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3 Child Advocacy: Aging out of foster care: Resources to support a challenging transition
4 Cover Story: Pilot program give Maryland children a say in custody cases
6 In the News: Moore vetoes law for divorce records protection from public access
7 Family Law Digest
9 Full Text Unreported Opinions
78 Case Index
Topic Index
Aging out of foster care: Resources to support a challenging transition
Youth in foster care can achieve permanency in three ways: Reunification with their family, adoption or guardianship.
A child who does not achieve permanency remains in foster care until “aging out” or emancipation, which in Maryland occurs at age 21.
According to a 2019 study, 29% of homeless youth and young adults have spent time in foster care; a 2024 study showed 22-30% of emancipated youth become homeless.
The instability inherent in homelessness often results in academic difficulties, unemployment, early parenthood, substance abuse, mental and physical health challenges and encounters with the criminal justice system.
Resources are available to youth aging out of foster care to provide support.
Housing assistance
In 2019, HUD’s Foster Youth to Independence Initiative program went into effect, providing for the distribution of vouchers under the Family Unification Program Housing Choice Vouchers to youth between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four who have aged out of foster care and otherwise meet certain eligibility requirements.
FYI is specifically designed to provide immediate assistance to these youth upon leaving foster care so that homelessness never occurs or is eliminated.
For FUP vouchers, a young person pays approximately 30% of their monthly income towards the
TAMALA
Child Advocacy LUNN
rent of a private apartment for three years, with an additional two years of voucher assistance available if the young person works, attends school or joins HUD’s Family Self Sufficiency Program.
Health care
Most youth transitioning out of foster care have had adverse childhood experiences including neglect, abuse, instability, or the loss of a parent.
ACE’s and the associated enduring trauma can negatively impact the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of foster care youth as they transition into adulthood, creating a greater need for physical and mental health support.
“[E]xposure to violence may contribute to chronic health conditions such as asthma, cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, lung disease and diabetes, many of which former foster youth disproportionately experience.”
Therefore, youth who are aging out of the foster care system must have continued access to comprehensive healthcare after their twenty-first birthday.
The Affordable Care Act provides a mandated eligibility pathway for Medicaid for “former foster care” youth to receive Medicaid until their twenty-sixth birthday, as do youth who live with their parents.
Financial education
In 2003, The Annie E. Casey Foundation launched Opportunity Passport, a program that provides financial literacy training and then assists foster care youth in establishing and maintaining a savings account.
Youth receive a dollar-for-dollar match for eligible purchases such as vehicles, housing, education or investments.
In Maryland, the local Department of Social Services administers the program to youth in foster care through a program called the Jim Casey Youth Opportunity Passport Keys to Your Financial Future Online Classes.
Ongoing barriers
Lack of awareness of resources and isolation are common barriers to foster care youth.
For example, despite eligibility for Medicaid until age 26, “former foster youth have lower primary care use and higher levels of emergency department usage than their peers not in foster care.”
This is in part explained by lack of health literacy or difficulty in scheduling appointments or finding transportation for medical appointments.
Access to resources is a significant start for youth who are aging out; however, lasting success requires a network of invested individuals, including child welfare advocates, committed to the young adult’s success.
Tamala Lunn is a Staff Attorney at Maryland Legal Aid.
Pilot program gives Md. children say in custody cases
By Ian Round IRound@TheDailyRecord.com
OCEAN CITY — A pilot program in two Southern Maryland counties provides free attorneys to children whose parents are going through contentious divorces, advocating for the kids’ interests in custody battles.
Since May 2025, the Child’s Voice Project nonprofit has paid for ad-
vocate attorneys for 55 children in 38 cases in St. Mary’s and Charles counties, using an approach it calls “child-centeredness.”
Attorneys are trained in relationship-building and communication, trauma-informed practices and the stages of childhood development, with the goal of understanding what the child wants.
“You have these litigants that
don’t believe the child has a voice,”
St. Mary’s County Family Law Magistrate Sue Ann Armitage said during a June presentation about the program at the Maryland State Bar Association’s annual conference in Ocean City.
St. Mary’s County Circuit Judge Kevin Hill said kids often “appease and please” to avoid conflict, telling each parent what they want to hear.
Steve Ruark for The Daily Record
The 2026 Top Leadership in Law award winner, St. Mary’s County Circuit Court Judge Kevin R. Hill, said children often “appease and please” to avoid conflict, telling each parent what they want to hear.
St. Mary’s County Circuit Judge Kevin Hill, center, speaks during a presentation
Association’s annual conference in Ocean City.
“Often, a child will tell the parents very different things,” Hill said. “I just kept thinking, ‘Can we get a lawyer in the room?’ ”
Connie Kratovil-Lavelle, senior legal adviser and policy counsel for the Child’s Voice Project, said “Judge Hill is the reason we have this project.”
Children as young as 9 are eligible in St. Mary’s, where the program began last year; the minimum age is 11 in Charles County, where it expanded in September. This month, Calvert County is joining.
Judges already have the power to appoint advocate attorneys who represent children like any other client. Although they are often used in cases of child welfare or the termination of parental rights, they are rarely appointed in divorce and custody cases, Kratovil-Lavelle said.
Advocate attorneys are distinct
from best-interest attorneys, who act in what they believe are the child’s best interests — even if the child disagrees. They must express the child’s views to the court but are not required to advocate for those positions. If a Child’s Voice Project lawyer sees evidence that their client is being manipulated by one of their parents, the lawyer must ask the judge to convert them to a best-interest attorney.
The Child’s Voice Project has partnered with attorneys from Leonardtown-based Williams, McClernan & Stack; Chevy Chase-based Delaney Stafford; and La Plata-based Fanning Law.
The initiative is free for both the court and the family, whereas parents usually have to split the cost of their kid’s lawyer. Costs are reimbursed by the Child’s Voice Project, so, Executive Director Stef Sloan said, the law-
yers are incentivized to spend time with the children.
The nonprofit is studying the project, and Sloan, who is also its chief scientific officer, said the early data is promising. They said the cases in which the Child’s Voice Project is involved are about five weeks shorter than cases without. Over 75% of the cases have settled or are approaching settlement, and only about 22% were likely to go to trial after six months.
Children without representation are able to speak with a judge, but the interview is relatively brief and on the record.
“The child’s attorney has spent an inordinate amount of time with this child building rapport,” Charles County Family Magistrate Andrea Khoury said. The appointed attorneys get “a more comprehensive view of the child than I have with my half hour on-the-record conversation.”
Ian Round/The Daily Record
on the Child’s Voice Project pilot program at the Maryland State Bar
In the News
Moore vetoes divorce records protection
By HannaH GaskIll HGaskill@TheDailyRecord.com
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore vetoed legislation that intended to protect divorce records from inspection by members of the public.
“Personal privacy and safety concerns should never be minimized or ignored,” Moore wrote in one of his May 22 veto letters. “While the events that led to the introduction of Senate Bill 426 were alarming, the legislation’s impact of essentially closing all divorce records is too heavy-handed and could have the unintended consequence of curtailing public oversight of additional types of legal cases and judicial rulings in the future.”
Sponsored by Sen. Charles Sydnor III, D-Baltimore County, Senate Bill 426 would have required the denial of public records requests for divorce applications, financial and settlement records and custody orders. This would have exempted final decrees.
Records custodians could have allowed for the inspection of protected records if the requestor is a party of those proceedings or their attorney, or if the requesting individual has been authorized to inspect the records by court order.
The legislation received unanimous, bipartisan support in both chambers. However, the bill faced opposition from the Maryland State Bar Association, which noted that the Public Information Act isn’t necessary to obtain divorce records.
The legislation was sponsored in the House chamber by Dels. Karen Simpson and Kris Fair, both Frederick County Democrats, at the request of their constituent Rae Gallagher, a member of the Frederick County Board of Education who says she was harassed through information obtained in her divorce records.
In his veto letter, Moore said that although Gallagher’s situation was “a terrible case of divorce records falling into the wrong hands and misused as part of
an online harassment campaign,” there are already protective measures in place.
“In divorce and custody proceedings, personal information is shielded and upon filing, a Notice of Restricted Information is required if personal information is included in the pleading. It is also standard procedure in Family Law case orders to incorporate language to shield exhibits and agreements,” he wrote. “Furthermore, a party can request that a case file or specific pleading be sealed or shielded.”
Additionally, Moore said the bill presented “interpretive challenges that could lead to larger constitutional questions,” noting that judicial records are
generally governed by the Maryland Rules on Access to Judicial Records rather than the Public Information Act. Referencing advice from the state attorney general’s office, the governor wrote that the legislation lacked clarity and “the Judiciary may interpret the bill not to apply to judicial records.”
“If, however, the legislation is broadly interpreted to include judicial court records - as opposed to only those records held by non-judicial agencies subject to the PIA- additional concerns then arise regarding the First Amendment, government transparency and accountability, and the public’s right to access judicial proceedings,” the governor wrote.
The Daily Record file photo
Gov. Wes Moore vetoed legislation that was intended to protect divorce records from inspection by members of the public calling the impact of closing all divorce records too “heavy-handed.”
The Appellate Court affirmed the Baltimore County Circuit Court’s order setting custody and denying father’s motion to transfer the custody case to Pennsylvania. The circuit court reviewed the evidence before it thoughtfully and properly and performed all required analyses substantially in setting custody. And because father, mother and the children all lived in Maryland for at least six months at the time the proceeding was commenced, jurisdiction was proper in Maryland.
The Appellate Court vacated the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s refusal to reopen discovery to address newly discovered evidence, allegedly showing husband falsely testified at trial regarding his company’s income and the sale of a vehicle. These facts are material to the determination of a monetary award, attorney’s fees and child support. The circuit court also abused its discretion in determining husband’s actual income by misallocating the burden of proof to wife.
The Appellate Court vacated the Carroll County Circuit Court’s elimination of the children’s Sunday overnights with father, which had been part of the custody schedule since 2018. Neither party argued that Sunday overnights were a problem, mother specifically testified she had no issue with father continuing to
have access until Monday morning and the court itself found that the existing custody schedule was not disruptive to the children’s social or school lives.
The Appellate Court affirmed the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s appointment of stepdaughter as guardian for her stepfather. Although the stepfather’s domestic partner argued the guardianship orders should be vacated, she was on notice of the hearing and had the opportunity to attend, to testify, to introduce contrary evidence, to demand the presence of the physicians and the nurse practitioner who completed the medical certificates and to argue that the court should deny the petitions for guardianship. She failed to do so and may not be heard to complain on appeal that the court failed to consider these arguments.
The Appellate Court affirmed the Montgomery County Circuit Court’s denial of father’s motion for a hearing on his second amended motion to terminate ongoing alimony. The circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it determined, for the second time, that the issues raised by father with regard to the overpayment of child support are res judicata and law of the case.
The Appellate Court vacated the Baltimore County Court’s modification of custody. Due process requires that a party be given adequate notice of the time, place, and nature of a hearing. Here, mother did not have notice that the court would consider the Child Access Evaluation findings or that custody modification would be at issue at the contempt hearing.
IN THE MATTER OF JULIA TAYLOR
Final judgment; interlocutory; appeal
No. 2007, September Term 2024
Argued before: Wells, C.J., Friedman, Zic, JJ.
Opinion by: Friedman, J.
Filed: March 30, 2026
The Appellate Court dismissed the appeal. Because it fell within none of the exceptions to the final judgment rule — statutory, rule-based or common law — it is an impermissible interlocutory appeal and must be dismissed.
The Appellate Court vacated the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s monetary award and the attorney’s fees award. The circuit court didn’t classify the properties explicitly as marital, nonmarital or partly marital and partly nonmarital, and its valuation of the marital portion of the properties’ equity values derived from miscalculations. Moreover, the circuit court should not have counted husband’s Discover bank accounts as marital property.
The Appellate Court affirmed the Howard County Circuit Court’s decision awarding wife primary custody of the parties’ two minor children, while granting husband access to the children on alternating weekends. The court conducted an exhaustive analysis of the relevant factors, properly weighed those factors considering the totality of the circumstances, and reached a reasoned decision based on the children’s best interests.
The Appellate Court affirmed the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s denial of mother’s initial motion and renewed motion to recuse the judge in a contentious custody dispute. Mother did not make a showing that overcame the strong presumption of impartiality on the part of the judge. Nor did mother make any showing of personal bias or prejudice, as those terms are defined for purposes of recusal or disqualification of a trial judge. The judge’s statements were consistent with well-established legal principles including that a custody determination should be based on the best interests of the child and not on a preference for a parent of one gender over another.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court affirmed the Baltimore County Circuit Court’s order setting custody and denying father’s motion to transfer the custody case to Pennsylvania. The circuit court reviewed the evidence before it thoughtfully and properly and performed all required analyses substantially in setting custody. And because father, mother and the children all lived in Maryland for at least six months at the time the proceeding was commenced, jurisdiction was proper in Maryland.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
initial hearing on custody before a magistrate on December 11, 2023, then continued to February 28, 2024. At some point before the hearing, Father had won a Final Protection Order against Mother due to domestic violence she committed against him. Mother had also filed a petition for contempt, alleging Father had violated the Family Services Order. The magistrate heard testimony and admitted evidence, including the child access and substance abuse reports generated under the Family Services Order. On March 12, 2024, the magistrate produced a Report and Recommendation based on the hearing. As discussed below, the parties stipulated eventually to the findings of fact contained in the report.
Jaleel Witherspoon (“Father”) appeals from a final custody order of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. He raises two main challenges: he contends that the circuit court erred when setting custody and in denying his motion to transfer the custody case to Pennsylvania under the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (“UCCJEA”). We find no error or abuse of discretion and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Father and Markeyiea Lee (“Mother”) are the parents of two minor children, C and D.1 In May 2022, Mother filed a Complaint for Custody, and in August, Father responded with an Answer and Counterclaim for Custody. Father amended his Counterclaim and Mother filed an Answer. Both parties had counsel through most of the litigation in the circuit court. The court also appointed a Best Interests attorney for the children.
Under a Family Services Order entered in April 2023, the Court Family Support Services Division conducted a Child Access Evaluation in July. The Court referred both Mother and Father for screening for substance abuse as well and the results for both were “negative,” although the Division reported both as “Positive—Fail to Appear” on two occasions. After various interim motions, the parties had a two-day
Among the findings, the magistrate found “[t]hat the parties have had a volatile and violent relationship.” The magistrate’s report described incidents involving Father and Mother and others in March 2021, March 2022, May 2022, and November 2022. Some of those incidents involved violence, including between family members of Mother and Father, and at least one incident occurred in the presence of the children, and the magistrate found that the children had “been exposed to much violence in and near the home by both parents.” The magistrate noted as well that according to a Child Evaluator appointed in this case, Baltimore City Child Protective Services had found that Father “Neglect[ed]” at least one of the children by exposing them to “Domestic Violence[.]”
The magistrate recommended that the court award Father both sole legal custody and primary physical custody of the children. For Mother, the magistrate recommended that she continue supervised visitation through April 30, 2024; continue to receive mental health services and, on request, provide letters to Father confirming her attendance and participation; and begin unsupervised visitation on May 3, 2024. The magistrate recommended keeping Father’s Final Protective Order against Mother in place and denying Mother’s petition for contempt.
In response to the magistrate’s report, Mother filed exceptions and the circuit court held a hearing. After the hearing, in June 2024, the court issued an interim custody schedule order and ordered the parties to “participate in evaluations to be conducted by the Office of the Court Psychiatrist” and participate in “an intake assessment” with the “Office of Family Support Services.” Afterwards, Mother began participating in therapy, as the court had ordered.
At some point during the circuit court proceedings, Father moved with the children to York County, Pennsylvania. Mother first became aware of the move in August 2024. On January 10, 2025, shortly before an already-set status hearing in the circuit court, Father obtained a Final Protection from
Abuse Order against Mother in the Court of Common Pleas of York County, Pennsylvania (the “PA Order”). The parties brought the PA Order to the circuit court’s attention at the status hearing, and the parties agreed to confer about how to accommodate conflicts between the provisions of the PA Order and the initial custody order. After the parties conferred and notified the circuit court, the court modified its initial custody order to accommodate the PA Order.
In December 2024, Father moved the circuit court to modify custody on an emergency basis. The circuit court held a hearing on the motion on April 16, 2025, but Father withdrew the motion verbally early in that hearing. Father, Mother, and the Best Interests attorney discussed the procedural posture with the court and all agreed to a “de novo hearing on custody and child support,” which the court scheduled for July 2 and 3, 2025. Before ending the April hearing, the parties stipulated to all findings of fact contained in the magistrate’s Report.
In May 2025, and before the de novo hearing, Father filed a motion to transfer jurisdiction to York County, Pennsylvania. He argued that under the UCCJEA, jurisdiction was proper in Pennsylvania because C and D had resided in that state for more than six months before he filed the motion and that the PA Order and accommodation of that order by the circuit court “reflect[ed] that Pennsylvania [had] assumed an active role in addressing matters concerning [C and D]’s care and visitation.” After a Response in Opposition from Mother and a Reply from Father, the circuit court denied the motion. The court’s order gave no explanation for the denial beyond saying that “[t]he motion [did] not present a sufficient legal or factual basis for the relief requested.”
As scheduled, on July 2 and 3, the circuit court held the de novo custody hearing. Father has not ordered the transcripts for that hearing, so we are unable to determine precisely what evidence was received, what testimony was taken, and what the court may have said or ruled during that hearing.2 We do know from the transcript of the ruling that the court reviewed in camera, with the consent of the parties, records from Mother’s court-ordered therapy.
After taking the motion under advisement, the court called Father, Mother, and the Best Interests attorney to a ruling hearing on August 4, 2025. The court ruled from the bench that day, made factual findings, explained its legal analysis, and issued and entered a written custody order four days later. Among other things, the court ordered that Mother and Father would share joint physical and legal custody of the children and that Father would have tie-breaking authority solely on the question of where the children would attend school. The court ordered that the party with physical custody would make day-to-day decisions, and the court established also a detailed “unsupervised parenting time, visitation, and access” schedule organized primarily around the school year, given that the children had moved to Pennsylvania with Father. During the on-the-record session, the court found that the domestic violence exposures noted by the magistrate predated the June 2024 interim custody order, that the children and Father weren’t present at an incident in November 2024 (and therefore neither parent exposed the children to violence at that time), and that a different incident involving
Mother spitting on an aunt’s car “did not amount to domestic violence.” And the court stated expressly that “[t]he Court doesn’t find there’s been any abuse by either parent.”
