Opinion ID: 4514238
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Judgments in the Parental Rights Proceedings

Text: [¶10] On March 28, 2019, the court continued the hearings on the May 16, 2018, motions and the father’s January 22, 2019, motion regarding the younger child, and set the matters to be heard at the same time as recently filed petitions for child protective orders regarding both children.4 The court later, over the father’s objection, consolidated the hearings on the father’s 3 The mother of the younger child had stopped visitation between the father and the child, in part, because of the alleged assault in August 2018. See supra n.1. 4Petitions for child protection orders for both the older child and the younger child were filed on March 27, 2019, one day prior to the court’s order consolidating the hearings on the pending motions with the hearing on the child protection petition. See infra I.B. 6 pending December 12, 2018, motion to modify with the child protection petition regarding the older child. Between May 9, 2019, and July 9, 2019, the court held a series of five hearings on the pending motions and the child protection petitions, throughout which, among others, the father, each mother, and each child testified. [¶11] On August 19, 2019, the court entered judgment on the pending motions in the parental rights proceedings. The court granted the father’s motion to modify the 2007 parental rights order regarding the older child, but it did not grant the relief the father requested. Rather, the court continued sole parental rights and responsibilities with the mother and ordered that the father’s visitation with the older child be resumed when “therapeutically recommended.” [¶12] Regarding the younger child, the court granted the mother’s motion to modify, ordering, in part, that the father have contact with the younger child on “one day per weekend for a period of 2 hours” under the supervision of an agency or “trained neutral professional” and that this arrangement continue for six weeks, after which “upon recommendation of the child’s therapist, [the father’s] contact may be extended.” Additionally, the court denied the father’s motion for contempt and motion to enforce, finding 7 that the father had failed to carry his burden on either motion. The court determined that, in light of the history of parental contact and the anxiety it caused the child, it was not unreasonable for the mother of the younger child to cease contact between the father and the child, and that the authority to make this decision was granted to the mother in the 2016 amended divorce judgment. [¶13] The father timely appealed from each order on September 3, 2019. See 14 M.R.S. § 1901 (2018); 19-A M.R.S. § 104 (2018); M.R. App. P. 2B(c)(1).