Title: Kilborn v. Collins
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 136, 2005
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: October 18, 2005

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
ALLEN G. KILBORN,1  
 
Petitioner Below- 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
SUSAN COLLINS, 
 
Respondent Below- 
Appellee. 
§ 
§  No. 136, 2005 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below─Family Court of the 
§  State of Delaware in and for New 
§  Castle County 
§  File No. CN98-09498 
§  Petition Nos. 0408497; 0430008 
§ 
§ 
 
 
 
 
 
Submitted: August 5, 2005 
 
 
 
 
Decided:    October 18, 2005 
 
Before BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
O R D E R  
 
 
This 18th day of October 2005, upon consideration of the appellant’s 
opening brief and the appellee’s motion to affirm pursuant to Supreme Court 
Rule 25(a), it appears to the Court that: 
 
(1) 
The petitioner-appellant, Allen G. Kilborn (“Father”), appeals 
from the Family Court’s March 11, 2005 order denying his motion to 
modify visitation and granting, in part, the motion of respondent-appellee, 
Susan Collins (“Mother”), to modify custody.  Mother has moved to affirm 
                                                 
1 This Court has sua sponte assigned pseudonyms to the parties and their minor child.  
Supr. Ct. R. 7(d). 
 
2
the Family Court’s judgment on the ground that it is manifest on the face of 
Father’s opening brief that the appeal is without merit.  We agree and affirm.   
 
(2) 
The parties, who are divorced, have one minor child named 
Allen, Jr., who is 10 years old.  Following a custody hearing, the Family 
Court issued orders dated October 3, 2000 and November 1, 2000, which 
provided that Mother and Father would share joint legal custody of Allen, 
who would reside 50% of the time with Mother and 50% of the time with 
Father on an every-other-week basis.  At that time, Father, who is a 
Delaware lawyer, maintained a residence in Wilmington, Delaware, and 
worked as an attorney in Wilmington.  Father now maintains his primary 
residence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, although he continues to work as an 
attorney in Wilmington.  Mother continues to maintain her primary 
residence in Wilmington, Delaware.  Allen attends a private school in 
Wilmington.   
 
(3) 
In March 2004, Father filed a motion to modify visitation.  The 
motion sought additional visitation with Father in order to permit Allen to 
participate in extracurricular sports activities in Philadelphia.  In September 
2004, Mother moved to modify custody.  Mother’s motion sought sole legal 
and residential custody of Allen, with visitation rights for Father.  At that 
 
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time, Mother was remarried and living with her husband and their 2 year-old 
son in Wilmington.   
 
(4) 
Following a hearing on March 9, 2005, the Family Court issued 
an order dated March 11, 2005, in which it granted sole legal custody of 
Allen to Mother, but ordered that Allen continue to reside with both parents 
on an equal shared basis.  The Family Court further ordered Mother and 
Father to discuss with each other all major issues involving Allen and, in the 
event they were unable to agree, Mother would have final decision making 
authority.  
 
(5) 
In this appeal, Father’s sole claim is that the Family Court did 
not have the authority to issue its March 11, 2005 order, because Mother did 
not attach an affidavit to her motion to modify custody as required by Del. 
Code Ann. tit. 13, § 730.  The statute provides that: 
A party seeking . . . modification of a custody decree shall 
submit together with his or her moving papers an affidavit 
setting forth facts supporting the requested order . . . and shall 
give notice . . . to other parties to the proceeding, who may file 
opposing affidavits.  The Court shall deny the motion unless it 
finds that adequate cause for hearing the motion is established 
by the affidavits. . . . 
  