Father noted a timely appeal
DISCUSSION
Father’s brief lists ten questions on appeal, which we have condensed and rephrased to two:
1. Did the circuit court err or abuse its discretion when it established legal and physical custody?
2. Did the circuit court err or abuse its discretion when it denied Father’s motion to transfer? 3
First, we hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion or err legally while setting custody. The ruling transcript reveals the circuit court reviewed the evidence before it thoughtfully and properly and performed all required analyses substantially. Second, we hold that the circuit court did not err legally when it denied the motion to transfer, as the circuit court retained properly its ongoing jurisdiction under the UCCJEA.
The standard of review for custody decisions is for an abuse of discretion, but we review de novo any “‘interpretation and application of statutory or case law.’” B.O. v. S.O., 252 Md. App. 486, 501 (2021) (quoting Kpetigo v. Kpetigo, 238 Md. App. 561, 568 (2018)). We defer to findings of fact unless clearly erroneous. Id. (citing Md. Rule 8-131(c)). “An abuse of discretion occurs ‘where no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court.’” Id. at 502 (quoting Floyd v. Balt. City Council, 241 Md. App. 199, 208 (2019)). As a statute, the interpretation and application of the UCCJEA within a custody action is also subject to de novo review. See B.O., 252 Md. App. at 501; Cf. also Beckwitt v. State, 477 Md. 398, 420 (2022) (matters of jurisdiction are reviewed de novo), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 216 (2022).
A. The Circuit Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion In Awarding Joint Legal Custody And Shared Physical Custody.
Although he states it in a variety of overlapping ways, Father’s main argument on appeal is that the circuit court failed to consider and apply the appropriate factors in reaching its decision to award joint legal and shared physical custody. Most of his contentions take the form of challenging the relative weight or significance afforded to particular arguments or pieces of evidence. As we began to evaluate his claims, Father’s failure to obtain the transcripts for the de novo merits hearing challenged our ability to see what happened in real time. Rather than dismissing his appeal on that basis, though, we are comfortable from the combination of the facts found in the magistrate’s report (to which the parties stipulated), the transcript of the circuit court’s on-the-record ruling, and the court’s written order that the court relied appropriately on the materials before it and considered the appropriate factors in reaching its conclusions.
Father’s second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth claims of error assert that the circuit court relied on improper evidence and failed to consider the factors in Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290 (1986) when it awarded joint legal custody and allocated
parenting time. See id., at 304–11 (compiling factors to consider when exercising discretion to determine best interests of the child regarding custody).
We disagree. Taking the latter of these first, the circuit court devoted thirty transcript pages (out of sixty-five) from its on-the-record ruling to the Taylor factors. The court walked carefully through the factors, identified the evidence and testimony on which it relied in considering them, weighed the evidence, and connected its findings to its ultimate conclusions to award joint legal custody and to divide physical custody and parenting time as it did. The court acknowledged, for example, that the parents have difficulty communicating, but made a point of finding that they have the capacity to communicate and share decisions so long as they honor the court’s Order and of stating that it “believe[d] that they can and will grow into the Order and that they have the capacity to basically grow into this relationship.”
We reiterate that courts aren’t required to write a rote checklist of the factors in every case or to address each factor individually on the record—what matters is that we can discern that the court considered them, and we can see from the court’s ruling, especially the transcript of the on-the-record ruling, that the court did so here. See Gizzo v. Gerstman, 245 Md. App. 168, 195–96 (2020) (“. . . [T]he court need not articulate every step of the judicial thought process in order to show that it has conducted the appropriate analysis.”).
Next, Father objects as well to the court’s review of his social media, characterizing it as extrajudicial. But as the court explained during the on-the-record ruling, the court checked Father’s publicly available social media presence solely to determine whether Father had complied with his earlier representation that he had taken down comments about the case, comments about a specific magistrate, and comments about the court, and the court saw that Father had not taken the posts down. Not only that, the court saw that Father posted a new and additional photograph, this time a photo of the courtroom from the hallway the morning of closing arguments. Even so, the court went on to consider these social media findings neutrally in evaluating Father’s character and reputation, and we see no abuse of discretion in its decision to view a public source bearing on Father’s own representations of his conduct, to reveal that viewing on the record, and to evaluate it neutrally. Father wasn’t prejudiced unfairly by the court’s analysis—to the extent the court’s review of Father’s social media affected the analysis at all, which it appears it didn’t, it came from the court verifying that Father hadn’t followed through on his representations to take down the inappropriate postings.
Father’s remaining evidentiary objections, as well as his sixth, eighth, and ninth points of error, relate to his protest that the circuit court reviewed Mother’s sensitive therapy records in camera and considered them in its custody decisions. But in the course of its on-the-record ruling, the circuit court noted and relied on the fact that Father consented to this in camera review:
I am going to start with the Court’s review of the . . . mental health therapy records, which were provided to the Court for an in-camera review. In
camera meaning they were provided to me for basically a confidential review. So that the parties understand what we are talking about here. This was done by the agreement of the parents. (emphasis added). Father’s attorney, who was present at the hearing, did not respond to the court’s statement or object to it and Father’s consent waived any objection he might have had. Moreover, the magistrate’s report and the interim orders resulting from that report directed Mother to continue receiving mental health services, entitled Father upon request to letters confirming her attendance and treatment status, and contemplated that her participation and progress in therapy could affect her custody and visitation opportunities. None of this should have been a surprise to Father, and the court didn’t abuse its discretion in reviewing these materials in camera and considering them in its custody decisions.
Then in his third asserted point of error, Father contends that that the circuit court failed to conduct a full analysis under Md. Code (1999, 2019 Repl. Vol.), § 9-101 of the Family Law Article (“FL”) despite evidence of abuse. The circuit court found as a matter of fact, in its bench ruling, that neither parent had abused the children. Normally, this factual finding means that a FL § 9-101 analysis is unnecessary unless the court has “reasonable grounds to believe that a child has been abused or neglected by a party to the proceeding.” FL § 9-101(a). A finding of neglect can also trigger FL § 9-101. Id. But in this case, there was no finding of neglect either and we are comfortable that the circuit court made appropriate findings in the context of the allegations in this case.
Under FL § 9-101, a custody court must find first whether any child has been abused or neglected by a party to the proceeding and, if so, then it must determine “whether abuse or neglect is likely to occur if custody or visitation rights are granted to the party.” FL § 9-101(a). “Unless the court specifically finds that there is no likelihood of further child abuse or neglect by the party, the court shall deny custody or visitation rights to that party, except that the court may approve a supervised visitation arrangement that assures the safety and the physiological, psychological, and emotional well-being of the child.” FL § 9-101(b).
There were no allegations of direct abuse or neglect in this case. The testimony before the magistrate identified incidents in which the children were or could have been exposed to violence, including domestic violence between the parents. The parties stipulated to every finding of fact in the magistrate’s report going into the de novo custody hearing, including the magistrate’s finding that C and D had “been exposed to much violence in and near the home by both parents” against each other and against third parties. It is true that exposure to domestic violence can sometimes rise to the level of neglect, cf., e.g., In re Adoption/Guardianship of Jasmine D., 217 Md. App. 718, 738 (2014); In the matter of J.R., 246 Md. App. 707, 753–54 (2020), and the magistrate’s report stated that the Court Evaluator had noted a finding by Baltimore City Child Protective Services of “Neglect” of at least one of the children by Father as a result of this exposure. But this earlier administrative finding wasn’t binding on the magistrate or the circuit court, and although the magistrate expressed concerns about both parents, the magistrate
stopped short of finding that the children had been abused or neglected. And in its on-the-record ruling, the circuit court found that the domestic violence exposures noted by the magistrate pre-dated the June 2024 interim custody order, that the children and Father weren’t present at an incident in November 2024 (and therefore neither parent exposed the children to violence at that time), and that a later incident involving Mother spitting on an aunt’s car “did not amount to domestic violence.” As such, the court’s finding left FL § 9-101 untriggered here, and its express finding that “[t]he Court doesn’t find there’s been any abuse by either parent” bolstered the point.
B. The Circuit Court Properly Maintained Its Exclusive and Continuing Jurisdiction When It Denied Father’s Motion To Transfer.
Finally, Father argues that the circuit court erred in denying his “motion to transfer jurisdiction.” He sought to invoke the UCCJEA, FL § 9.5-101 et seq, and claimed that because he had moved to Pennsylvania with the children for the six months preceding the motion, Maryland no longer had jurisdiction over custody determinations. He presses the same argument on appeal, and we agree with the circuit court’s decision to deny it.
Under the UCCJEA, absent emergency circumstances, a Maryland court has jurisdiction to make an initial child custody determination only if Maryland is “the home state of the child on the date of the commencement of the proceeding.” FL § 9.5-201(a)(1). A proceeding commences upon the filing of the first pleading—here, Mother’s initial Complaint for Custody. FL § 9.5-101(f). The UCCJEA also defines “home state” as “the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least 6 consecutive months . . . immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding ” FL § 9.5-101(h)(1). At the time of commencement, Father, Mother, and the children all still lived in Maryland and had for the preceding six months. Initial jurisdiction under the statute was proper. See FL § 9.5-201(a) (1). And the court made an initial custody determination by at least June 14, 2024, in its interim custody order docketed as
JUDGMENT
“Order
re: Exceptions.”
Once a court makes an initial custody determination, it retains exclusive, continuing jurisdiction over the determination until certain triggering events terminate it. FL § 9.5-202(a). Those triggers are:
(1) a court of this State determines that neither the child, the child and one parent, nor the child and a person acting as a parent have a significant connection with this State and that substantial evidence is no longer available in this State concerning the child’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships; or
(2) a court of this State or a court of another state determines that the child, the child’s parents, and any person acting as a parent do not presently reside in this State.
FL § 9.5-202(a)(1)–(2). We read the circuit court here as having determined either that the children or the children plus Mother still had a significant connection to Maryland or that substantial evidence concerning the children’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships was still available in Maryland. See FL § 9.5-202(a)(1). And the second termination trigger doesn’t apply because Mother resided and still resides in Maryland. Id.§ 9.5-202(a)(2).
We see no clear error in the circuit court’s implicit factual determinations. Although it’s true that Father and the children had moved to Pennsylvania more than six months before the motion, the children were still having supervised visits with Mother in Maryland under the then-existing interim custody order. After moving to Pennsylvania, Father maintained employment in Maryland with the federal Transportation Security Administration. The parents’ and the children’s connections to Maryland had not yet grown so attenuated that they could be deemed insignificant. See FL § 9.5-202(a) (1). And as the multiple hearings that followed the motion demonstrated, evidence was marshaled for presentation to the Maryland court easily and substantial evidence remained in Maryland. The circuit court retained exclusive and continuing jurisdiction and denied the motion to transfer the case to Pennsylvania at that time properly.
FOOTNOTES
1 We will refer to the children by randomly selected initials for the sake of their privacy.
2 Father did file an application for court-funded transcripts. This Court denied that application. On January 28, 2026, the Clerk of this Court requested by letter that Father take all necessary steps to obtain the transcripts to ensure that their inclusion in the record for consideration on appeal. Father did obtain the transcript for the August 4, 2025 hearing that contained the trial court’s reasoning and rulings, and that transcript is part of the record.
On February 13, 2026, Father filed a “Motion to Correct and Supplement the Record with Limited Transcript and Statement of Notable Judicial Errors.” His motion asked us to accept the transcript of the August 4, 2025 hearing and advised us that he cannot afford to order the transcripts for the hearings on July 2 and 3, 2025. Our rules require these transcripts for this appeal, see Maryland Rule 8-411(a), and Father’s failure to order them after receiving notice would lead us normally to issue an order directing Father to show cause why the appeal shouldn’t be dismissed. Because, however, Mother has not moved to dismiss (or otherwise participated in the appeal), because the custody of children is involved, and, importantly, because the parties stipulated ahead of the July hearing to all the factual findings contained in the magistrate’s report, we have determined that we can proceed without the transcripts and will do so here. We caution Father against relying on this strategy in the future—Maryland Rule 8-411(a) requires transcripts of the relevant proceedings and we will not make a habit of proceeding without them. We consider his motion granted insofar as the August 4 transcript is part of the record and otherwise deny it.
3 Father phrased the issues in his informal brief—which significantly exceeded the page limits for informal briefs, a violation of the Guidelines for Informal Briefs that we will not overlook in the future—as:
1. Did the Circuit Court for Baltimore County error or abuse its discretion by exercising jurisdiction and denying Myself Mr. Witherspoon’s Motion to Transfer Jurisdiction to Pennsylvania—where the children had been residing, attending school, and where an active Pennsylvania Protection From Abuse (PFA) order was in effect—by issuing a one-sentence order on June 13, 2025, stating only that the motion “does not present sufficient legal or factual basis for the relief requested,” without analyzing the UCCJEA factors or making findings on the record?
2. Did the circuit court commit reversible error by relying on extrajudicial information, including independently reviewing social-media content, in violation of judicial conduct rules and the right to a fair trial?
3. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion by failing to consider or properly weigh the existence of a Pennsylvania protective order and the documented history of domestic violence, contrary to Maryland Family Law § 9-101 and related case law?
4. Did the circuit court fail to make the required factual findings under Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290 (1986), before awarding joint legal custody and granting the mother substantial physical custody time?
5. Did the Circuit Court for Baltimore County commit reversible error by awarding joint legal custody and granting the mother substantial physical custody time without making the specific factual findings required under Taylor v. Taylor, 6. 306 Md. 290 (1986), and without articulating factor-by-factor reasoning sufficient for appellate review?
7. Did the circuit court base its custody findings on evidence not admitted at trial—including therapist reports, mentalhealth documentation, and other materials reviewed outside the record—in violation of evidentiary rules and the constitutional right to confrontation and cross-examination?
8. Did the circuit court fail to make adequate findings on the record by summarizing its decision rather than articulating factor-specific findings sufficient for appellate review, thereby violating the requirements established in Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290 (1986)?
9. Did the circuit court improperly consider hearsay and unsworn therapist statements that were never admitted into evidence, contrary to Maryland evidentiary rules and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
10. Did the circuit court violate due process and the Maryland Rules of Evidence by reviewing and relying upon undisclosed documentation, including mental-health records and psychological materials, without providing the Father an opportunity to inspect, object, or challenge such evidence?
11. Did the Circuit Court abuse its discretion by imposing all transportation and custody-exchange obligations upon the Father, despite the Father’s residence in Pennsylvania and the long-distance nature of the exchanges, without making findings concerning the financial, logistical, and practical burdens of interstate travel, and without requiring the Mother to share or participate in transportation?
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court vacated the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s refusal to reopen discovery to address newly discovered evidence, allegedly showing husband falsely testified at trial regarding his company’s income and the sale of a vehicle. These facts are material to the determination of a monetary award, attorney’s fees and child support. The circuit court also abused its discretion in determining husband’s actual income by misallocating the burden of proof to wife.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
Taycan, which began in April 2022. Mr. Philippe confirmed that the Porsche Taycan lease would end in March 2025, and that he had claimed depreciation and expenses for both vehicles on Avyon’s 2022 tax filing.2 On that same filing, Mr. Philippe represented that both vehicles were used entirely for business purposes. Avyon’s 2022 tax filing also reflected deductions of $31,269 for “auto expense” and $703 for “parking fees and tolls.”
Ms. Hardy testified that she drove the G 63 after Mr. Philippe began leasing the Porsche in April 2022, contradicting Mr. Philippe’s representation that both vehicles were used exclusively for business. At trial, Mr. Philippe testified that he sold the G 63 and used the proceeds—$65,000—to pay his personal IRS tax debt. The circuit court credited this testimony and found that Avyon “purchased a 2016 Mercedes G[ ]63 in 2022 and it was sold in 2023 to pay significant IRS debt which accrued during the marriage[.]” The court further noted that Mr. Philippe’s initial $68,000 check to the IRS was returned for insufficient funds and was replaced with a $58,000 check. The court did not provide findings as to the $10,000 discrepancy.
This case arises from divorce proceedings 1 in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County between Ameshia Hardy, appellant, and Jeffrey Philippe, appellee. Ms. Hardy contends that the circuit court abused its discretion by refusing to reopen discovery to address newly discovered evidence, which she alleges shows that Mr. Philippe falsely testified at trial regarding his company’s income and the sale of a vehicle.
Ms. Hardy noted her appeal on November 4, 2024, and presented six questions for our review, which we have recast and rephrased as one: Did the circuit court abuse its discretion by denying Ms. Hardy’s motion to reopen discovery?
For the following reasons, we answer that question in the affirmative and reverse and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
BACKGROUND
I. Factual Background
The Vehicles
At trial, Mr. Philippe testified that he purchased a MercedesBenz G 63 (“G 63”) for $131,510 in “all cash,” and that his S corporation, Avyon Consulting Group, Inc. (“Avyon”), had paid for it. Although the vehicle was purchased entirely with company funds, Mr. Philippe testified that it was titled in his personal name. Avyon also paid the lease on a Porsche
After the close of evidence, and while the circuit court had the matter under advisement, Ms. Hardy alleges that she discovered that Mr. Philippe had not in fact sold the G 63, a marital asset acquired during the marriage for $131,510, as he had testified.4 She contends that Mr. Philippe thus retained ownership of a valuable marital asset, while falsely representing that it had been sold to pay tax obligations.
Avyon Consulting Group, Inc.
Mr. Philippe is the sole owner of Avyon, an aviation consulting S corporation. Avyon’s 2022 tax filing reflected gross receipts of $2,108,977, ordinary business income of $669,591, and distributions to Mr. Philippe of $225,147. Mr. Philippe’s stock basis before those distributions was $1,084,068. As of December 31, 2022, Avyon had cash reserves of $551,513 and a total balance of $695,731. Ms. Hardy attempted to call an expert witness to testify to the valuation of Avyon; however, the circuit court excluded this expert for failure to timely disclose the witness in discovery responses.5 Accordingly, there was limited information beyond the parties’ testimony and Avyon’s 2022 tax documentation to determine Avyon’s value.
Mr. Philippe testified that he, alone, sets the pay scale and salary for himself and others at Avyon. He testified that his income for the 2022 tax year was $192,308, his Avyon salary. He also acknowledged that he reduced his biweekly pay from $7,629 to $5,769.23 in March 2023, “when this case was filed[.]”
Mr. Philippe further testified that he used Avyon’s credit card to pay for personal meals, that Avyon paid his cell phone bill, and that he had borrowed approximately $25,000 from Avyon to pay his personal legal fees in the instant divorce litigation.
