Fact that Grandparents Sought Custody in Mexico and Financed Daughter’s California Efforts Did Not Support Fee Award Against Them.
This next case involved a child custody imbroglio that took place in both California and Mexico between a former husband and wife, with wife’s parents (maternal grandparents) helping finance many of her fights—even though custody was eventually awarded to husband rather than wife and with maternal grandparents not attempting to obtain custody of their grandchildren in the California proceeding.
The family law judge in Marriage of Cisneros and Lujan, Case No. D054452 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 19, 2010) (unpublished) awarded former husband $54,750 in attorney’s fees, jointly and severally payable by former wife and maternal grandparents. This was reversed in entirely by the Fourth District, Division 1 from grandparents’ challenge to the fee award.
Although assuming that maternal grandparents did finance much of their daughter’s litigation fights in both California and Mexico, the appellate panel found no evidence to support a determination that maternal grandparents, both Mexican citizens, sought visitation or custody of the children in the California proceeding. They were joined in the proceedings for custody and visitation purposes based on their involvement in Mexico, but the grandparents were not claiming any rights in the pending California action. The lower court should not have penalized grandparents for financing daughter’s battles when they had no real “skin” in the California forum.
Beyond this, the record did not show that the family law commissioner considered other Family Code section 2031 factors except everyone’s financial resources. Failure to consider the other statutory factors was an abuse of discretion.
Even though daughter did not appeal the award, the reversal of the fee award as to grandparents also required reversal of the award against daughter “in the interests of justice.”
Grandparents with children on porch of sharecropper shack, Southeast Missouri Farms, May 1938. Library of Congress. Lee Russell, photographer.
