Opinion ID: 2639488
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Overreliance on custody investigator's report

Text: The M.s contend that it was an abuse of discretion for Judge Reese to rely on and effectively adopt[ ] the custody investigator's recommendation on custody. The M.s allege that the report of Pamela Montgomery, A.C.S.W., the custody investigator, was improperly biased and fundamentally unreliable because she was not qualified to assess whether Lucy would be harmed by a gradual removal from the custody of the C.s. However, Montgomery was properly qualified under Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 90.6 governing child custody investigators, and two of the three expert witnesses testified that removal from primary parental bonds puts children at risk for developmental and attachment difficulties. There is no evidence showing that the superior court relied on Ms. Montgomery alone in making its determination on this point. [23] The M.s also allege that Montgomery was biased against them because the C.s' former lawyer mailed Montgomery a copy of the W.E.G. case. [24] They suggest that Montgomery, after reading W.E.G., became overly concerned that the C.s would have no standing to ask for visitation if the M.s' adoption petition were granted, and that Montgomery's participation in this ex parte communication was unethical. However, Montgomery's written report states that her primary concern in recommending that Lucy be placed with the C.s was that she did not want Lucy to suffer yet another loss of attachment with a primary caregiver. Moreover, Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure 90.6(d)(3) [25] and 90.6(g)(1) [26] suggest that ex parte communication between the custody investigator, the parties, and their attorneys is not per se unethical. Civil Rule 90.6(b)(1)(E) [27] also requires a qualified custody investigator to have knowledge of relevant Alaska statutes and rules relating to custody determinations. We find no abuse of discretion here. The M.s also contend that Montgomery's report was inaccurate and suffered from deficiencies on several points, including whether Lucy shared a bedroom in the C.s' home. The allege that the report failed to include Dillon C.'s full criminal history, failed to contain interviews with prior domestic partners, and contained errors made by a private investigator about the M.s. None of this information was dispositive for Montgomery or any of the experts who testified, and there is no support in the record for the proposition that the superior court abused its discretion in considering Montgomery's report. The record shows that the court shared the custody investigator's concern that a third family placement for a two-year-old could be damaging to her emotional health, and consulted all the experts available to him at trial while deciding not to take that risk. We find no abuse of discretion on this point.