Critically, Mr. Philippe testified that Avyon had lost a lucrative government contract with the Army. When asked about existing contracts, Mr. Philippe responded: “We -- well, we had a contract with . . . the Army, but that got cancelled in February -- not cancelled, but it was terminated, not terminated, but it was over.” Mr. Philippe testified that this contract had generated $14,000 per month. The circuit court relied on Mr. Philippe’s claim of contract loss in crediting his testimony that Avyon’s income in 2023 and 2024 bore no relation to its 2022 income. The court found:
In 2022, Avyon had its highest level of income since the inception of the business. However, in July 2022, Avyon received notice from the [f]ederal government that [it was] not exercising [its] option to continue a lucrative contract with Avyon, which caused a tremendous drop in income for the company. Avyon has run a loss for the year 2023.
Ms. Hardy alleges that, after the close of evidence, she discovered public documents indicating that Avyon had not lost the government contracts which Mr. Philippe had described as terminated. She contends this newly discovered evidence is material to the determination of Mr. Philippe’s income for purposes of the child support calculation and monetary award.
II. Procedural History
Following the divorce trial, and prior to the circuit court’s issuance of its judgment on a monetary award, child support, and attorney’s fees, Ms. Hardy filed two post-trial motions: (1) a motion compelling presentation of additional testimony and evidence and to initiate perjury inquiry,6 filed on April 2, 2024; and (2) a motion to reopen discovery to depose Mr. Philippe, filed on April 18, 2024. The court denied the April 18 motion to reopen discovery, without a hearing, on April 22, 2024.7 More than three months later, the court denied the motion compelling additional testimony, without a hearing, on July 25, 2024.
The circuit court issued its opinion, order, and judgment of absolute divorce on July 25, 2024, though it was not docketed by the clerk until September 3, 2024. The court stated that it “credits the testimony of [Mr. Philippe] over that of [Ms. Hardy]” and found Mr. Philippe “substantially more credible” than Ms. Hardy. The court calculated ongoing child support at $131 per month, and declined to grant a monetary award, Crawford credits, and attorneys’ fees. 8
On October 1, 2024, Ms. Hardy filed a timely amended motion to exercise revisory power pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-535. The circuit court denied that motion in an order docketed October 8, 2024. Ms. Hardy noted her appeal on November 4, 2024.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
In an appeal from the denial of a motion to reopen discovery, or, in the alternative, to exercise a court’s revisory power, our review is limited to whether the circuit court abused its
discretion. See Della Ratta v. Dyas, 183 Md. App. 344, 374 (2008), judgment aff’d, 414 Md. 556 (2010) (“The discretion that a court exercises to receive or reject additional evidence after trial is very broad.”); see also Barrett v. Barrett, 240 Md. App. 581, 591 (2019) (noting that the trial court’s ruling on a motion to exercise its revisory power is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and “that discretion is ‘always tempered by the requirement that the court correctly apply the law applicable to the case.”) (quotation omitted). Under the abuse of discretion standard, appellate courts “accord great deference to the findings and judgments of trial judges, sitting in their equitable capacity, when conducting divorce proceedings.” Goicochea v. Goicochea, 256 Md. App. 329, 357 (2022) (quoting Tracey v. Tracey, 328 Md. 380, 385 (1992)). This Court “may not substitute our judgment for that of the fact finder, even if we might have reached a different result, absent an abuse of discretion.” Nouri v. Dadgar, 245 Md. App. 324, 342 (2020) (quotation omitted). “A discretionary ruling, however, is not boundless and must Accordingly, the order “relieve[d] the uncertainties that [] result[ed]” from the court’s memorandum opinion. Id. at 479. be tethered to reason Appellate courts will not affirm a trial court’s discretionary rulings ‘when the judge has resolved the issue on unreasonable or untenable grounds.’” Levitas v. Christian, 454 Md. 233, 243 (2017) (quotation omitted).
“[W]e review the trial court’s factual findings [pertaining to child support, alimony, and the monetary award] for clear error, while each ultimate award is reviewed for abuse of discretion.” Reynolds v. Reynolds, 216 Md. App. 205, 218-19 (2014) (citations omitted).
DISCUSSION
I. The Circuit Court Abused Its Discretion In Denying Ms. Hardy’s Motion To Reopen Discovery.
A. The Parties’ Arguments
Ms. Hardy contends that Mr. Philippe “made material misrepresentations regarding his and his business’ financial condition and whether a substantial marital asset had been sold[.]” She argues that the continued ownership of the G 63 and Avyon’s retention of its government contract9 are “essential facts” because they bear directly on the determination of a monetary award, attorney’s fees, and child support. Ms. Hardy argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by refusing to reopen evidence, which “impacted [its] analysis on all of the pending issues.”
Mr. Philippe, who filed a pro se brief, does not appear to address Ms. Hardy’s arguments regarding her motion to reopen discovery, which she filed prior to the judgment.10 Rather, Mr. Philippe contends, citing to no case law or other legal authority, that the circuit court properly declined to exercise its revisory power under Maryland Rule 2-535 because the court made no finding of fraud, mistake or irregularity.
Ms. Hardy argues that the circuit court erred in determining the amount of child support that Mr. Philippe owed to her. Ms. Hardy does not contest the court’s use of the child support guidelines as errant; rather, her contentions are limited to the court’s reliance on Mr. Philippe’s representations regarding
his income. Mr. Philippe counters that there was no error in the court’s child support calculation because “[t]he child support calculation reflected the parties’ respective incomes as supported by pay stubs, tax filings, and testimony.”
B. Legal Framework
1. Receiving or Rejecting Additional Evidence After Trial
A circuit court’s discretion to receive or reject additional evidence once trial is over “is very broad.” Della Ratta, 183 Md. App. at 374. In deciding whether to reopen discovery, the court considers the following factors: “whether the proffered evidence is ‘essential’ to a party’s case or ‘supplemental,’ whether a party will be improperly prejudiced, and whether the omission was inadvertent.” Id. (citing Cooper v. Sacco, 357 Md. 622, 637, 638-39, 640 (2000)). When “the ends of justice will be subserved” by admitting further evidence, “it is the court’s ‘plain duty to allow further proof to come in.” Della Ratta, 183 Md. App at 374 (quoting Bradford v. Eutaw Savings Bank, 186 Md. 127, 131 (1946)). Indeed, the Supreme Court of Maryland has held that a circuit court abuses its discretion by not reopening a trial when the evidence sought is material to the party’s case. See Cooper, 357 Md. at 638-40 (explaining that, where facts are “‘necessary evidence for a proper consideration of the case,’ . . . it [is] a proper exercise of discretion for the trial judge to reopen the case”) (citation omitted). Conversely, “most of the cases in Maryland that affirm the denial of a motion to reopen the case have dealt with motions to submit supplemental or needless evidence, or evidence that [the court] held had already been submitted through alternative means.” Id. at 642.
The calculation of child support is one area where newly discovered evidence may be especially material. “[T]he central factual issue [in child support determinations] is the ‘actual adjusted income’ of each party,” and “the trial court must ascertain each parent’s ‘actual income[,]’” even in above-guidelines cases. 11 Reichert v. Hornbeck, 210 Md. App. 282, 316 (2013) (quotation omitted); see also Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law (“FL”) (1984, 2019 Repl. Vol.) §§ 12-201(c) (1); 12-204(a)(1). Maryland law defines “actual income”12 as “income from any source.” FL § 12-201(b)(1).
For self-employment or ownership of a closely held corporation, “‘actual income’ means gross receipts minus ordinary and necessary expenses required to produce income.” Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 317 (citing FL § 12-201(b) (2)). With respect to S corporations13 in particular, “a court considering such issues must take special care to ensure that the parent is not utilizing the S corporation to manipulate his or her income to avoid child support obligations.” Walker v. Grow, 170 Md. App. 255, 281 (2006) (emphasis added). Critically, “the party seeking to exclude the unrealized or pass-through income [] bears the burden of persuasion as to why the court should disregard the information provided within his or her income tax documentation in calculating child support.” Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 327 n.11; see also Walker, 170 Md. App. at 281 (“The burden is on the parent seeking to exclude pass-through income from actual income to persuade the court that the pass-through income is not available for child support purposes.”).
When “making an actual income determination, ‘[t]he court must verify the parents’ income statements ‘with documentation of both current and past actual income.’” Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 318 (internal citations and emphasis omitted); see also FL § 12-203(b)(1). “[B]onuses already paid to a parent should be used to calculate child support even though it is unknown whether such a bonus will be paid in the future.” Johnson v. Johnson, 152 Md. App. 609, 622 (2003).
With these principles in mind, we turn to whether the circuit court abused its discretion in declining to grant Ms. Hardy’s motion to reopen discovery.
C. Analysis
The circuit court abused its discretion in denying Ms. Hardy’s motion to reopen discovery.
1. The Mercedes-Benz G 63
At trial, Mr. Philippe testified that he sold the G 63 and used the $65,000 proceeds to pay his IRS tax debt. The circuit court credited this testimony and found accordingly. Ms. Hardy alleges, however, that after the close of evidence, she discovered that the vehicle had not in fact been sold. If true, this information is material in at least two respects: first, the G 63—acquired during the marriage for $131,510—is potentially a marital asset subject to equitable distribution; and second, Mr. Philippe’s continued ownership and use of the vehicle, entirely funded through Avyon, would potentially constitute an in-kind benefit that should be included in his actual income for purposes of calculating child support. FL § 12-201(b)(3) (xvi).
2. Avyon’s Government Contracts
Whether Avyon retained its Army contract is likewise material. Mr. Philippe’s testimony that the contract ended was foundational to the circuit court’s determination of his income for 2023 and 2024.
If public documents show that the Army contract was not terminated—and that Avyon continued to receive $14,000 per month under that contract—that evidence would directly undermine the factual predicate on which the court’s income determination rested. Evidence that rebuts a key factual finding on which the circuit court relied in calculating child support constitutes “necessary evidence for a proper consideration of the case[.]” Cooper, 357 Md. at 639. The circuit court was required, not merely permitted, to reopen discovery to allow that evidence to be presented. Id. at 638-40.
Moreover, Avyon’s contract status is material to Mr. Philippe’s credibility. The circuit court expressly stated that it credited Mr. Philippe’s testimony over Ms. Hardy’s in its evaluation of the parties’ claims. Evidence that Mr. Philippe misrepresented the status of Avyon’s contracts—a matter directly relevant to his income—would be material not only to the child support calculation but also to the court’s global assessment of Mr. Philippe’s credibility, which permeated every aspect of the court’s ruling.
At oral argument before this Court, Mr. Philippe’s counsel conceded that “if there is anything to [Ms. Hardy’s] allegations, it [is] a material deviation.” On remand, the circuit court must permit discovery into Ms. Hardy’s allegations.
3. The circuit court abused its discretion in determining Mr. Philippe’s actual income.
Though not raised by the parties, we address the circuit court’s determination of Mr. Philippe’s actual income for guidance on remand. See Md. Rule 8-131(a) (Maryland appellate courts “may decide [] an issue if necessary or desirable to guide the trial court or to avoid the expense and delay of another appeal.”)
Independent of the newly discovered evidence, the court’s actual income determination for Mr. Philippe was legally incorrect. Because the parties’ combined adjusted actual income exceeded $30,000, the case was above-guidelines, FL § 12-204(e), and the court was required to exercise its discretion to set child support in a manner consistent with the “best interests and needs of the child [balanced] with the parents’ financial ability to meet those needs.” Kaplan v. Kaplan, 248 Md. App. 358, 387 (2020) (quotation omitted).
The court stated that it would “enter the monthly income for each party into the child support guidelines worksheet applicable in this matter based upon each party’s wages.”14 But the statute requires calculation of each parent’s adjusted actual income—not merely wages. FL §§ 12-201(b) (3); 12-204(a)(1). As Ms. Hardy’s trial counsel correctly argued, actual income includes in-kind payments and expense reimbursements that reduce a parent’s personal living expenses. FL § 12-201(b)(3)(xvi). As stated above, “a court considering such issues must take special care to ensure that the parent is not utilizing the S corporation to manipulate his or her income to avoid child support obligations.” Walker, 170 Md. App. at 281 (emphasis added). This plainly did not happen here.
Despite hearing testimony from Mr. Philippe that Avyon had, in fact, paid for Mr. Philippe’s personal expenses, including his meals, his cell phone bill, his divorce legal fees, the G 63, the Porsche,15 and possibly his home security system, the court inexplicably stated that “[t]here is no basis upon which the [c]ourt can conclude that [Mr. Philippe]’s 2023 income is anything other than the 2023 evidence which consists of [Mr. Philippe]’s 2023 paystubs and salary.”
Under Reichert and Walker, it was Mr. Philippe’s burden to demonstrate that the benefits flowing through Avyon should not have been included in his actual income. Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 327 n.11; Walker, 170 Md. App. at 281. He did not carry that burden, and the circuit court erred in imposing on Ms. Hardy the burden to establish that those benefits should be included.
The following colloquy from trial illustrates the court’s misallocation of the burden of proof:
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Except under 12-201, subsection 3, Roman numeral XVI, you need to include in his income expense reimbursement or in-kind payments received by parent in the course of employment, self-employment, or operation of business, to the extent the reimbursement or payments reduce the parent’s personal living expenses
THE COURT: That’s not what I said. What you’re making now is an argument what I should
supplement the child support with.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Well, no. What you should actually find, what his expenses were that were paid for by his business and include that in his income.
THE COURT: Based upon what [Mr. Philippe] testified today?
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Well, based upon all of the evidence --
THE COURT: No, no. Based upon -- based on what he testified, because [Ms. Hardy] didn’t testify about any of his business expenses.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You clearly know that the lease to the car is a benefit, you clearly heard [Mr. Philippe] say all of his car expenses are paid for by the business. His auto insurance is paid for by the business. His utilities at home.
THE COURT: Wait, wait. Aren’t those the same vehicles that he uses for work?
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Two vehicles. THE COURT: Okay. But -[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Two vehicles. His cell phone.
THE COURT: Well, I’m saying, but those -- we actually didn’t hear anything about -- you just asked whether his cell phone was paid by the business. [MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Yes.
THE COURT: Not whether his personal cell phone. [MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Oh, yes, I did.
THE COURT: No, you said whether his cell phone [was] paid [for] by the business.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: That’s exactly right. He has one cell phone and that’s what he said.
THE COURT: Well, no -- look. Counsel, because I wrote it, you said, [“]Do you have a cell phone?[”] He said, [“]Yes.[”] Is that paid --
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: He didn’t say -- but he didn’t say I have two.
THE COURT: Well, you didn’t ask him.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: I didn’t have to. He said he had a cell phone. * * *
THE COURT: Yes. I don’t know whether it’s one phone call a year for personal or whether it’s all the phone calls.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: What’s the difference?
THE COURT: I didn’t hear that he made any phone calls for personal.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: And you didn’t hear that he made any for business either and you didn’t hear that he had a second one.
THE COURT: Well, so what? So if I didn’t hear he made any -- he said that the business paid for it.
But if I didn’t hear he used it for personal -- I’m just saying. Let’s wrap up.
(Emphases added.) The court further stated in its opinion that, though “[Ms. Hardy] asserts that some of the business expenses, in which the particular amounts were
not made clear to the court, should be considered payment of [Mr. Philippe]’s personal living expenses” and “should be considered income for [Mr. Philippe,]” it “heard no evidence to allow it to identify any portion of any particular amount of business expenses that should be considered income for [Mr. Philippe].” The court opined: [Mr. Philippe] testified that his government contract was unexpectedly canceled in 2022, that Avyon [] ran at loss in 2023[,] and that Avyon[]’s 2022 income has no relation whatsoever to its income in 2023 or 2024. [Ms. Hardy] provided no evidence to the contrary. * * *
[Ms. Hardy] failed to offer any evidence showing what portion of any expense paid by Avyon [] was attributable to [Mr. Philippe]’s personal living expense as opposed to [Mr. Philippe]’s business use. There was never a time when [Ms. Hardy] offered any evidence of the portion of any business expense which should be attributed to [Mr. Philippe]’s personal living expense in 2023, the year the parties separated[,] or in the year 2024. (Emphases added.)
This colloquy and these opinion excerpts reveal that the circuit court misallocated the burden of proof to Ms. Hardy. As Reichert and Walker make clear, it was Mr. Philippe— not Ms. Hardy—who bore the burden of demonstrating that Avyon’s payment of his personal living expenses should not be included in his actual income for child support purposes.16 Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 327 n.11; Walker, 170 Md. App. at 281. A court that frames the legal issue through an incorrect allocation of the burden of proof has, by definition, resolved the issue on untenable grounds. See Levitas v. Christian, 454 Md. 233, 243 (2017) (quotation omitted).
Because the court excluded Avyon’s payments of Mr. Philippe’s personal expenses from its income calculation without requiring Mr. Philippe to carry his burden of justifying that exclusion, it calculated child support on an incomplete and legally unsupported income figure. Accordingly, we hold that the court abused its discretion in determining Mr. Philippe’s actual income. We vacate the court’s child support determination and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
On remand, the circuit court must calculate child support based on the parties’ adjusted actual income consistent with FL §§ 12-201 and 12-204. The court must also ensure that any pass-through or in-kind income from Avyon is appropriately evaluated, with the burden resting on Mr. Philippe to establish why it should be excluded. See Reichert, 210 Md. App. at 327 n.11; Walker, 170 Md. App. at 281. Upon remand, additional tax documentation will likely be available, including 2024 and 2025 tax returns both for Mr. Philippe, personally, and for Avyon. The court should permit discovery for a period sufficient to encompass the filing deadline for 2025 tax returns. Because we are remanding this case for a re-evaluation of the child support calculation, we will also vacate the interrelated orders regarding the monetary award and counsel fees. See St. Cyr v. St. Cyr, 228 Md. App. 163, 198 (2016).
D. Remaining Considerations on Remand
We provide the following considerations for guidance to the circuit court on remand. See Md. Rule 8-131(a).
On remand, the court should ensure that the issue of Crawford credits is properly analyzed. Crawford credits are granted to a party when a payor-spouse is entitled to contribution from a non-payor spouse for expenses for jointly owned property. See Crawford v. Crawford, 293 Md. 307, 309 (1982) (citations omitted). “[A] trial judge is ‘not obligated to award such contribution between husband and wife at the time of a divorce” because “contribution is an equitable remedy within the discretion of the court.” Gordon v. Gordon, 174 Md. App. 583, 641-42 (2007) (quotation and citations omitted). “There are four exceptions that preclude contribution; namely (1) ouster; (2) agreements to the contrary; (3)[]payment from marital property; and (4) an inequitable result.” Caccamise v. Caccamise, 130 Md. App. 505, 525 (2000).
