S.D. Supreme Court OKs child-custody decision

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The South Dakota Supreme Court docket suggests there is no legal reason to disagree with a circuit judge’s conclusion in a child-custody dispute.

Justice Mark Salter wrote the substantial court’s unanimous final decision in Flint v. Flint that was publicly produced Thursday.

Circuit Judge Jon Sogn granted main bodily custody of the divorced couple’s daughter to the mother, Lyndsey Flint, who now lives in the Fairfield, California, space and operates as a legislation enforcement agent for the U.S. Section of Homeland Protection in San Francisco.

The father, Jeremy Flint, met Lyndsey in 2010 though he was in the U.S. Air Pressure stationed at Travers Air Power Base near Fairfield, California. They married in 2011 whilst he was stationed in Guam. Soon after he was stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lyndsey joined him there. Their daughter was born in 2016.

The family members moved to Tuscon, Arizona, in April 2017. The pair separated that Oct and divorced there in 2018, signing a co-parenting settlement. Lyndsey started off federal coaching in 2019. Jeremy still left Air Power provider and moved back again to the Sioux Falls area in May 2019.

Their daughter lived with her father when her mother was schooling. In Oct 2019, Jeremy questioned for principal physical custody. Decide Sogn conducted a two-working day trial in January 2021.

Wrote Justice Salter:

“In an oral conclusion issued ten times after the demo, the courtroom granted major physical custody of (the daughter) to Lyndsey. However, the court emphasised that ‘[t]his was a pretty complicated circumstance for me’ and expressed regret that the length among the parents’ houses properly dominated out a prolonged-time period shared parenting prepare. The court docket informed the parties, ‘You’re both very superior persons incredibly excellent dad and mom. Possibly one particular of you would be an exceptional option for custody of (the daughter).’”

The father appealed, claiming the circuit choose abused his discretion. The Supreme Court docket disagreed.

Justice Salter identified that the tipping place for the judge was that Jeremy “did not persuade significant communications with Lyndsey. The court uncovered, in this regard, that Jeremy was ‘more demanding and fewer flexible’ than Lyndsey—a determination Jeremy has not challenged on attractiveness.”

The justice continued, “In what the custody evaluator and the circuit court both agreed was a ‘close situation,’ the deferential normal of evaluation we will have to apply is outcome determinative. Jeremy seems, from the file, to be an exceptional father, and on our chilly report, we can envision the likelihood that he could have prevailed. Nevertheless, our function as a examining court docket forbids us from thinking about the evidence anew and acknowledges a demo court’s preeminent position in weighing the evidence…Therefore, we conclude that the court’s conclusion to grant most important bodily custody of (the daughter). to Lyndsey was not an abuse of discretion.”