Children disclosed that Mother often spoke negatively 

about Father and that they wanted to live with Father, with whom their 

religious and political beliefs aligned. One of the Children disclosed that 

Father wanted her to live with him and had told her that if she did so, she 

would no longer have to deal with being exposed to ideas and media at 

odds with her religious views. The child explained that “[m]y dad doesn’t 

see how living with my mom full time would help me grow” because “a lot 

of [Mother’s] views . . . don’t line up with the Bible,” and the child stated 

that she “agree[d] with him on that.” That child further stated that Father 

spoke to her about the court case a couple of times a week, that he warned 

her Mother’s behavior might get worse or she might start taking the 

Children to doctors too much, and that Mother and Father both used the 

same biblical story to discuss which parent the Children should live with 

but Father “uses it more.” The other child refused to comment on whether 

either of her parents invoked religion when discussing where she should 

live, but she opined that Father “has better spiritual advice to offer.”

¶14 The psychologist reported “significant concerns about 

Father’s ability to make decisions with Mother as he appears to create 

conflict by continuously disagreeing with her and involving the children in 

decision making,” concluded that “Mother also has weaknesses in her coparenting style,” and opined that “[b]oth parents appear to lack significant 

insight into how they are contributing to the children’s mental health.” The 

psychologist explained that “both parents are engaging in alienating 

behaviors, although Father’s behaviors are actively turning the children 

against Mother.” The psychologist emphasized, however, that “[a]side 

from the fact that Mother speaks negatively about Father, the children had 

no viable concerns about Mother or her home environment that suggest she 

should have limited contact with the children,” but, “[n]otably, Father 

engages in similar behavior against Mother, but is actively persuading the 

children to report that they prefer to have increased parenting time with 

him.” The psychologist explained that “parental alienation is a form of 

emotional abuse onto a child,” and recommended that the court appoint a 

therapeutic interventionist or consider supervising Father’s parenting time 

“given that it is believed that the children[’s] statements are solely based on 

Father’s comments to the children.”

¶15 After making extensive findings, the superior court

concluded that it was in the Children’s best interests for Mother to have sole 

legal decision-making and for Father to have limited supervised parenting 

time. The court ordered that Father would have no contact with the 

Children until mid-February and thereafter would have up to three hours 

of supervised parenting time every other week, with the possibility of 
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

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enlarged parenting time after six months. The court further ordered Father 

to participate in a psychological evaluation, individual counseling, and 

family counseling.

¶16 Father appeals.

DISCUSSION

¶17 Father challenges the supervision requirement and the 

removal of his legal decision-making regarding education.1 We review 

orders concerning legal decision-making and parenting time for an abuse 

of discretion. Nold v. Nold, 232 Ariz. 270, 273, ¶ 11 (App. 2013). The superior 

court abuses its discretion if no evidence supports its decision, Pridgeon v. 

Superior Court (LaMarca), 134 Ariz. 177, 179 (1982), or if it commits an error 

of law in exercising its discretion, Grant v. Ariz. Pub. Serv. Co., 133 Ariz. 434, 

455–56 (1982). We do not reweigh conflicting evidence, and we defer to the 

superior court’s credibility determinations. Hurd v. Hurd, 223 Ariz. 48, 52, 

¶ 16 (App. 2009).

I. THE SUPERIOR COURT DID NOT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION BY 

AWARDING MOTHER SOLE LEGAL DECISION-MAKING.

¶18 The court must determine legal decision-making, either 

initially or on a petition to modify, in accordance with the child’s best 

interests after considering and making specific findings regarding all 

relevant factors, including statutorily enumerated ones, and why the 

decision is in the child’s best interests. A.R.S. §§ 25-403, -403.01(B).

¶19 Here, the court made specific and detailed findings about all 

relevant factors and the reasons why sole legal decision-making for Mother

was in the Children’s best interests. The court acknowledged that the 

parties had a long history of conflict and an inability to agree, and that 

Mother had engaged in problematic conduct, including talking negatively 

about Father to the Children, secretly recording the Children, and cutting 

1 Father contends in his reply brief that Mother appears to agree with 

his appeal because a passage in her answering brief states that the superior 

court abused its discretion. Father’s contention is abjectly unreasonable. 