With respect to attorney’s fees, “[i]f, in the exercise of its discretion, the court chooses to award attorney’s fees, then [FL] Section 12-103(b) requires the court to consider three things: (1) the financial status of each party; (2) the needs of each party; and (3) whether each party had a substantial justification for its position in the proceeding.” McMorrow v. King, 264 Md. App. 708, 737 (2025) (citing Davis v. Petito, 425 Md. 191, 201 (2012); Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 468 (1994)) (citation omitted).
II. The Circuit Court’s Demeanor Warrants Reassignment On Remand.
Although the issue of judicial demeanor was not formally raised by the parties, our review of the trial transcript, taken together with the circuit court’s errant legal reasoning, causes us sufficient concern to order reassignment on remand. See Md. Rule 8-131(a).
A. Legal Framework
This Court has recognized that judges “have wide latitude in the conduct of trials and may, when necessary, interrupt and restrict attorneys in the presentation of their cases in an attempt to assure a correct presentation.” Ricker v. Ricker, 114 Md. App. 583, 594 (1997) (citation omitted). “Particularly in non-jury cases, a trial judge is accorded substantial leeway in participating in the trial because the judge functions as a trier of fact as well.” Id. But we cautioned in Ricker that:
Active involvement by a judge … must be done prudently. A judge who makes comments that devalue a litigant’s presentation midstream may not be forwarding the goals of a fair trial, but instead may lead the restricted party to believe that the judge is unwilling to listen. A judge who creates a courtroom atmosphere that appears unfair to the litigants may unintentionally cause the proceeding to become unfair. The litigants may react by abandoning a planned strategy or line of questioning that could affect the result or the record. A judge’s participation should not overreach and disrupt a litigant’s development of the evidence. Such behavior can transcend the
bounds of proper judicial conduct and can go so far as to deprive a litigant of the right to a fair trial.
Id. at 594-95 (citing Western Md. Dairy Corp., et al. v. Brown, 169 Md. 257, 266 (1935)). “The attorneys developing their cases in the courtroom under our adversary system should not be unreasonably restrained from offering relevant evidence to try to convince either the courts or juries to decide in their favor.” Ricker, 114 Md. App. at 598.
Moreover, the Maryland Code of Judicial Conduct requires that judges “be patient, dignified, and courteous to litigants, . . . witnesses, attorneys, . . . and others[.]” See Matter of Ademiluyi, 488 Md. 45, 105 (2024) (quoting Md. Rule 18-102.8(b)). Judges must also “perform the duties of judicial office . . . without bias or prejudice[.]” See Matter of Ademiluyi, 488 Md. at 119 (quoting Md. Rule 18-102.3(a)).
Analysis
After careful review of the trial transcript, we are deeply troubled by the circuit court’s demeanor and conduct throughout these proceedings. The record reveals conduct that created an environment not conducive to the fair and orderly administration of justice—particularly as it affected Ms. Hardy’s counsel in his examination of the critical financial issues at the core of this case.
The most significant episode occurred during the following colloquy:
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: All right. So I think you need to add some income to him under the statute that I just cited to and redo the guidelines that I’ve submitted to you. And then there’s got to be an arrear --
THE COURT: Wait, wait. Why didn’t you do that?
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Because, respectfully, I didn’t know what the finder of fact would determine.
THE COURT: But you had -- you had to have some idea to litigate this case as to what his income would be to know that support should be much larger or larger. You had to have some idea.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: I wasn’t willing to speculate as to how much more to add to his income. * * *
So [Avyon’s 2022 tax return is] the one that we have to look at and we’ve gone through it ad nauseam because you made me shorten up the questions that I was going to ask
THE COURT: I didn’t make you shorten up the questions. No, I didn’t. I just said -- no, [Mr. Philippe’s counsel] kept objecting that they were -- that they were leading statements.
I didn’t -- I told you, I was going to let you finish [with] the witness. No, I didn’t make you shorten up. I told you to bring up the [e]xhibits, that’s what I told you to do, rather than going back and forth. I allowed you all the time and kept asking you if you had any other questions.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You did tell me to expedite noting the [e]xhibits, but I want you to []
know that --
THE COURT: No, [c]ounsel, that’s not what I said. * * *
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You did say that. * * *
And I will indicate to you that I have three boxes of material here all labeled with [e]xhibits and I was trying, at Your Honor’s request, to limit and expedite the presentation.
THE COURT: Counsel, let’s stop this. You’re not going to put down the [c]ourt, no, no. I asked you no matter how many you had --
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You did, sir.
THE COURT: -- to bring them up and give them to the [c]lerk.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You did.
THE COURT: And I was prepared to go tomorrow, next week, whenever, because I said get through your witness. You were not cut off in asking this witness questions. You were not cut off in presenting documents to the witness. I just said bring all the [e]xhibits up at one time, as opposed to making 15 trips. That’s all I was -- let’s finish argument.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: You know I respect Your Honor’s ruling and I’m going to abide by it, but you need to hear me say that I was uncomfortable in how you dealt with me and I did feel cut off and
THE COURT: Well, [c]ounsel, wait.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: -- I don’t want to disrespect the [c]ourt.
THE COURT: You never said -- you never said anything. Strike that. What [Mr. Philippe’s] [c] ounsel objected to was you continuing to lead your witness. This was your witness you called.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: The opposing party.
THE COURT: You didn’t ask -- offer him that way. You just called, I said, [“]Call your next witness.[”] [MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: And I called him. Thank you, Your Honor.
(Emphases added.)
This exchange is troubling in two respects. First, it demonstrates the very conduct that Ricker cautioned against: a courtroom atmosphere in which counsel felt unable to fully develop his client’s evidence, and was told—in response to a professionally voiced concern—that he would not be permitted to “put down the [c]ourt.” 114 Md. App. at 594-95 (citation omitted). Second, this type of judicial reaction is likely to discourage counsel from raising such issues at all. Counsel should be able to preserve such issues for appeal without being discouraged to do so by the demeanor and/or anticipated reaction of the presiding judge.
The transcript reveals numerous additional instances of the court cutting short Ms. Hardy’s counsel during critical testimony. During examination of Mr. Philippe, when Ms. Hardy’s counsel attempted to explore the ownership and titling of the G 63—a fact central to the marital asset determination—the court inexplicably sustained an objection
to the question as leading17 and added, “Counsel, I heard you earlier. Let’s move on.” In the midst of Ms. Hardy’s counsel’s examination of Mr. Philippe regarding Avyon’s individual contracts, the court interrupted:
THE COURT: And what’s the relevance?
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Gross income to pay his salary.
[MR. PHILIPPE’S COUNSEL]: I would ask [Ms. Hardy’s counsel] to re-ask that question.
THE COURT: Say that again?
[MR. PHILIPPE’S COUNSEL]: I would ask that Mr. Philippe be asked that question, what’s the gross, rather than going through it per contract.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: That’s not the question that I asked.
THE COURT: We know that. But that’s the question, because otherwise we’re going to be here all day[.]
THE COURT: Next question.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: The problem with that is, Your Honor, that we’ve gotten no documents on that issue.
THE COURT: Excuse me, we got zero documents basically yesterday. I’m just saying.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: I hear you. But we’ve gotten no documents on these issues.
THE COURT: Wait, wait, wait. That’s why this is not discovery.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: I understand that.
THE COURT: You could have done this before, you could have taken a deposition.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Actually --
THE COURT: I’m just saying we could have done this. You could have asked for them and subpoenaed and then come to [c]ourt and asked them. Because I have -- during lunchtime I wasn’t eating, I was ruling on other motions during that time, motion to compel, motion for sanctions.
The court’s direction to bypass individual contract questions in favor of asking for a gross income figure is itself significant: it foreclosed the very line of questioning that, had it been permitted to develop, might have revealed that Avyon’s government contract had not been terminated. The court thereby cut off evidence that was central to a determination of Mr. Philippe’s income.
Similarly, when Ms. Hardy’s counsel attempted to question Mr. Philippe about whether Avyon paid for his personal expenses, 18 the court repeatedly interjected: “I thought we just went through that. We did, let’s not be repetitive. Next question.”; “We went through what his car expenses were earlier, too.”; “Counsel, didn’t we go through that?”; and “Counsel, are we doing discovery here?” The question of personal benefits paid by Avyon was not collateral—it was directly relevant to the calculation of Mr. Philippe’s actual income under FL § 12-201(b)(3)(xvi).
Even from the cold record, it is evident that the court rushed Ms. Hardy’s counsel through his examination of Mr. Philippe:
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: So you haven’t -- you reduced your pay when the lawsuit got filed, but you haven’t reduced since the lawsuit was filed; is that correct?
[MR. PHILIPPE’S COUNSEL]: Objection. That’s a mischaracterization.
THE COURT: Absolutely. Yes.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Bear with me. How many contracts do you have at this time in the company?
[Mr. Philippe]: I have --
THE COURT: Counsel, is that relevant here? No.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Very well, Your Honor.
THE COURT: It’s not.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Bear with me.
THE COURT: Anything else for this witness? [MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Bear with me.
THE COURT: Well, let’s move on, because this -we’ve been here -- we started after 2:00, so we had a lot of time to prepare for this witness.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: There’s a lot of evidence to get through.
THE COURT: All right. Once again, give the [c] lerk all the [e]xhibits that you’re going to use so that she can mark them. Give the [c]lerk all the [e] xhibits that will be used -- for this witness, for this witness.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Judge, after this [e] xhibit, I’m happy to do it, if you can just give me five minutes.
THE COURT: Five minutes? No, no, we’re not taking five minutes out, Counsel. To get an [e] xhibit.
[MS. HARDY’S COUNSEL]: Well, I want to see how many more [e]xhibits I want to use.
THE COURT: Next question to the witness. Let’s move on.
The court also expressed its desire to move quickly throughout both days of trial. On multiple occasions, the court stated: “Let’s not repeat ourselves”; “I’m trying to allow [an objected-to question] so we can move on”; overruled an objection on the grounds that “this is the second day, I’m trying to get you all to move on”; and, when both parties’ counsel momentarily stepped aside to confer and potentially “resolve [] more” on their own, the court indicated that it would “sit here while [they] all walk out and do whatever” so that it “may hasten [them] all a bit.” When Mr. Philippe’s counsel needed additional time to examine Ms. Hardy, the court responded, “[T]oday is the day for this witness. Let’s wrap up. . . . We’re not going back and forth.” Taken in isolation, these statements might reflect ordinary docket management. Viewed cumulatively, they reveal a pattern of rushing that fell disproportionately on the presentation of evidence relating to Mr. Philippe’s income.
The court’s written opinion reflects the same asymmetry. The court discussed at length Ms. Hardy’s personal expenditures—including plastic surgery, vacations, manicures, and dry cleaning—while making
no corresponding comment on Mr. Philippe’s personal spending or the personal benefits that he derived from Avyon. The court stated that Ms. Hardy “complains of credit card, mortgage and student loan debt, [while] [Mr. Philippe] has credit card debt, mortgage debt[,] and two million dollars19 of IRS debt,”20 a rhetorical framing that suggests the court had prejudged the comparative sympathies of the parties. (Emphases added.)
Although the concern raised by Ms. Hardy’s counsel that the judge “made [him] shorten up the questions that [he] was going to ask” was not a question presented in Ms. Hardy’s brief, our review of the March 4 and 5 transcript, taken into consideration with the circuit court’s clearly erroneous findings of fact, causes us sufficient concern that we will
order the Administrative Judge of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County to assign this case to a different judge upon remand.
CONCLUSION
We hold that the circuit court abused its discretion by denying Ms. Hardy’s motion to reopen discovery. Accordingly, we reverse the court’s April 22, 2024 order, vacate the child support award and interrelated determinations as to a monetary award and attorney’s fees, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. We further order the Administrative Judge of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County to assign this case to a different judge on remand.
ORDER OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, DATED APRIL 22, 2024, REVERSED; JUDGMENT DATED SEPTEMBER 3, 2024, VACATED AS TO THE CHILD SUPPORT, MONETARY AWARD, AND ATTORNEY’S FEES DETERMINATIONS, AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION;
THE ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE FOR THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY IS ORDERED TO ASSIGN THE CASE TO A DIFFERENT JUDGE; THE CIRCUIT COURT IS ORDERED TO REOPEN DISCOVERY IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DESIGNATION OF EXPERT WITNESSES AND A DISCOVERY PERIOD OF SUFFICIENT LENGTH TO ENCOMPASS THE FILING DEADLINE FOR 2025 FEDERAL AND STATE INCOME TAX RETURNS; COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLEE.
FOOTNOTES
1 Ms. Hardy filed her original complaint for divorce on March 16, 2023. Mr. Philippe filed a counter-claim for divorce on September 13, 2023.
2 Ms. Hardy phrased the questions as follows:
1. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred in not reopening the case so that the issues raised by [Ms. Hardy] in her post-trial motions could be addressed[.]
2. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred in awarding [Mr. Philippe] “C[r]awford Credits[.]”
3. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred when it calculated the “Crawford Credits[.]”
4. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred in not making a marital award in favor of [Ms. Hardy.]
5. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred in not awarding [Ms. Hardy] attorney’s fees[.]
6. Whether the [c]ircuit [c]ourt erred in determining the amount of child support[.]
3 As of the date of the March 2024 trial, Mr. Philippe had not prepared Avyon’s 2023 tax filing.
4 Ms. Hardy alleges that “[a]fter the trial, [she] found the vehicle in the garage of the residence in which [Mr. Philippe] had been living as of the date of trial.”
5 Ms. Hardy’s counsel conceded before the circuit court that Ms. Hardy “did not timely notify opposing [c]ounsel of her intent to hire an expert.” The circuit court had issued a scheduling order imposing a November 6, 2023 discovery deadline. Ms. Hardy did not identify the expert witness until December 27, 2023, and did not provide the substance of the proposed witness’s opinion beyond his CV and written report. The court granted Mr. Philippe’s request to strike Ms. Hardy’s proposed expert.
6 At argument before this Court, Ms. Hardy’s counsel indicated that it “would have been more appropriate” for Ms. Hardy to file a complaint with the State’s Attorney’s Office, rather than filing a motion for the circuit court to initiate a perjury inquiry, “because . . . the court in and of itself is [not] going to open an inquiry on a perjury claim.” Her counsel nonetheless contended that the court has authority to make a referral to the State’s Attorney’s Office. Ms. Hardy’s counsel further indicated that he “[does not] think this Court should tell the [circuit] court that [it] need[s] to . . . refer this to the State’s Attorney or anyone else for an inquiry on perjury[,]” and that the focus should be on whether the court should have reopened the case for further discovery.
7 We note for completeness that this order denying the motion to reopen discovery to depose Mr. Philippe was issued by a different judge than the one presiding over the merits hearing.
8 “The document embodying the judgment should ‘clearly indicate . . . which party has prevailed on which issues and what type of relief, if any, has been granted by the court.’” Maryland Bd. of Physicians v. Geier, 241 Md. App. 429, 479 (2019) (quotation omitted). “To ensure clarity, [Maryland] Rule 2-601(a) ordinarily requires that the separate document be ‘distinct from any opinion or memorandum’ explaining the basis for the judgment.” Id. (quotation omitted). “This requirement of separation is designed to relieve the uncertainties that may result if the court writes ‘an opinion or memorandum containing some apparently directive or dispositive words[,]’ but otherwise leaves it ‘difficult for the clerk to determine the precise nature of the judgment and the wording that needed to be included in the docket entry reflecting the court’s judgment.’” Id. (quotations omitted).
Here, the circuit court indicated in its opinion that it “declines to grant a monetary award in this matter[,]” separately noting that it “denies either party a monetary award[.]” Simultaneously, the court’s opinion pondered granting a monetary award, stating, “If the court decides to grant a monetary award [to Ms. Hardy, then Mr. Philippe’s] nonmarital contribution and 12 months of mortgage payments should be deducted as well as the outstanding mortgage balance prior to calculating the residual equity [in the parties’ marital home].” The court further stated, “Any monetary award which the [c]ourt grants should also consider the $115,795.00 in equity that [Ms. Hardy] has gained from ownership of [a different real property,]” and included in its opinion a calculation of the equity remaining in the parties’ marital real property.
Meanwhile, the court’s order and judgment of absolute divorce noted Mr. Philippe’s “claim to an entitlement of a portion of appreciation in value (if any) during the cour[se] of the marriage as a setoff to the monetary award, or otherwise be and the same hereby is denied.” (Emphasis added.) The order and judgment of absolute divorce made no further mention of a monetary award, and indicated that “all other claims for relief be and the same hereby are denied[.]”
Although the circuit court’s opinion and order appear to include conflicting language, we do not read the court’s order and judgment of absolute divorce to incorporate its opinion’s remarks contemplating the grant of a monetary award.
9 Although, in one instance, Ms. Hardy asserts that Avyon “had not lost [multiple] government contracts[,]” she repeatedly alleges that, “upon researching public records, [she] learned that the [singular] contract that [Mr. Philippe] claimed was canceled was not canceled.” We read Ms. Hardy’s brief to argue the latter contention.
10 Counsel for Mr. Philippe entered his appearance on Sunday, November 30, 2025, five days before oral argument. At oral argument, counsel for Mr. Philippe argued for the first time that Ms. Hardy’s appeal was untimely filed.
A Rule 2-535 motion to exercise revisory power filed more than ten days, but within 30 days, after the entry of a final judgment does not toll the running of the time to note an appeal. Pickett v. Noba, Inc., 114 Md. App. 552, 557 (1997) (“If the [Rule 2-535] motion is filed within ten days of judgment, it stays the time for filing the appeal; if it is filed more than ten days after judgment, it does not stay the time for filing the appeal.”) (citing Unnamed Att’y v. Att’y Grievance Comm’n, 303 Md. 473, 486 (1985)).
