Abt v. Abt
Annotate this CaseAfter 16 years of marriage, Michael Abt filed for divorce from his wife Kerry. The couple had two children. The trial court conducted a temporary hearing and awarded the parties joint custody of the children with the wife being the primary custodian. During the next few months, the children revised their election of custodial parent because the wife had moved her new boyfriend into her home. The wife moved to have a guardian ad litem appointed to address the children’s decisions for custodial parent. On the eve of trial, the parties announced they had settled the custody issues; remaining issues were tried to a jury. Following the trial and entry of the verdict, the parties entered a consent agreement adopted by the court which granted a new trial. In the agreement, the parties agreed to a non-jury trial and prohibited the children from being in the presence of the wife’s new boyfriend. After the non-jury trial, the court entered a final judgment and decree of divorce, and ordered wife to pay husband attorney fees. The wife filed an application for discretionary appeal claiming the lower court abused its discretion in its award of fees. The Supreme Court held that the record demonstrated that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by awarding attorney fees, and affirmed the lower court’s decision.
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