Viewed in the context of Mother’s brief as a whole—in which she 

repeatedly and clearly argues that the superior court acted within its 

discretion and should be affirmed—the cited passage is obviously nothing 

more than the product of an editing error by Mother’s counsel. We also 

decline Father’s invitation to strike Mother’s brief for noncompliance with 

ARCAP 13.
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

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off her communication with the Children shortly before the trial. The court 

emphasized, however, that Father had engaged in a pattern of conduct 

designed to interfere with Mother’s ability to make decisions, exercise 

parenting time, and maintain a relationship with the Children. Notably, 

the court found that Father was motivated by a desire to keep the Children 

from Mother, that he “was abhorrent in his active prevention of Mother 

exercising her ability to participate in decision-making concerning the 

children,” that he “disagreed with the majority of [Mother’s] medical 

decisions with no apparent good reason,” that he interfered with Mother’s 

ability to obtain counseling that the Children were “in dire need of,” that 

he had a “calculated plan to alienate the Children from Mother,” and that 

he “use[d] religion as a weapon against Mother [to t]each[ ] the children to 

dislike Mother” and convince them that “living with Mother is contrary to 

G-d’s will.” The court further found that Father was “unnervingly 

obstructive during his cross-examination at trial,” and his conduct and 

demeanor suggested “an undiagnosed mental health concern.”

¶20 The evidence reasonably supported the court’s findings, and 

we defer to its credibility determinations. Father points out that Mother 

made poor parenting decisions. But the court expressly considered those 

decisions, and we do not reweigh the evidence. The court did not abuse its 

discretion by concluding that sole legal decision-making for Mother served 

the Children’s best interests.

II. THE SUPERIOR COURT DID NOT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION BY

RESTRICTING FATHER’S PARENTING TIME.

¶21 “A parent who is not granted sole or joint legal decisionmaking is entitled to reasonable parenting time to ensure that the minor 

child has substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing contact with the 

parent unless the court finds, after a hearing, that parenting time would 

endanger the child’s physical, mental, moral or emotional health.” A.R.S. 

§ 25-403.01(D). “The court may modify an order granting . . . parenting time 

rights whenever modification would serve the best interest of the child, but 

the court shall not restrict a parent’s parenting time rights unless it finds 

that the parenting time would endanger seriously the child’s physical, 

mental, moral or emotional health.” A.R.S. § 25-411(J). The court shall 

order supervised parenting time “if the court finds that in the absence of 

the order the child’s physical health would be endangered or the child’s 

emotional development would be significantly impaired, and if the court 

finds that the best interests of the child would be served.” A.R.S. § 25-

410(B).
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

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¶22 Here, the court found that Father’s time “must be supervised 

to protect the children’s physical, mental, or emotional health,” explaining 

that “Father has engaged in significant acts of parental alienation” because 

“he has incessantly pressured the children to live with him full-time and 

even told them that it was G-d’s will that they live with him.” The court 

further found that allowing Father to have unsupervised parenting time 

“would or could endanger seriously the children’s physical, mental, or 

moral health or would significantly impair the children’s emotional 

development.” The court emphasized the psychologist’s statement that 

“parental alienation is a form of emotional abuse,” found that “[t]his 

alienation and emotional abuse has created depression, anxiety, and selfesteem issues with the children,” and concluded that absent significant 

intervention, “the children will be at risk for suicidal ideation and 

depression that they will carry with them into adulthood.”

¶23 The evidence reasonably supported the court’s findings. 

Father emphasizes that the parenting-time restrictions imposed by the 

court were more draconian than what Mother requested. The court, 

however, was not constrained by Mother’s position—the court has an 

independent duty to consider whether parenting-time restrictions are 

necessary to protect children from harm. See Hart v. Hart, 220 Ariz. 183, 187, 

¶ 16 (App. 2009) (holding that court may order supervised parenting time 

sua sponte). We also reject Father’s contention that his behavior was 

insufficient to create serious endangerment. In view of the evidence that 

Father had alienated the Children from Mother and had obstructed their 

ability to receive counseling for diagnosed disorders, the superior court

reasonably concluded that unsupervised parenting time for Father would 

seriously endanger the Children’s mental or emotional health.

¶24 We recognize that the modification order drastically altered 

the status quo, which had been equal parenting time since the case’s 

inception. On this record, however, we cannot say that the court abused its 

discretion by reducing Father’s parenting time to three hours of supervised 

time every other week.
ADINA v. ALLEN

Decision of the Court

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CONCLUSION

¶25 We affirm for the reasons set forth above. We deny the 

parties’ competing requests for attorney’s fees. Mother is entitled to recover 

her costs upon compliance with ARCAP 21.