We agree that the notice of appeal in the instant matter was untimely. The circuit court entered the judgment of absolute divorce on September 3, 2024. Ms. Hardy filed a motion to exercise revisory power on October 1, 2024. The motion to exercise revisory power fell within the 30-day deadline but was filed more than ten days after the judgment of absolute divorce was entered. Consequently, this filing did not toll the appeal deadline. Md. Rule 8-202(c). Therefore, to have been timely filed, Ms. Hardy should have noted her appeal within 30 days of entry of the judgment of absolute divorce. Pickett, 114 Md. App. at 557 (citation omitted). Ms. Hardy noted this appeal nearly two months after entry of the judgment of absolute divorce. Accordingly, we agree with Mr. Philippe that Ms. Hardy’s appeal was untimely.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court of Maryland has held that the 30-day timeline for filing a notice of appeal is not a jurisdictional rule. Rosales v. State, 463 Md. 552, 566-67 (2019) (citing Hamer v. Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of Chi., 583 U.S. 17, 19 (2017) (“[A] time limit prescribed only in a court-made rule . . . is not jurisdictional; it is, instead, a mandatory claimprocessing rule subject to forfeiture if not properly raised by the appellee.”)). “While Rule 8-202(a) ‘remains a binding rule on appellants,’ [Rosales, 463 Md.] at 563-68, the failure to file an appeal within the time limit . . . does not divest an appellate court of jurisdiction to hear the [untimely] appeal.’” Tallant v. State, 254 Md. App. 665, 674 (2022) (citation omitted).
“[A]ppellate courts must []consider waiver and forfeiture before dismissing an appeal” for failure to comply with Rule 8-202(a)’s 30-day filing deadline. Rosales, 463 Md. at 557. This Court has held that failure to “include a motion to dismiss in its brief or otherwise contend that [an appeal] was untimely” constitutes waiver. Tallant, 254 Md. App. at 674-75 (declining to dismiss appeal for untimeliness when “th[e] issue has proceeded through the appellate system without the [appellee] . . . objecting to a review on the merits by the [Appellate Court of Maryland]”).
Because Mr. Philippe failed to raise any argument regarding Rule 8-202(a) timeliness until oral argument, we conclude that he waived this appealability issue.
11 Cases are “above-guidelines” when the parties’ combined adjusted actual income exceeds the highest level specified in the schedule, which is $30,000 per month. FL § 12-204(e); see also Sims v. Sims, 266 Md. App. 337, 384 (2025) (“[W]here that monthly income exceeds $30,000, the General Assembly ‘left the task of awards above the guidelines to the [trial judge] precisely because such awards defied any simple mathematical solution.’”) (quotation omitted).
12 “Actual income” includes:
(i) salaries; (ii) wages; (iii) commissions; (iv) bonuses; (v) dividend income; . . . and (xvi) expense reimbursements or inkind payments received by a parent in the course of employment, self-employment, or operation of a business to the extent the reimbursements or payments reduce the parent’s personal living expenses.
FL § 12-201(b)(3).
13 According to the Internal Revenue Service, S corporations are corporations that elect to pass corporate income, losses, deductions, and credits through to their shareholders for federal tax purposes. Shareholders of S corporations report the flow-through of income and losses on their personal tax returns and are assessed tax at their individual income tax rates. This allows S corporations to avoid double taxation on the corporate income.
S Corporations, I.R.S., [https://perma.cc/AJ9K-LZL8]. Further, “[a]n S corporation’s items of income, gain, loss, deduction, and credit—whether or not distributed—flow through to the shareholders, who must report their pro rata shares of such items on their individual income tax returns for the shareholder taxable year within which the S corporation’s taxable year ends.” 26 U.S.C. § 1366(a); Mourad v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 121 T.C. 1, 3, 2003 WL 21509073 (2003), aff’d, 387 F.3d 27 (1st Cir. 2004).
14 We note that the circuit court adopted the recommendations of Mr. Philippe’s proposed child support guidelines worksheet in its entirety.
15 Though the circuit court stated that there was no timely evidence presented of personal expenses flowing to Mr. Philippe through Avyon, the court found that the Porsche lease would extend through March 2025.
As for the G 63, on Avyon’s 2022 tax filing, Mr. Philippe represented that the vehicle was used “100.00%” for business purposes. Yet Ms. Hardy’s uncontroverted testimony established that she personally drove the vehicle after April 2022, and that it was therefore not used exclusively for business purposes.
16 At oral argument before this Court, Mr. Philippe’s counsel conceded that the record was not developed with respect to the issue of the benefits flowing to Mr. Philippe through Avyon.
APPELLATE COURT OF MARYLAND: So, mostly with regard to the car, what are we supposed to do with . . . Mr. Philippe’s testimony that he used company money to buy the car, and sold the car the following year?
* * *
[He sold it] for about half of what he bought it for. And then he used it, at least the way I’m reading the record, to pay a personal debt. If he did, indeed, do that, which is being challenged by the motion, . . . did he even use the proceeds from the car, which would have been proceeds . . . for the company? Now, I understand that he owns the company, but there’s a difference. What are we supposed to make of that?
Or if the company gifts him the car, then he[] [has] to treat that as income.
COUNSEL FOR MR. PHILIPPE: I don’t know. . . The record is not developed on this issue. . . . It wasn’t questioned by either [party’s trial] counsel from an accounting standpoint. . . . I wish I could answer that for you, Your Honor, but I can’t answer that.
17 It is unclear why the court prevented Ms. Hardy’s counsel from asking Mr. Philippe leading questions, because, “[i]n a civil case, a party . . . may be called by the adverse party and interrogated as on cross-examination.” Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. (2006, 2020 Repl. Vol.) § 9-113; see also Coffey v. Derby Steel Co., Inc., 291 Md. 241, 248 (1981) (noting that the statute regarding adverse parties “provides that they may be called by the opposite party and interrogated by leading questions, contradicted[,] and impeached”) (quotation omitted); Nottingham Village, Inc. v. Balt. Cnty., 266 Md. 339, 256 (1972) (noting that the statute “mitigates some of the harshness of the common law by permitting a party who calls an adverse witness to interrogate him by leading questions and contradict and impeach him in all respects as if he had been called by the adverse party”).
18 Ms. Hardy’s counsel attempted to question Mr. Philippe about whether Avyon paid for his travel, the gasoline for his vehicles, and his credit card bills.
19 We note, for accuracy, that the circuit court’s opinion overstated Mr. Philippe’s tax debt as “two million dollars.” In another part of the opinion, the court properly indicated that, as of February 29, 2024, Mr. Philippe “personally owes $208,985.03 to the IRS[.]”
20 At oral argument, Ms. Hardy’s appellate counsel argued that, though the court viewed Mr. Philippe as having such high debt, Mr. Philippe’s payments for his living expenses and past-due taxes indicated that money was coming from somewhere. Ms. Hardy’s counsel’s point is well taken. We do not see anything in the record that indicates why Mr. Philippe’s tax liability was so high. The only plausible rationale for why Mr. Philippe would personally owe that amount of money in taxes would be that Avyon made a substantial income in 2022, in excess of the income threshold for his tax range.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court vacated the Carroll County Circuit Court’s elimination of the children’s Sunday overnights with father, which had been part of the custody schedule since 2018. Neither party argued that Sunday overnights were a problem, mother specifically testified she had no issue with father continuing to have access until Monday morning and the court itself found that the existing custody schedule was not disruptive to the children’s social or school lives.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
of the children. Father had access to the children on alternating weekends, starting from Saturday evening until Monday morning. These weekends began on Saturday to accommodate Father’s work schedule, as he worked about sixty to seventy hours per week at that time.
In 2024, Mother filed a complaint to modify custody, which she later amended. In the amended complaint, Mother did not seek any change in custody. Instead, she requested that the court require both parties to use the OurFamilyWizard application for communication, due to difficulties she was experiencing in communicating with Father.
In response, Father filed a petition to modify custody, requesting a change to physical custody. He proposed a weekon, week-off (50/50) physical custody arrangement, in which he would have the children for alternating weeks, from Thursday evening until the following Thursday morning.
The court conducted a merits hearing on these requests on September 22 and 23, 2025.2
Merits Hearing
The appellant, James Makia (“Father”), and the appellee, Eziaku Ogbonna (“Mother”), are the parents of two minor children. Father moved to modify an existing custody order to increase his child access to shared physical custody. After a contested hearing, the Circuit Court for Carroll County denied his request and modified his weekend access with the children. On appeal, Father raises two questions, which we have reorganized and rephrased as follows:1
1. Did the court abuse its discretion in denying Father’s request for shared physical custody of the children?
2. Did the court abuse its discretion in modifying weekend access with the children?
For the reasons explained below, we answer the first question in the negative and the second in the affirmative. Accordingly, we shall vacate the judgment only as to the access provision under paragraph 6(a) of the order and remand for further proceedings.
BACKGROUND
The parties divorced in 2018 and parented according to a Child Custody Consent Order dated September 12, 2018 (“Consent Order”), which was incorporated into the judgment of absolute divorce. At that time, their elder daughter was six, and their younger daughter was five.
The Consent Order awarded the parties joint legal custody and awarded Mother primary physical custody
At the time of the merits hearing, the children were thirteen and twelve years old. It was undisputed that much had changed since the entry of the Consent Order in 2018.
Father was the sole owner of an automotive sales company and had recently hired a general manager to help run it. The employment of a general manager provided him with greater flexibility and more time to spend with his children than in the past.
Mother had started working as a pharmacy manager, with hours from 7:00 a.m. to approximately 5:00 p.m. She had a nanny to assist with childcare while the children were younger but had recently terminated this arrangement. The nanny could not drive, cook, or help with the children’s homework, which led Mother to seek alternative childcare. At the time of the hearing, the children’s maternal grandmother provided childcare during the week when Mother was at work.
According to Father, communication with Mother was generally fine. However, Mother pushed back regarding his views about their daughters being “fat” and “overweight,” which he viewed as an issue that needed addressing. In an email to Mother, Father explained: Men are very visual. She can be the nicest girl in the world, but no man of means that is worth anything wants to date and marry a fat girl. Call it shallow but that’s just reality so [their daughters] both need to start now to learn how to eat healthy and be fit.
Father testified that their daughters’ appearances were “very important,” and he expected them to look presentable. He practiced intermittent fasting and encouraged their daughters to do the same.
Father described his parenting style as a disciplinarian one, imposing structure on their daughters, while Mother’s strength lay in her ability to communicate with and nurture them. He testified that
[Their daughters] have to eat a certain way, so they can maintain a certain diet, so they can maintain healthy weights. . . . I get push back [from Mother] on those type of . . . things, or when I’m trying to teach them certain things, be it, how to properly take care of themselves hygiene-wise, or . . . saying how their hair needs to be done more. They need to be dressed a certain way because, you know, I dress well. . . .
[I]t’s a way of showing self-respect. I wanna teach that to my daughters. So . . . when I’m getting into these things and I get pushback [from Mother] . . . I would say those are the challenges that I’ve had with her.
The children were both enrolled in the same private school. They were performing well academically and were involved in various extracurricular activities. Aside from one child who faced some self-esteem issues related to test-taking, neither child exhibited any social or behavioral problems. Father acknowledged that maintaining stability was in the children’s best interest, but he believed that his suggestion of a 50/50 physical custody arrangement would not adversely affect that stability.
Mother expressed two main concerns regarding Father’s proposed week-on/week-off custody schedule. First, she felt that Father had not been “as active” in the children’s school and extracurricular activities. Father acknowledged this point, noting that Mother typically helped the children with their homework since she had them for most of the time. Additionally, when Father offered to assist the children with their homework, they declined his help. Mother was worried that transitioning to a week-on/week-off schedule might disrupt the children’s performance in school and distract them from their studies.
Second, Mother believed that some of Father’s parenting decisions were unhealthy for their daughters’ emotional development and self-esteem. She recounted an incident from the previous year, when their daughters were eleven and twelve. Father instructed them to shave their armpits and demonstrated how to do so, which left the children feeling “embarrassed and tearful.” Mother expressed concern about their daughters developing self-esteem issues because of Father’s strict views on appearances, intermittent fasting, and “things of that nature.” She wanted the children to have “autonomy over their bodies, over decisions that they make, over their bodies and things like that.” In sum, Mother’s “primary concern” was the children’s “wellbeing and their education.” According to Mother, the children had been “doing very well” with the current physical custody arrangement, and she wanted them to continue thriving.
Father recognized that his children’s needs had changed as they entered adolescence, and he believed that he could address those needs by shifting to shared physical custody. He testified about the incident recounted by Mother. Last summer, he and the children were at a restaurant when his youngest daughter, then eleven, wore a sleeveless dress. When she raised her hand, Father noticed her armpit hair, which he described as “literally, this long sticking out.” He “kick[ed] into action” and told her that they would have a conversation when they returned home. Upon their return, Father told his daughters that having armpit hair was “not appropriate.” He then took them into the shower, where he instructed them to remove their clothes down to their underwear. He provided them with an electric shaver and taught them how to shave. Additionally, Father discussed shaving pubic hair with his daughters and told them that “that’s a conversation they need to have with their mom.”
Father did not discuss this incident with Mother, nor did he feel the need to. He explained, “I don’t think I needed to ask for permission from [Mother] to teach our daughters how to shave.” He did not think this incident made the children feel uncomfortable. Instead, he believed they were “fine,” and “[a]s a matter of fact, they appreciated it.”
Although Mother opposed Father’s proposed week-on/ week-off schedule, she was open to expanding Father’s weekend overnight access. According to the Consent Order, Father’s overnight weekends began on Saturday to accommodate his work schedule at that time. However, since Father was no longer working as much, Mother testified that she had no issue with Father starting his weekend overnights on Friday instead.
Court’s Ruling
After the hearing, the court gave its oral ruling. The court denied Mother’s request that the court require the parties to use OurFamilyWizard, which the court noted was not connected to any request for modification of legal or physical custody.
The court then addressed Father’s petition to modify physical custody. The court found that the parties’ respective changes in income, their changes in residence, and the children’s new school location constituted a material change in circumstances that justified a modification of custody. The court proceeded to consider the factors for determining the best interests of the child in child custody cases.3
Most of the court’s findings are not disputed and were neutral in the court’s weighing of the custody factors. They were as follows:
• The court found that both parents were fit and proper and have a good, close relationship with the children.
• The court found that because the parents live close to one another, the children have the opportunity for frequent, regular, contact with the parents, both of whom act with the children’s best interest at heart.
• There was no credible evidence that the children would be subjected to any abusive behavior from either parent.
• The parents were able to share rights and responsibilities in raising the children, including
reaching an agreement under the Consent Order and observing the current schedule effectively with the children.
• The court observed that the children “seem to be doing very well,” and there was no credible evidence of conflict between the parties that would impact the children. While there were some challenges with communication with the parents, the court found that the parties “can communicate.”
• Neither of the children had health issues, and neither of them were “hurting for anything financially.” In fact, they were “in the enviable position of being with two loving parents and comfortable housing situations” and enrolled in “one of the best prep schools” in Maryland. “By all accounts, these girls are doing very, very well.”
• The court found that the children were “doing fantastic” under the current custodial arrangement, and it did not “hear[] anything about the current schedule disrupting social or school lives.”
While most factors did not favor one parent over the other, the court found that one factor—the children’s developmental needs, specifically positive self-image and emotional security, see FL § 9-201(a)(6)—weighed in favor of Mother. The court explained:
The testimony that caused me some concern is you’ve got two daughters who are entering adolescence or puberty. They’re going to have to start dealing with some issues, changing of their bodies, things like that. I heard more testimony about armpit hair, pubic hair, and the like than I probably would have liked to have heard. But the manner in which it was handled when you discovered that this is an issue, this is one of those examples where when you have joint legal custody and the children start going through something like that, they cry out for communication between the two parents. There wasn’t communication here.
You really made a decision on how you were going to take care of it. And that’s a concern because I think that you’re very fastidious about your appearance. You want that to be the same for your daughters, and I get that. But I think there should have been at least some degree of communication with [Mother] about how to address your concerns that you saw then, rather than just dealing with it directly. . . .
I also think that self-esteem and body images for kids, particularly adolescents, and candidly, particularly girls when they’re going to high school, have to be handled very carefully, and it requires coordination between two parents. I’m not clear whether that’s something that you gave specific consideration to, but I think that’s something that on this score, I think that that factor would favor [Mother] just based on . . . the evidence . . . that I saw here today.
The court declined to award Father’s requested 50/50
physical custody schedule. It explained that making “such a significant change” was “a pretty tall order.” The court further explained its “serious concerns” about whether such a change was in the children’s best interest, given the evidence related to the developmental needs factor, citing the incident the previous summer as an example:
I’m not saying this to be critical of [Father], but as I said, I gave an example. When you were confronted with what I would consider to be a touchy issue to deal with two daughters that almost cries out to talk to their mother, how should we handle this, you didn’t. That, to me, is a little bit of a concern, and so therefore, I don’t find, based on the totality of the evidence before me that it would be in the girls’ best interest to award the 50/50 or week on, week off custody.
The court then modified Father’s weekend access with the children. In relevant part, the court changed Father’s alternating weekend access from Saturday evening to Monday morning under the Consent Order, to Friday evening to Sunday evening. While the court acknowledged that Mother had no objection to expanding Father’s weekend access from Friday to Monday, it was concerned that returning the children on Monday would be too disruptive to the children’s stability. It explained:
[Mother] acknowledged from the stand that she has no objection to changing that to Friday night so he’d have the girls from Friday night, including Saturday and Sunday. The question I had was whether we should make it from Friday to Sunday night or from Friday till Monday morning. I think, again, owing to my concerns for stability of the girls, I think that what I’m going to do is, as far as the controlling consent order, it’ll be modified so they have this alternating weekend starting Friday at 6:00 p.m. and continuing through Sunday at 7:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m., they’re older. Getting them back by 7:00 p.m. gives them sufficient time to get settled in so that they’re ready for school the following morning. I gave consideration to saying take them back on Monday morning. I candidly think that might be a little too disruptive so therefore it’ll be Friday 6:00 p.m. till Sunday at 7:00 p.m.
(Emphases added.)
The court issued an order memorializing its decision on October 16, 2025. Father noted this timely appeal.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
“When an action has been tried without a jury, an appellate court will review the case on both the law and the evidence.” Md. Rule 8-131(c). We “will not set aside the judgment of the trial court on the evidence unless clearly erroneous, and [we] will give due regard to the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses.” Id. Indeed, “[t]he trial judge who sees the witnesses and the parties, and hears the testimony is in a far better position than the appellate court, which has only a transcript before it, to weigh the evidence and determine what disposition will best promote
the welfare of the child.” Gizzo v. Gerstman, 245 Md. App. 168, 201 (2020) (citation modified).
Further, when reviewing a circuit court’s child custody determinations, we utilize three interrelated standards of review. Kadish v. Kadish, 254 Md. App. 467, 502 (2022). First, we apply the “clearly erroneous” standard of review to the court’s factual findings. Id. Second, where the court’s custody determination “involves an interpretation and application of statutory and case law,” we decide “whether the circuit court’s conclusions are legally correct under a de novo standard of review.” Barrett v. Ayres, 186 Md. App. 1, 10 (2009) (citation modified).