 
(6) 
Our review of the record relating to Father’s claim reflects the 
following:  On September 9, 2004, Mother filed in the Family Court a 
preprinted form entitled “Motion and Affidavit to Modify Custody Order,” 
 
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which alleged that:  Father was living in Philadelphia, Father did not inform 
Mother of his move to Philadelphia until a year after he had done so; Father 
had enrolled Allen in activities in Philadelphia without consulting Mother; 
and Father had not provided Allen with separate sleeping accommodations.  
The form was signed by Mother’s attorney and was stamped with the 
attorney’s seal as a notarial officer in the State of Delaware.  The form also 
was accompanied by a separate preprinted form entitled “Custody Separate 
Statement in Compliance with 13 Del. Code, Sec. 1909,” which included 
additional information regarding the custodial arrangements for Allen.   
 
(7) 
In his response to Mother’s motion, Father contested the 
substantive allegations in the motion and raised the procedural objection that 
the motion did not attach a notice or proposed form of order and did not 
include an affidavit in support of the facts alleged.  Father requested that 
Mother’s motion be summarily dismissed because it did not meet the 
requirements of Family Court Civil Procedure Rule 7(b).2     
 
(8) 
The transcript of the March 9, 2005 hearing on the parties’ 
respective motions reflects that Father never raised the issue of Mother’s 
allegedly defective motion at any point during the hearing.  At the beginning 
                                                 
2 That rule provides as follows:  “An application to the Court for an order shall be by 
motion which . . . shall state with particularity the grounds therefor, and shall set forth the 
relief or order sought.  The motion shall be accompanied by a notice and a proposed form 
of order.  Where a motion is based upon particular facts, it should be supported by 
affidavit(s) or other material.” 
 
5
of the hearing, Father stated:  “Your Honor, the only thing I’m looking for 
you to do is to allow [Allen] to play sports in one place rather than being 
split between two places.”  On the day after the hearing, Father wrote a one 
page, single-spaced letter to the Family Court Judge requesting that the 
Judge interview Allen to ascertain his wishes concerning his participation in 
sports in Philadelphia and Wilmington.  Nowhere in the letter did Father 
mention Mother’s alleged procedurally defective motion, any lack of notice 
regarding the issues raised at the hearing or any prejudice resulting from the 
alleged procedural defect.     
 
(9) 
Following the entry of the Family Court’s March 11, 2005 
order, Father filed a “Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to 13 Del. C. § 730,” 
wherein he asserted that, due to Mother’s failure to attach an affidavit to her 
motion to modify custody, he was “prejudiced . . . by not being advised of 
the facts to be relied upon in support of the Motion both in Father’s 
preparation of Father’s Response and presentation of evidence and witnesses 
at the March 9, 2005 hearing.”  On March 28, 2005, the Family Court denied 
Father’s motion as “untimely and moot.”3   
 
(10) Father’s claim is patently without merit.  The record reflects 
that he abandoned any argument concerning an alleged technical defect in 
                                                 
3 Father’s subsequent motion to permit Allen to be interviewed by the Family Court 
Judge was also denied as untimely. 
 
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Mother’s motion by participating in a full-blown hearing on the substantive 
issues in the case without ever mentioning that procedural argument.  
Father’s belated attempt to raise the issue, first in his motion to dismiss and 
then in this appeal, is frivolous and disingenuous.  Although Father did not 
attempt to argue that he was prejudiced by the alleged technical defect in his 
opening brief on appeal, he did raise that argument in his motion to dismiss 
filed in the Family Court.  There is no basis whatsoever in the record for that 
argument.  The Family Court is required to disregard minor technical defects 
that do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.4  We, thus, find no 
error or abuse of discretion by the Family Court in denying Father’s motion 
to dismiss. 
 
(11) It is manifest on the face of Father’s opening brief that this 
appeal is without merit because the issues presented on appeal are controlled 
by settled Delaware law and, to the extent that judicial discretion is 
implicated, clearly there was no abuse of discretion. 
                                                 
4 Fam. Ct. Civ. Proc. R. 61. 
 
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NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that, pursuant to Supreme 
Court Rule 25(a), the appellee’s motion to affirm is GRANTED.  The 
judgment of the Family Court is AFFIRMED. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/s/ Jack B. Jacobs  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
        Justice