Opinion ID: 2593657
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The guardian ad litem's report and testimony

Text: Elliott also argues that the superior court ignored the GAL's report and contends that a GAL's recommendation should not be lightly ignored. Settje responds that the trial court's decision was consistent with the GAL's testimony at trial. The superior court is not required to follow the GAL's recommendation so long as the superior court's reasons for rejecting the custody investigation are not clearly erroneous. [21] A GAL's recommendation may support a trial court's custody decision, [22] and the undisputed opinions of two independent custody investigators may be given additional weight in some cases. [23] In this case, although the trial judge did not adopt the GAL's recommendation, the judge's ruling was not inconsistent with the GAL's report and testimony at trial. Elliott is technically correct that the GAL's report stated that Elliott should retain actual physical custody. But according to the GAL's report, Settje did not ask for equal shared physical custody at the time; rather, because Settje was fairly satisfied with the court's interim visitation order, he asked only for an additional overnight visit and to be able to pick up Kessa directly from daycare for his weekday visits. The GAL's report noted Elliott's preference to stop overnight visits because she thought that Kessa was too young, but recommended that the court grant Settje's two visitation requests. Because the GAL is unlikely to recommend more visitation than a parent requests, the GAL's recommendation to allow Elliott to retain actual physical custody does not equate to a recommendation to deny Settje equal physical custody. Instead, the GAL faced a choice between Settje's and Elliott's conflicting requests on visitation, which the GAL decided in Settje's favor. To the extent that the report recommendation has any bearing on whether joint physical custody was appropriate, the outcome of the report favoring Settje and the note that Elliott and Settje should be able to communicate and discuss [parenting] matters could be interpreted to support an award of joint physical custody at least as reasonably as Elliott's interpretation that the GAL actually recommended her primary physical custody over joint physical custody. Furthermore, the GAL testified at trial that both Elliott and Settje were good parents and that she had no concerns about either of their respective abilities to parent Kessa. The GAL also indicated that she had no reason to believe that equally shared physical custody would be detrimental to Kessa. Although the GAL never expressly recommended equal physical custody of Kessa, awarding Settje equal physical custody did not conflict with the GAL's recommendation to grant Settje's requests for additional visitation and was consistent with the GAL's testimony at trial. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in its use of the GAL's report and testimony.