Finally, if we determine that the circuit court’s “ultimate conclusion” was “founded upon sound legal principles and based upon factual findings that are not clearly erroneous,” we do not disturb that conclusion absent a “clear abuse of discretion.” Kadish, 254 Md. App. at 502. An abuse of discretion occurs when the challenged decision is “well removed from any center mark imagined by the reviewing court and beyond the fringe of what the court deems minimally acceptable.” North v. North, 102 Md. App. 1, 14 (1994); see also B.O. v. S.O., 252 Md. App. 486, 502 (2021) (stating that an abuse of discretion “should only be found in the extraordinary, exceptional, or most egregious case”). We will not reverse a circuit court’s decision just because we might have ruled differently. North, 102 Md. App. at 14.
DISCUSSION I. Physical Custody
Father argues that the court erred or abused its discretion in denying his request for shared custody of the children. His challenge focuses on the court’s emphasis of the developmental needs factor in two ways. First, he contends that the court weighed the evidence inappropriately. Second, Father argues that the court employed an improper bias in Mother’s favor based on gender in assessing this factor. We start with the second argument.
A. Gender Bias
Father contends that the trial court improperly denied his request for shared physical custody of the children based on gender. He highlights the court’s findings and remarks in connection with the developmental needs factor, arguing that the court’s statements demonstrate that it assumed that Mother would be a better parent and should have custody based on her gender and the fact that the children are adolescent girls.
Father relies on Giffin v. Crane, 351 Md. 133 (1998), for the proposition that sex cannot be the determining factor in the grant of child custody. There, the parents entered into an agreement whereby the father was awarded physical custody of their two daughters. Id. at 135–36. At some point, the mother filed a petition to modify custody. Id. at 138. The trial court granted the petition, holding that, even though both parents were otherwise fit to care for the children, the daughters’ particular need for a “female hand” was a “necessary factor” in the court’s determination that the
mother should be granted custody. Id. at 139–41. In other words, the determination of custody was based “solely” on sex and was “the only reason given for the court’s decision.”
Id. at 155. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Maryland held that, in “assum[ing] that the [mother] necessarily would be a better custodian solely because she has a female hand, and that a girl child of a certain age has a particular and specific need to be with her same sex parent,” the trial court erred as a matter of law. Id.
In this case, the court did not deny Father’s request for shared physical custody solely because Mother is female or because the children, being adolescent girls, have a specific need to be with their same-sex parent. Rather, as the court explained, its decision was “based on the totality of the evidence.” The court expressed concerns that shifting to a 50/50 physical custody schedule would be “such a significant change” for the children, that Father was not sufficiently aware of how his behavior affected the children’s self-esteem and body image, and that there was a lack of communication from Father to Mother regarding sensitive body-related issues and how these issues should be managed. In other words, the court provided multiple reasons for maintaining physical custody with Mother, none of which rested solely on the fact that the children and Mother are female.
B.
Communications About Children’s Hygiene/Shaving
Father contends that the court overlooked evidence favorable to him and unfavorable to Mother, while also discounting evidence against Mother. For example, he points out that the court criticized him for not discussing with Mother the decision to teach their children how to shave their armpits, while ignoring that Mother did not communicate with Father before terminating the children’s nanny. In addition, he claims that the court discounted his concerns about the children being left alone after school, noting that he has greater availability to be with the children now than in 2018. Father further argues that the court’s assertion that he should have discussed the shaving incident with Mother was misguided. He explains that discussions about hygiene are not the type of decisions that require parental coordination because shaving is not a long-term decision that concerns a child’s life or welfare.
As mentioned, the abuse of discretion standard “accounts for the trial court’s unique opportunity to observe the demeanor and the credibility of the parties and the witnesses.” Gizzo, 245 Md. App. at 201 (citation modified). The trial judge, who “sees the witnesses and the parties, and hears the testimony is in a far better position than the appellate court, which has only a transcript before it, to weigh the evidence and determine what disposition will best promote the welfare of the child.” Id. (citation modified). The fact that Father would weigh the factors and evidence differently does not mean that the court abused its discretion in making its decision. Because the court “embarked upon a thorough, thoughtful and well-reasoned analysis congruent with the various custody factors,” Azizova v. Suleymanov, 243 Md. App. 340, 347 (2019), we hold that its denial of shared physical custody was not an abuse of discretion.
II. Father’s Alternating Weekend Access
Father argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by eliminating his Sunday overnights, which had been part of the custody schedule since the parties entered the 2018 Consent Order. He explains that neither party argued that Sunday overnights were a problem, that Mother specifically testified she had no issue with Father continuing to have access until Monday morning, and that the court itself found that the existing custody schedule (which included Sunday overnights) was not disruptive to the children’s social or school lives. We agree.
Regarding access/visitation, a trial court has “broad discretion” to impose conditions on a parent’s visitation rights “so long as it is in the child’s best interest and there is sufficient evidence in the record to support the condition.”
Cohen v. Cohen, 162 Md. App. 599, 608 (2005); see also Kennedy v. Kennedy, 55 Md. App. 299, 310 (1983) (explaining that a trial court may “impose such conditions upon the custodial and supporting parent as deemed necessary to promote the welfare of the children” and that an appellate court “will affirm the imposition of such a condition so long as the record contains adequate proof that the condition or requirement is reasonably related to the advancement of a child’s best interests”).
The court’s decision to eliminate Father’s Sunday
overnights with the children is inconsistent with Mother’s recommendation during her testimony that Father have expanded weekend access from Friday until Monday. The court’s conclusion that the children should be dropped off on Sunday night because their schedules might be disrupted otherwise was not supported by the evidence. The parties had successfully maintained the existing schedule—where Father had custody until Monday morning on alternating weekends—for over six years. Neither party testified that the Monday morning drop-offs were disruptive to the children. In fact, the court had found, when addressing a different factor, that the current schedule did not disrupt the children’s school or social lives, stating that it had not “heard anything about the current schedule disrupting social or school lives.” Therefore, the court’s rationale for modifying Father’s alternating weekend access with the children was not supported by the evidence and was contradicted by its own findings.
For the reasons stated, we shall vacate the order only as it relates to Father’s alternating weekend access, which appears under paragraph 6(a) of the order. We remand the case for further proceedings on this issue. Until the court rules on the remanded issue, the vacated provision of the order will have the force and effect of a pendente lite order. We otherwise affirm the court’s decision to deny Father’s request for shared physical custody.
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR CARROLL COUNTY AFFIRMED IN PART AND VACATED IN PART; JUDGMENT AS TO ALTERNATING WEEKEND ACCESS UNDER PARAGRAPH 6(A) OF THE ORDER VACATED AND CASE REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION; JUDGMENT OTHERWISE AFFIRMED; THE VACATED PROVISION OF THE JUDGMENT TO REMAIN IN FORCE AND EFFECT AS A PENDENTE LITE ORDER PENDING FURTHER ORDER OF THE CIRCUIT COURT; COSTS TO BE EVENLY DIVIDED.
1 Father’s brief presents the issues as follows:
FOOTNOTES
I. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion by refusing to increase Father’s access with the children, by eliminating Father’s overnight access on Sundays, and by refusing to award physical custody on an equal basis?
II. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion by employing an improper bias in favor of Mother based on gender?
2 In connection with the underlying proceedings, the court modified child support. In addition, Father requested an increase in vacation time, which the court ultimately granted. Neither child support nor vacation time is challenged on appeal. Therefore, we will not discuss facts relevant to either issue.
3 Although courts are not limited to a list of factors in applying the best interest standard in each individual case, our appellate courts in Montgomery County Department of Social Services v. Sanders, 38 Md. App. 406 (1977), and Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290 (1986), have set forth a non-exhaustive delineation of factors that a court must consider when making custody determinations. Pertinent here, one of the factors is the ability of each of the parties to meet the child’s developmental needs. This includes ensuring physical safety, supporting emotional security and positive self-image, promoting interpersonal skills, and promoting intellectual and cognitive growth. The court applied the Sanders-Taylor factors as well as overlapping factors covered by Maryland Code, Family Law Article (“FL”) § 9-201(a), which, at the time of the oral ruling on September 24, were about to take effect on October 1, 2025. See 2025 Md. Laws Ch. 484 (S.B. 548).
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court affirmed the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s appointment of stepdaughter as guardian for her stepfather. Although the stepfather’s domestic partner argued the guardianship orders should be vacated, she was on notice of the hearing and had the opportunity to attend, to testify, to introduce contrary evidence, to demand the presence of the physicians and the nurse practitioner who completed the medical certificates and to argue that the court should deny the petitions for guardianship. She failed to do so and may not be heard to complain on appeal that the court failed to consider these arguments.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
cognitive impairment. Antoinette identified Gwendolyn as Mr. Brown’s domestic partner and provided her address and phone number. She alleged that Gwendolyn was not making sound decisions concerning Mr. Brown’s bank accounts and retirement savings and was being influenced by her other daughter, Antonicia Holmes (“Antonicia”). She further alleged that Mr. Brown was unable to remember conversations he had with family members and was vulnerable to manipulation. She attached to her amended petition three medical certificates completed by 1) a physician who worked at the FutureCare nursing facility where Mr. Brown was a patient, 2) a nurse practitioner who also worked FutureCare, and 3) Mr. Brown’s primary care physician for the past five years. All three practitioners concluded that Mr. Brown had varying degrees of cognitive impairment that caused him to be unable to make responsible decisions concerning his person and property.4 The two facility-based practitioners examined Mr. Brown in December 2024, and his primary care physician examined him in September 2024, in Gwendolyn’s presence.
On February 4, 2025, the circuit court appointed counsel to represent Mr. Brown.
In the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, Antoinette Holmes1 (“Antoinette”), appellee, filed a petition for guardianship of the person and the property of her stepfather,2 Wade Brown. Following a hearing, the court found that Mr. Brown was a disabled person, appointed Antoinette guardian of his person, and appointed June Hatton Barr, Esq., appellee, guardian of his property. More than ten days later, Mr. Brown’s domestic partner and Antoinette’s mother, Gwendolyn Holmes (“Gwendolyn”), appellant, moved to vacate the guardianship orders and to terminate the guardianship proceedings. Within thirty days of an order denying that motion and other subsequently filed motions, Gwendolyn noted this appeal. She presents three questions,3 which we combine and rephrase as one:
Did the trial court abuse its discretion by denying Gwendolyn’s post-judgment motions? We answer that question in the negative and affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On October 4, 2024, Antoinette filed a petition for guardianship of the person and property of Mr. Brown, then age 74, which she amended on December 23, 2024, to correct deficiencies in her original petition. In her amended petition, Antoinette alleged that Mr. Brown suffered a stroke, was residing in at a nursing facility, and was showing signs of
That same day, the court entered a show cause order directing all interested persons, including Gwendolyn, to show cause in writing before May 28, 2025, why the relief requested should not be granted.
On May 20, 2025, Antoinette filed an affidavit of service completed by a private process server averring that the process server personally served Gwendolyn at her home in Suitland, Maryland with a copy of the show cause order, the amended petition for guardianship, a notice to interested persons, an advice of rights form, and the medical certificates.
On May 27, 2025, as amended on June 5, 2025, Mr. Brown, through counsel, answered the petition, admitted that he was in the early stages of dementia and was disabled, and asked the court to grant the petition and appoint Antoinette as the guardian of his person and his property. Gwendolyn did not file a response to the petition.
On June 6, 2025, the court held a hearing on the petition at which Antoinette, Mr. Brown’s counsel, and an attorney representing the nursing facility appeared. Gwendolyn did not appear at the hearing. Mr. Brown’s adult son, Michael Brown, also was present in the courtroom.
Mr. Brown, through counsel, waived his appearance and waived his right to a jury trial. Counsel stipulated to the physicians’ certificates filed by Antoinette and advised that it was Mr. Brown’s position that Antoinette be appointed guardian of his person and property. Counsel made the
following proffer. She recently had met with Mr. Brown at the FutureCare nursing facility.5 He was about to turn 75. Mr. Brown reported that he had suffered a stroke and had been released from the Washington Hospital Center to FutureCare about 30 days earlier. He described Gwendolyn as his “girlfriend.” He said that there was no one at his home, which he shared with Gwendolyn, who was “stable enough to take care of him.” He wished to go home but understood that that was not currently feasible. He wished for Antoinette to handle his affairs.
Antoinette informed the court that though Mr. Brown told his attorney he had been at FutureCare for just 30 days, he actually had been there since September 2024. She proffered that he suffered a stroke in August 2024 and was released to FutureCare thereafter. She had been helping her stepfather manage his affairs for many years. She took him to his medical appointments, to the bank, filed his taxes, and otherwise managed his finances.
Antoinette moved for admission of the medical certificates. The court admitted them without objection.
An attorney appeared on behalf of FutureCare and advocated for an attorney to be appointed as guardian of the property of Mr. Brown. She explained that his application for medical assistance remained pending and that it was complex.
The court found that Antoinette had completed training to be a guardian and had submitted her certificate of completion. The court also found that Antoinette served notice on the interested parties.
On the merits of the petition, the court determined that Mr. Brown lacked “sufficient understanding or capacity to communicate decisions regarding his person or provisions for his health care, food, clothing, or shelter[,]” that he lacked “such capacity because of physical or mental disability and/ or disease[,]” and that “there [was] no less restrictive intervention . . . available and consistent with his welfare and safety.” The court appointed Antoinette guardian of his person.
The court further found that Mr. Brown was “unable to manage his property and affairs effectively because of physical or mental disability and/or disease[,]” and “that he may be entitled to property and benefits which require management.” The court determined to appoint an attorney off the court-approved list to be guardian of Mr. Brown’s property.
On June 12, 2025, and June 16, 2025, respectively, the court issued orders appointing Antoinette as guardian of the person and Ms. Barr as guardian of the property.6
On July 1, 2025, Gwendolyn filed a motion to vacate the guardianship orders. She alleged that she was Mr. Brown’s registered domestic partner, Mr. Brown’s designated agent under a personal financial power of attorney, and the sole trustee of his revocable living trust. She alleged that she never was served with any court documents and that Antoinette intentionally misrepresented her address by using an incorrect city (Upper Marlboro) and an incorrect zip code (20774), in place of her actual city (Suitland) and zip code (20746).7 Gwendolyn attached a copy of the power of attorney dated October 31, 2024, a certificate
of registered domestic partnership dated September 25, 2024, and a certification of trust dated November 1, 2024, to her motion. In an attached affidavit, she averred that the affidavit of service was falsified and repeated her assertion that Antoinette intentionally misled the court by providing an incorrect address for her. She stated that she did not learn of the “Guardianship Order(s) or the appointments of [Antoinette] and [Ms.] Barr until after the court issued its final Order on or about June 11, 2025.”
On July 7, 2025, Gwendolyn filed a “Supplement to Motion to Vacate Guardianship Orders and Notice of Ongoing Unauthorized Interference,” in which she alleged that Antoinette was entering her house without her consent to obtain access to Mr. Brown’s financial and personal papers and that she had caused a cease-and-desist order to be served on Antoinette and Ms. Barr.
On July 30, 2025, Ms. Barr moved for a declaration that the power of attorney executed by Mr. Brown on October 31, 2024, was null and void, retroactive to the date the court appointed her guardian of the property because it was “no longer necessary due to the intervening and superseding actions” of the circuit court. Separately, Ms. Barr opposed Gwendolyn’s motion to vacate and asked the court to declare the revocable living trust null and void.
On August 5, 2025, Gwendolyn filed 1) an emergency motion for temporary restraining order, 2) an emergency motion for temporary injunctive relief, 3) an opposition to Ms. Barr’s motion to declare the power of attorney null and void, and 4) a second supplement to her motion to vacate. She generally alleged that Ms. Barr had mailed a copy of the guardianship order to Mr. Brown’s financial institution, causing that institution to suspend Gwendolyn’s access to those accounts and preventing her from paying household and other necessary bills and that someone “had accessed an IRS online service” in Mr. Brown’s name to “fraudulently access[]” his tax records. (Emphasis omitted.) She attached to her motion declarations from her, Mr. Brown, Antonicia, and an individual named Mary Wong. Gwendolyn also repeated her assertions that the guardianship orders were procured by fraud.
The next day, Gwendolyn filed an opposition to Ms. Barr’s opposition to her motion to vacate and a motion to strike Ms. Barr’s opposition and Ms. Barr’s motion to declare the power of attorney null and void.
By order entered August 11, 2025, the court denied Gwendolyn’s pending motions. The court found that though Gwendolyn’s address was incorrect on the show cause order issued by circuit court, the affidavit of service evidenced that she was personally served at the correct home address. The court found that the service was proper.
The court granted Ms. Barr’s motions to declare null and void the power of attorney and Mr. Brown’s living trust. It reasoned that the guardianship order superseded the power of attorney and noted that both the power of attorney and the living trust were created after Mr. Brown’s primary care provider examined him in Gwendolyn’s presence and found that he had moderate cognitive impairment and was incapable of signing documents or participating in legal proceedings.
On September 9, 2025, Gwendolyn noted this appeal.8
STANDARD OF REVIEW
As explained in an order entered by this Court on December 4, 2025, Gwendolyn’s notice of appeal is not timely as to the underlying guardianship orders. She filed her motion to vacate the guardianship orders on July 1, 2025, more than ten days after entry of the order appointing Antoinette guardian of the person (June 12, 2025) and the entry of the order appointing Ms. Barr guardian of the property (June 16, 2025). Her motion to vacate, which we treat as a Rule 2-535 motion to revise, thus did not toll the 30-day window in which Gwendolyn could have filed a timely appeal from the guardianship orders. Estate of Vess, 234 Md. App. 173, 194–96, 204 (2017).
Consequently, the only issue before us is whether the trial court abused its discretion by “declining to reconsider the judgment,” id. at 205 (cleaned up), when it issued its August 11, 2025 order. This Court opined that “[i]t is hard to imagine a more deferential standard than this one.” Id. Our task is to determine if the trial court’s denial of the motion to vacate “was so far wrong – to wit, so egregiously wrong – as to constitute a clear abuse of discretion.” Stuples v. Baltimore City Police Dep’t., 119 Md. App. 221, 232 (1998) (emphasis omitted).
DISCUSSION
a.
Before turning to the contentions of error, we briefly set out the law governing guardianship petitions. A petition for guardianship of the person must be supported by two medical certificates. Md. Rule 10-202(a)(1). One certificate must be completed by a physician licensed to practice in the United States, but the second may be completed by a nurse practitioner, psychologist, or licensed clinical social worker. Id. At least one of the certificates must be completed by a medical professional who has examined the alleged disabled person within 21 days before the filing of the petition. Id.
The alleged disabled person and any interested persons are to be served with a show cause order, a copy of the petition and other related documents. Md. Rule 10-203. A registered domestic partner of the alleged disabled person is an interested party, as is a person holding a power of attorney of the disabled person. Md. Rule 10-103(f) (defining the term “Interested Person” to include an heir of the alleged disabled person and a person holding a power of attorney of the alleged disabled person); Md. Code, Est. & Tr. (“ET”) § 3-102(a) (registered domestic partner is an heir). Service upon the disabled person must be made by personal service whereas service upon interested persons is to be made by regular mail and certified mail unless the court orders otherwise. Md. Rule 10-203(a), (b)(2).
Guardianship of the person of a disabled person may be granted only upon findings, by clear and convincing evidence, that:
(1) A person lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible personal decisions, including provisions for health care, food, clothing, or shelter, because of any mental disability, disease, habitual drunkenness,
or addiction to drugs; and
(2) No less restrictive form of intervention is available that is consistent with the person’s welfare and safety.
ET § 13-705(b). Those findings are to be made by a jury unless the alleged disabled person waives a jury trial. Md. Rule 10-205(b).
A petition for guardianship of the property of a disabled person also must be supported by the medical certificates described above and service must be made upon interested persons in the same manner. Md. Rule 10-301(d)(1) & 10-302. Before granting a petition for guardianship of the property of a disabled person, the court must hold a hearing and find by a preponderance of the evidence that:
(1) The person is unable to manage effectively the person’s property and affairs because of physical or mental disability, disease, habitual drunkenness, addiction to drugs, imprisonment, compulsory hospitalization, detention by a foreign power, or disappearance; and
(2) The person has or may be entitled to property or benefits which require proper management.
ET § 13-201(c); see In re Rosenberg, 211 Md. App. 305, 316–17 (2013) (discussing the burden of proof under the statute).
For both types of guardianship, the medical certificates attached to the petition are “admissible as substantive evidence [at the guardianship hearing] without the presence or testimony of the certifying health care professional” unless an interested person requests their testimony in person no less than ten days before the hearing. Md. Rule 10-205(b) (guardianship of the person); Md. Rule 10-304(b) (guardianship of the property).
b.
Gwendolyn contends that the trial court abused its discretion by denying her motion to vacate the guardianship orders. She first argues that her due process rights were violated because the show cause order directed that she be served “by ordinary mail AND certified mail” but Antoinette caused her to be personally served. She asserts that this amounted to a fraud on the court.
As a threshold matter, Gwendolyn’s argument based upon the method of service was not raised in her motion to vacate and, consequently, is not preserved for review. See Md. Rule 8-131(a) (stating that this Court ordinarily will not address any non-jurisdictional issue that was not raised in or decided by the circuit court). Even if preserved, however, there could be no due process violation occasioned by the use of a more reliable method of service. See Griffin v. Bierman, 403 Md. 186, 206 (2008) (explaining that “[p]ersonal service is the only method of conveying notice that is certain to convey actual notice,” as compared to notice by certified/restricted mail or by posting).
Gwendolyn also maintains her position that she was not, in fact, served with the show cause order and accompanying papers. “The determination [of] ‘[w]hether a person has been served with process is essentially a question of fact.’” Wilson v. Md. Dep’t of Env’t, 217 Md. App. 271, 286 (2014) (quoting Harris v. Womack, 75 Md. App. 580, 585 (1988)). Maryland
courts recognize that “a proper official return of service is presumed to be true and accurate until the presumption is overcome by proof[.]” Weinreich v. Walker, 236 Md. 290, 296 (1964). Significantly, “the mere denial of personal service by [her] who was summoned will not avail to defeat the sworn return of the official process server.” Id.; see also Wilson, 217 Md. App. at 285 (stating that “a mere denial of service is not sufficient” to overcome “the presumption of validity” arising from a return of service). When a denial of service “‘is not supported by corroborative testimony or circumstances . . . the attempted impeachment of the official return must fail.’” Weinreich, 236 Md. at 296 (quoting Weisman v. Davitz, 174 Md. 447, 451 (1938)). “[I]f the ‘denial is supported by corroborative evidence by independent, disinterested witnesses, the denial will stand unless the corroborative evidence is refuted.’” Wilson, 217 Md. at 285 (quoting Ashe v. Spears, 263 Md. 622, 628 (1971)) (emphasis added).
Here, the return of service reflecting that Gwendolyn was served at her home on May 2, 2025, was prima facie evidence that she was served with the show cause order and related documents.9 In her motion to vacate, as supplemented, Gwendolyn denied service, but did not provide any corroborative evidence or circumstances supporting her denial beyond her inaccurate and self-serving allegation that Antoinette intentionally misrepresented her address to the court. As noted earlier, though the circuit court misidentified Gwendolyn’s address on the show cause order, Antoinette provided the correct address in her petition and the affidavit of service reflects that Gwendolyn was served at her correct address. Because Gwendolyn’s motion to vacate was premised on a mere denial of service without corroborative evidence supplied by a disinterested witness, the court did not err by ruling that service was proper and by denying the motion to vacate on that basis.
Relatedly, Gwendolyn asserts that the court was unable to consider numerous arguments she would have made had she appeared at the hearing, including that Mr. Brown did not lack capacity and that her power of attorney and the revocable living trust were less restrictive alternatives to the granting of the guardianship petition.10 Because the circuit court found that service was proper, however, Gwendolyn was on notice of the June 6, 2025 guardianship hearing and had the opportunity to attend, to testify, to introduce contrary evidence, to demand the presence of the physicians and the nurse practitioner who completed the medical certificates,
and to argue that the court should deny the petitions for guardianship. She failed to do so and may not be heard to complain on appeal that the court failed to consider these arguments.
The circuit court did not err, much less egregiously err, by denying the motion to vacate the guardianship orders. The court’s decision was founded upon the uncontradicted medical certificates, which were properly admitted as substantive evidence at the hearing. Mr. Brown, through counsel, waived his appearance, consented to the guardianship through counsel and requested appointment of his stepdaughter as guardian of his person and property. The court, after considering the complexity of the management of Mr. Brown’s property, reasonably determined to appoint independent counsel to represent Mr. Brown, at least until such time as his application for medical assistance was processed and approved.
c.
The remaining contentions by Gwendolyn in her subsequent motions all pertain to lawful and appropriate actions taken by Antoinette and Ms. Barr in their capacities as lawfully appointed guardians of the person and property of Mr. Brown. The court did not err by denying the motions seeking to bar or enjoin them from carrying out their duties.
d.
Gwendolyn also challenges the circuit court’s grant of Ms. Barr’s motions to declare null and void the personal financial power of attorney executed by Mr. Brown in favor of Gwendolyn on October 31, 2024, and the revocable living trust created the next day. Under ET § 13-203(c), the circuit court, having appointed Ms. Barr as guardian of the property, had authority to take any action to control Mr. Brown’s property as Mr. Brown could have taken had he not been disabled. This includes the authority to revoke the power of attorney and the living trust both of which, as the court found, were entered into after Mr. Brown’s personal physician examined him and found that he lacked capacity to execute legal documents, and both of which became unnecessary once Ms. Barr, an independent attorney selected by the court, was appointed the guardian of Mr. Brown’s property.
For all these reasons, we affirm the August 11, 2025, order denying Gwendolyn’s motion to vacate and the subsequently filed motions and granting Ms. Barr’s motions.
AUGUST 11, 2025 ORDER OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY THE APPELLANT.
FOOTNOTES
1 Because Antoinette Holmes, appellee, and her mother, Gwendolyn Holmes, appellant, share the same last name, we will refer to them by their first names. We mean no disrespect. Similarly, we will refer to Antonicia Holmes by her first name and mean no disrespect.
2 Antoinette’s mother was not married to Mr. Brown, but was his longtime romantic partner and, eventually, became his registered domestic partner. Antoinette refers to herself as Mr. Brown’s stepdaughter and we do the same.
3 The questions as posed by Gwendolyn are:
1. Did the trial court err, or abuse its discretion, by denying the motions filed by Appellant Gwendolyn Holmes? Specifically: --motion to vacate guardianship order; --notice of ongoing unauthorized interference; --emergency motion for temporary restraining order (to prohibit guardian of the property from acting); --emergency motion for temporary injunctive relief; --motion to strike court appointed guardian’s motion to deny motion to vacate and motion to declare power of attorney null and void; and --motion to revise judgment.
2. Did the trial court err, or abuse its discretion, when it granted Appellee’s (guardian of the property) to declare Wade Brown’s power of attorney null and void and Wade Brown’s revocable living trust null and void?
3. Did the trial court err, or abuse its discretion, by denying the motions filed by Appellant Gwendolyn Holmes after the appeal was noted?
And, if in this Court’s jurisdiction, the motions filed after the notice of appeal: --trustee’s motion to preserve and assert statutory rights; --motion to expunge improperly recorded instrument; --motion to strike false and misleading guardian at [sic] litem’s amended answer to the amended petition for appointment of guardian of the person and property;
--motion to strike affidavit of personal service of Kimberly Jones;
--motion to strike physician’s certificate; and --emergency motion to stay enforcement of the guardianship order pending appeal and for temporary injunctive relief.
4 The attending physician and nurse practitioner from FutureCare both diagnosed Mr. Brown with impaired cognition, which was mild and stable but not temporary or reversible. Mr. Brown’s primary care physician did not diagnose him with a mental health condition, but reported that his memory, cognitive, and executive function were moderately impaired.
5 In her answer to the petition, counsel stated that she met with Mr. Brown on May 25, 2025. At the guardianship hearing, counsel stated that she met with him on February 25, 2025. Given that counsel was not served with the petition until April 30, 2025 and was expressly directed by the court not to commence work until she was served, we assume that counsel met with Mr. Brown in May 2025.
6 In her statement of facts, Gwendolyn misstates that the court intended the appointment of Ms. Barr as guardian of the property to be temporary. Rather, the court determined that appointing an attorney as guardian of the property was appropriate because of the complexity of Mr. Brown’s medical assistance application, but advised Antoinette that should she wish to step into the shoes of Ms. Barr at a later point, she could petition the court for that relief.
7 We note that the amended petition for guardianship and the affidavit of service each list the correct city and the correct zip code. The show cause order issued by the court on February 4, 2025, mistakenly used the wrong city and zip code.
8 Also on September 9, 2025, Gwendolyn moved to revise the August 11, 2025, order. Thereafter, she filed numerous other motions, all of which were denied by the circuit court by order entered November 18, 2025. Gwendolyn did not note an appeal thereafter. Because these rulings were made after the current appeal was noted and no appeal was taken thereafter, the propriety of those ruling are not before us in this appeal. See Md. Rule 8-202(a) (a notice of appeal ordinarily must be filed within 30 days after entry of a judgment or order from which the appeal is taken).
9 Gwendolyn states in her reply brief in this Court that the process server was Antoinette’s daughter. This was not raised in Gwendolyn’s motion to vacate (or her opening brief in this Court) and is not before us for consideration.
10 As Ms. Barr points out in her brief and Gwendolyn concedes in her reply brief, the court was not obligated to find that there was no less restrictive alternative before granting the petition for guardianship of the property of Mr. Brown. See ET § 13201(c).
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court affirmed the Montgomery County Circuit Court’s denial of father’s motion for a hearing on his second amended motion to terminate ongoing alimony. The circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it determined, for the second time, that the issues raised by father with regard to the overpayment of child support are res judicata and law of the case.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
self-supporting. When the Court did not consider the financial circumstances of Defendant and the evidence presented at trial showed that Defendant does have the financial ability to partially self-supporting if not wholly self-supporting.”
3. “Did the Court abuse its discretion buy failing to comply with Rule 2-433(3) by not imposing a judgment of default for Defendant’s gross neglect of discovery requests throughout the case, moreover, failure to comply fully to the Court Order to Compel entered on November 14, 2023.”
4. “Did the Court abuse its discretion when it refused to hear testimony and receive evidence from appellant regarding substantial alimony arrears balance of $102,000, as being harsh and inequitable.”
On January 12, 2018, Anthony Foster (“Father”), the appellant, filed for a divorce from Jewell Foster (“Mother”), the appellee, in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. The parties had two children during the marriage and were granted a judgment of absolute divorce (“JAD”) on February 26, 2020. Since then, the parties have filed countless motions challenging the JAD, and have requested and obtained numerous hearings, as reflected on the docket for Case No, 150504FL which is over 154 pages long.
The instant appeal concerns Father’s ongoing challenge to the circuit court’s alimony award. In the JAD, the circuit court found, among other things, that Father owed Mother $3,000 per month in alimony, retroactive to the initial filing date. Father has since filed numerous motions to reduce alimony arrears and requested hearings on those motions.
On June 13, 2024, the circuit court entered the underlying order denying Father’s “Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support” and denying his amended motion for a hearing. Father noted a timely appeal from this order and presents four questions for our review:
1. “Did the Court abuse its discretion. . . when it denied appellant’s motion request for hearing, to be heard on Amended motion to reduce alimony arrears due to overpayment of child support.”
2. “Did the Court abuse its discretion when it failed to make the required findings of fact under Maryland Code Fam. Law Section 11-106(b)(1) of the ability of the party seeking alimony to be wholly or partly
The second, third, and fourth questions presented by Father challenge various determinations by the circuit court that were already decided in the ongoing family case in orders that were issued prior to the underlying order and from which no appeal was taken. The second question raises issues that were considered at the August 12, 2022 hearing and addressed in the court’s order issued on August 29, 2022.1 Similarly, the third question challenges the court’s determination in an order issued on November 3, 2023. The fourth question addresses issues considered during a hearing that was held on April 26, 2024, and decided in an order issued on April 30, 2024. All three of these orders fall outside the 30day appeal window and are therefore not before this Court. Md. Rule 8-202(a) (“the notice of appeal shall be filed within 30 days after entry of the judgment or order from which the appeal is taken.”); Md. Rule 8-602(b) (“The court shall dismiss an appeal if . . . the notice of appeal was not filed with the lower court within the time prescribed by Rule 8-202.). Accordingly, we will only address the first issue, which we rephrase as follows:
1. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion when it denied Father’s motion for a hearing and denied his second amended motion to terminate ongoing alimony per month in its June 13, 2024 order?
As we explain below, the underlying June 13 interlocutory order addressed two motions: Father’s amended motion to terminate alimony and his motion for a hearing on that motion. Although Father timely appealed from the June 13 order, the substantive issues addressed in the amended motion to terminate alimony were res judicata. Accordingly, we hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a hearing on issues that had already been decided by the court. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
The Divorce
Our summary of the enormous record in this case will focus on those facts that are necessary to provide context for the issues properly raised in this appeal.
In January 2018, Father filed for a limited divorce from Mother, his spouse of twenty-three years, following the parties’ separation months prior.2 Father later amended the complaint to request an absolute divorce. Mother also filed a counter complaint for absolute divorce, requesting, among other things, indefinite alimony, equal distribution of marital property, child support, and custody of their two children.
Following a two-day merits hearing in June 2019, which addressed the issues of divorce, alimony, division of property, and other issues, the circuit court entered the JAD on February 26, 2020. The court awarded Mother $3,000 a month in Alimony (commencing and accounting from the date of the filing on January 12, 2018), $91,457.10 in attorneys’ fees, and child support pursuant to the Maryland Child Support Guidelines ($1,064).
On March 6, 2020, Father filed a motion followed by an amended motion on March 17, 2020 for reconsideration of the JAD, arguing in relevant part that he could not afford to pay the alimony and that Mother is wholly self-supporting. Father filed a motion to stay the JAD as to the alimony order. On April 21, 2020, Mother filed a “Motion to Enforce the Alimony Award and for the Entry of an Earnings Withholding Order,” which Father opposed. An earnings withholding order was later entered on June 29, 2020, and mailed to Father’s employer, the United States Department of Health and Human Services. On November 5, 2020, the circuit court entered a judgment against Father in the amount of $102,000 in alimony arrears.
Also on June 29, 2020, the court entered an order denying Father’s amended motion for reconsideration of the JAD, reasoning that Father failed to provide evidence for his assertions. On July 8, 2020, Father filed a notice for en banc review of the court’s decision followed by a memorandum in support of his request. The court dismissed Father’s request on August 28, which this Court reversed on April 20, 2021. See Foster v. Blackmon, No. 737, Sept. Term 2020, 2021 WL 1549679 (April 20, 2021).3
On July 13, 2021, the court appointed an en banc panel and set the hearing. On January 28, 2022, the parties appeared before an en banc panel to address the June 29, 2020 order denying Father’s motions to reconsider the JAD. As to alimony, on appeal, Father alleged that:
1) The Court failed to make the required findings of fact under Maryland Code Fam. Law Section 11-106(b) in awarding alimony to Defendant in the amount of Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000.00) per month and abused its discretion in awarding that amount.
2) The Court failed to make the required findings of fact under Maryland Code Fam. Law Section 11-106(c) in awarding indefinite alimony to Defendant.
In its opinion, issued on February 28, 2022, the panel stated that, “[i]n addition to describing the parties, financial circumstances in detail, the Court cited and discussed every factor set forth in Md. Code Ann., FLA § 11-106 in making its
alimony determination.” The panel affirmed the court’s award of alimony in the amount of $3,000 per month and remanded to determine whether the evidence at trial supports a finding of rehabilitative or indefinite alimony. A hearing was set for June 15, 2021 to address this issue.
On March 21, 2022, the court issued an opinion and order denying Father’s argument in his motion to reconsider the JAD as to his inability to pay, reasoning that the court already considered this argument at the April 26 and 27, 2021 trial and stated:
Since the time of filing of his Motion for Reconsideration (January 3, 2021), Plaintiff’s En Banc appeal of the amount of monthly alimony previously awarded ($3,000 per month) has been decided. In its decision, the En Banc court affirmed the trial court’s order that the Defendant pay to the Plaintiff the sum of $3,000 per month in alimony. Thus, the Plaintiff’s obligation to pay $3,000 per month to the Defendant continues.
The MCOCS provided an audit in response to the Court’s order. By virtue of a Line filed by the Montgomery County Office of Child Support (MCOCS) on June 21, 2021, following a fiscal record audit the Plaintiff was determined to be in arrears in spousal support (alimony) to the Defendant in the amount of $106,503.35. The Plaintiff has taken issue with the accuracy of that audit.
At the status hearing held before the Court on March 9, 2022, the parties agreed that the Earnings Withholding Order (hereafter “EWO”) previously in effect was no longer being honored by Plaintiff’s employer and that Defendant has not received anything by way of earnings withholding from Plaintiff’s pay in recent months. Pursuant to the prior EWO, a sum was being withheld from the Plaintiff’s employment earnings to be applied to his ongoing alimony and prior child support obligations as well as the arrearage in his alimony obligation. Plaintiff is not paying either directly to Defendant or by way of earnings withholding the $3,000.00 in monthly alimony that was affirmed by the En Banc court, let alone any payment toward his arrearage in alimony.
(Emphasis in original). The court noted that the issue of how much Father should be required to pay toward any existing alimony arrearage and his monthly payments of $3,000 would be considered at the June 15, 2022 trial. Until then, Father was required to pay the $3,000 monthly payments in alimony and $1,250 per month toward the alimony arrearage. Following this decision, Father filed a petition to modify alimony on March 24, 2022. Mother opposed, and a hearing was held on June 15 and 16, 2022. Following the hearing, the court signed an order on August 15, which was later entered on August 29, 2022, providing that: 1) Father pay Mother alimony in the amount of “Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) per month, commencing and accounting from August 1, 2022, and due and payable on the first day of every month thereafter
for a period of thirty-six (36) months”; and 2) Father pay Mother “the amount of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) per month toward the current alimony arrearage of $102,224.94” until the balance is paid in full. Despite the court’s reduction in alimony from $3,000 to $500, Father filed a motion for reconsideration on August 31, arguing among other things, that the alimony period should have begun from the date of the JAD, February 26, 2022, which was 30 months prior. Father requested that his alimony arrears balance be lowered from $102,224 to $0.00. Further, Father claimed that Mother did not need alimony because she was “financially self-sufficient” and did not have mortgage expenses for over 36 months. The court denied the motion for reconsideration on September 28, 2022.
Motions to Terminate Alimony
On July 18, 2023, Father filed a “Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support,” in which he argued that the court “never addressed the child support overpayment” in its August 15, 2022 order modifying the alimony award. Father requested that “alimony arrears be reduced by the $12,147.24 overpayment in child support.” Father filed an amended motion on March 13, 2024, in which he added further argument regarding the alleged overpayment of child support. Father requested that the: [A]limony arrears balance of $106,503.34 be reduced to zero $0.00 on the basis of (1) the overpayment of child support payments in the amount of $20,434.00 and (2) [Mother] has made enough progress to partly self-supporting for the court to terminate alimony.
Father reiterated his challenge to the court’s reduction in alimony from $3,000 to $500 beginning August 1, 2022, claiming that this led to Mother receiving excessive alimony. Father also argued that Mother’s total monthly expenses could be reduced from $6,242 to $2,846 because Mother was no longer making mortgage payments. Further, Father argued that Mother “has progressed to being partly self-supporting” as her “financial circumstances have changed as a result of an increase in the annual amount of DOL-OWCP Disability Benefit received” and she has “lived independently for the previous 6 years[.]” Father alleged that Mother misrepresented the facts throughout the case. Based on the foregoing allegations, and even though the circuit court had already considered and denied Father’s motion reconsideration on the same issues, Father requested that the court reduce his alimony arrears to a balance of zero, terminate the ongoing alimony arrears payment in the amount of $1,000 per month, and terminate the ongoing alimony amount of $500 per month. He specified that the court should modify the alimony order to “retroactively apply the reduction in the amount of the alimony award from $3,000 per month to $500 per month towards the alimony arrears balance,” from January 12, 2018, to November 5, 2020.
Mother opposed Father’s amended motion, contending that Father’s argument that he overpaid child support and that no one “noticed that he had overpaid” had no basis as the court previously considered “the amount of child support payable, the amount of child support actually paid, and the
amount of child support in arrears and not yet paid[.]”
A hearing was held on April 26, 2024, during which the court considered a number of motions, including Father’s initial motion to reduce alimony. The court acknowledged that Father sought to “reduce his alimony arrearage by $12,147.24 for the asserted overpayment of child support.” The court denied the motion, reasoning that:
In a prior oral ruling culminating in the court’s order entered May 26, 2021, the court stated, Mr. Foster has requested OCSE, Office of Child Support Enforcement audit contending that he has overpaid his child support and requesting a credit toward his alimony arrearage for the amount of any overpaid child support.
The court at that time determined that it was appropriate to grant his request for an audit so that a determination could be made of any arrears owed and so that if an appropriate adjustment could be made in any alimony arrearage for any excess in child support he may have paid. The court accordingly [stated] that an audit be made and that any excess child support paid would be credited toward any arrearage due on the alimony.
The court’s written order of May 26, 2021, which followed its oral ruling stated, in pertinent part, ordered that the Montgomery County of Office of Child Support Enforcement shall conduct an audit in this matter.
* * *
And as noted in a subsequent order of court that was entered March 21, 2022, the MCOCSE provided an audit in response to the court’s order. By virtue of a line filed by that office on July 21, 2021, following a fiscal record audit, the plaintiff was determined to be in arrears in spousal support, that is alimony, to the defendant in the amount of $106,503.35. The plaintiff has taken issue with the accuracy of that audit. The court’s March 21, 2022, order further provided that the then upcoming June 15, 2022, trial, the court would determine the amount of alimony arrearages owed by the plaintiff to the defendant as of the date of that hearing.
On May 5, 2022, my chambers emailed the parties and counsel requesting that they provide chambers with any and all information, documentation, et cetera, to support either party’s contention of an overpayment of child support by the plaintiff. On May 18, 2022, the plaintiff provided his position about an overpayment of $12,147.24. On May 27th, the defendant through her counsel provided her breakdown of overpayments. Thereafter, in its written modification of alimony order entered August 15, 2022, and filed August 28, 2022, after having the benefit of the plaintiff’s position regarding his asserted overpayment, defendant’s position regarding overpayments and the Child Support Administration payment summary report dated August 10, 2022, the court determined the plaintiff’s
alimony arrearage to be $102,224.94.
Thus, the assertion in the plaintiff’s currently pending motion that the court never addressed in its August 15, 2022, order, the requested credit towards his alimony arrearages for asserted child support overpayment is incorrect. The court had before it all the information regarding the asserted overpayment and each party’s position regarding that issue, that is the information from the plaintiff, the submission from the defendant, and the information from the Office of Child Support Enforcement, and made the determination that the plaintiff’s alimony arrearage was $102,224.94, which is the figure that the Office of Child Support Enforcement determined he owed as of August 10, 2022.
The plaintiff noted no timely appeal from this determination. Plaintiff’s present motion renewing his request for a credit of $12,000 towards his alimony arrears is res judicata. It seeks to relitigate an issue, his alimony arrearage and asserted credit for overpaid child support that was decided by a now and ruled order entered back in August of 2022. Any attempt by him at this point to again challenge the amount of arrearage determined by the court in its August 2022 order is far outside of the time limits permitted under the rules. (Emphasis added). The court memorialized its ruling in its April 30, 2024 order in which it denied as res judicata Father’s “Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment.” The April 30, 2024 order provided: Upon consideration of Defendant’s Motion to Modify Alimony (docketed 12/18/2022), Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel (docketed 12/14/2023), Plaintiff’s Line Requesting Hearing on Open Motions (docketed 12/19/2023), Plaintiff’s Request for hearing (docketed 1/11/2024), Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment (docketed 3/13/2024), Defendant’s Motion to Quash Subpoena to Thrift Line Service Center (docketed 3/13/2024), Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike Defendant’s Response in Opposition to Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support (docketed 4/4/2024), and any all responses or oppositions thereto, a hearing having been held on December 18, 2024, Plaintiff having appeared without counsel, Defendant having appeared with counsel, testimony having been taken and other evidence having been received, the arguments of the parties and the entire proceedings having been considered, and for the reasons stated by the Court on the record on April 26, 2024, it is this 30th day of April, 2024, by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland, hereby, ORDERED, that Defendant’s Motion to Modify
Alimony (12/18/2022) be and the same is hereby, DENIED, and it is further, ORDERED, that Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel (12/14/2023) be and the same is hereby MOOT as it was addressed at trial; and it is further, ORDERED, that Plaintiff’s Line Requesting Hearing on Open Motions (12/19/2023) be and the same is hereby MOOT; and it is further, ORDERED, that Plaintiff’s Request for hearing (dated 1/11/2024) be and the same is hereby MOOT; and it is further ORDERED, that Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment (3/13/2024) be and the same is hereby, DENIED as res judicata; and it is further, ORDERED, that Defendant’s Motion to Quash Subpoena to Thrift Line Service Center (3/13/2024) is and the same is hereby MOOT (Emphasis in original).
Father did not file an appeal from the April 30 order. Instead, Father filed a motion requesting another hearing on his “amended” motion to reduce alimony arrears. Father followed this motion for a hearing with yet another motion filed on May 18, 2024, titled, “Amended Motion To Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support.” On June 13, 2024, in the order relevant to this appeal, the court denied what the court styled as Father’s “Second Amended Motion to Terminate Ongoing Alimony Per Month and Father’s Amended Motion for Hearing.”
Father subsequently filed a notice of appeal on July 15, 2024, from:
[T]his Honorable Court’s Order entered on June 13, 2024, denying the Plaintiff’s Amended Motion For Termination of Alimony, and the Plaintiff’s Amended Motion for Hearing (5/18/2024).
Additionally, the subsequent ruling of moot on Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel (12/14/2023) in order entered on April 30, 2024. Regarding the motion to compel, the Court never heard testimony, and did not receive evidence for consideration at the December 18, 2023 hearing.
DISCUSSION I.
Appealability
Mother argues Father did not timely file this appeal. However, Father’s appeal is timely because it falls within the 30-day window provided in Md. Rule 8-202(a). Under Maryland Rule 8-202(a), an appeal must be filed within 30 days “after entry of the judgment or order from which the appeal is taken.” Maryland Rule 1-203(a), states that “[i]n computing any period of time prescribed by these rules, by rule or order of court, or by any applicable statute, the day of the act, event, or default after which the designated period of time begins to run is not included.” If the last day falls on a weekend, as it did here, then “the period runs until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday[.]” Md. Rule 1-203(a)(2).
Father filed the notice of appeal on July 15, 2024, a Monday, and the order from which Father appeals was entered on June 13, 2024, a Thursday. The 30-day window for this appeal began on Friday, June 14, 2024, and ended on July 13, 2024, a Saturday. Therefore, the Notice of Appeal, which was filed on the following Monday, July 15, 2024, was timely.
Father’s appeal as it pertains to the June 13 order is also reviewable before this Court because it is an appealable interlocutory order under Maryland Code, Courts and Judicial Proceedings (1973, 2020 Repl. Vol.) (“CJP”), Section 12-303.4 See Adelakun v. Adelakun, 491 Md. 1, 23 (2025) (explaining that the statute’s “language makes clear that an interlocutory order denying a request to rescind an order for the payment of money is immediately appealable unless the payment has been directed to be made to a court receiver.”). This applies to orders for the payment of alimony as well as those denying a request to rescind an order for the payment of alimony. Pappas v. Pappas, 287 Md. 455, 462 (1980).
This case involves the appeal of an interlocutory order denying Father’s request to terminate alimony and requesting a hearing to address that issue, which clearly involves the payment of money, and therefore falls under the exception in CJP § 12-303(3)(v).5 See Ridgeway v. Ridgeway, 171 Md. App. 373, 383 (2006) (reviewing the trial court’s denial of the appellant’s petition to terminate indefinite alimony). Therefore, the June 13 order was an appealable order and is properly before this Court.
II.
Appeal from Order Regarding Termination of Alimony
A. Parties’ Contentions
Father argues that the court abused its discretion when it denied his motion for a hearing on his “Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support” in its June 13 order. Father takes issue with the accuracy of the audit conducted by the Montgomery County of Office of Child Support Enforcement from which he was found to be arrears in spousal support to Mother in the amount of $106,503.35, and the court’s August 15, 2022 order determining the current alimony arrearage to be $102,224.95. Father claims that the court’s statements at the April 26, 2024 hearing regarding the audit and the arrears finding, “is an unabashed misrepresentation of the facts.” Father alleges the court decided to deny his “Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support” based only on the June 15 and 16, 2022 hearing where there was no testimony or evidence presented to the court.
Mother responds that Father filed an untimely appeal but contends that if we determine the appeal was timely, Father’s argument that the court failed to schedule a hearing must be rejected. Mother claims Father applied the incorrect standard of review and relies on his own interpretation of prior proceedings.
B. Legal Framework
When we review an alimony award, “we ‘defer[ ] to the findings and judgments of the trial court,’” but we “may disturb an award of alimony if we conclude that in making
that award ‘the trial court abused its discretion or rendered a judgment that is clearly wrong.’” Brewer v. Brewer, 156 Md. App. 77, 98 (2004) (quoting Innerbichler v. Innerbichler, 132 Md. App. 207, 246 (2000)). Further, the “doctrine of res judicata applies in the modification of alimony . . . and the [appellate] court may not re-litigate matters that were or should have been considered at the time of the initial award.” Ridgeway, 171 Md. App. at 384 (quoting Blaine v. Blaine, 97 Md. App. 689, 698 (1993), aff’d, 336 Md. 49 (1994)). Therefore, we will not disturb the trial court’s order unless we find an abuse of discretion, which “should only be found in the extraordinary, exception, or most egregious case.” Wilson v. John Crane, Inc., 385 Md. 185, 199 (2005).
C. Analysis
In his notice of appeal, Father appeals the court’s June 13, 2024 order denying his “Amended Motion for Termination of Alimony” and his “Amended Motion for Hearing.”6 Therefore, we will only address the issues that pertain to that order.
As the title implies, Father’s argument in his “Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support” rests primarily on the ground that he overpaid $20,434.00 in child support and that Mother should not be awarded alimony because she is partly self-supporting, has less expenses, and more money. The circuit court previously decided in its April 30, 2024 order that the issue of overpayment of child support arrears had already been considered and decided by the circuit court in its April 15, 2022 order modifying the alimony. Because Father’s “Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment of Child Support” primarily rests on an issue that had already been determined by the circuit court in prior rulings to be res judicata, the circuit court denied the motion in its June 13 order. Consequently, we discern no abuse of discretion in the circuit court’s determination, for the second time, that the issues raised by Father with regard to the overpayment of child support are res judicata and law of the case. Powell v. Breslin, 430 Md. 52, 63-65 (2013) (holding that the court’s grant of summary judgment in Powell II on the grounds of res judicata was warranted because the same parties and claims were raised in Powell I).
Father’s additional arguments that Mother was selfsupporting, had less expenses due to her lack of a mortgage payment, and had more money from an increase in disability benefits, had all been considered and decided on numerous occasions over the course of litigation between the parties. The en banc panel acknowledged this in 2022, when it listed how the court has already addressed each of the factors in Md. Code, Family Law Article (“FLA”), Section 11-106(b) (1999, Repl. Vol. 2019) in determining the alimony award, including the ability of the party seeking alimony to be self-supporting and the financial needs of that party. Therefore, we affirm the circuit court’s decision denying Fathers amended motion to terminate ongoing alimony per month.
Finally, because the June 13 order was an appealable interlocutory order, not a final judgment, and because the motion amounted to a motion to alter or amend a judgment pursuant to Maryland Rule 2–534 on grounds that had already been ruled upon in response to Father’s prior motions, a
hearing on the amended motion was not required where the court, as in this case, denied the motion. See Hill v. Hill, 118 Md.App. 36, 44 (1997), cert. denied 349 Md. 103 (1998); see also Maryland Rule 2-311(f) (providing that “[e]xcept when a rule expressly provides for a hearing, the court shall
determine in each case whether a hearing will be held, but the court may not render a decision that is dispositive of a claim or defense without a hearing if one was requested[.]”) Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in denying the request for a hearing. We affirm.
JUDGMENTS OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY AFFIRMED; COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.
FOOTNOTES
1 The court noted at the August 12, 2022 hearing that it had already considered the “equitable factors listed in 11-106(b) [.]” At that hearing, the court also ordered Mother rehabilitative alimony, asserting that she “will continue to need some assistance in the form of alimony as she is not presently self-supporting earning $30,000 a year from her disability.”
2 Both children, who were 19 and 15 years old at the time of the JAD, are now emancipated.
3 Before the en banc panel rendered a decision, the court again ordered the payment of alimony in an order issued May 26, 2021. Father submitted a motion for reconsideration of this order in which he requested that the court stay any payments until after the en banc hearing.
4 Section 12-303, which provides in relevant part that:
A party may appeal from any of the following interlocutory orders entered by a circuit court in a civil case:
(3) An order:
(v) For the sale, conveyance, or delivery of real or personal property or the payment of money, or the refusal to rescind or discharge such an order, unless the delivery or payment is directed to be made to a receiver appointed by the court[.]
(Emphasis added).
5 At the time that the order was granted, there were still other motions pending before the circuit court, and Father has another appeal in this family law case currently pending before this court captioned: ACM-REG-2219-2025.
6 The circuit court referred to “Plaintiff’s Amended Motion to Reduce Alimony Arrears Due to Overpayment” as “Plaintiff’s Second Amended Motion to Terminate Ongoing Alimony Per Month (docketed 3/13/2024)” in its June 13, 2024 order. We interpret the court’s designation to refer to what is at least the second time Father requested the court reduce his alimony arrears to zero due to overpayment of child support.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court vacated the Baltimore County Court’s modification of custody. Due process requires that a party be given adequate notice of the time, place, and nature of a hearing. Here, mother did not have notice that the court would consider the Child Access Evaluation findings or that custody modification would be at issue at the contempt hearing.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
April 2019 and was six years old at the time of the August 2025 hearing. The parties have never lived together. They have had difficulty cooperating with court-ordered visitation and custody arrangements, resulting in each party filing numerous petitions for contempt. Mother also has filed numerous petitions for protective orders against Father, all of which were eventually dismissed.2
On August 28, 2020, Mother filed a Complaint for Custody, requesting primary physical custody and sole legal custody of K. On April 7, 2021, after a hearing, the magistrate recommended that the parties have joint legal custody of K. and shared physical custody, with parental access alternating on a 3-4/4-3 schedule. Mother filed exceptions to the Magistrate’s Report and Recommendation.
Mother also filed a petition for a protective order against Father, alleging that Father threatened her when she attempted to pick up K. for her parental access time. On April 23, 2021, the district court granted a final protective order against Father, which Father appealed to the circuit court.
On October 20, 2023, Earl Demmont Loyal (“Father”) filed a Motion to Modify Custody in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. After a hearing, the court held the matter sub curia pending completion of a Child Access Evaluation and issued an interim custody order. On May 2, 2024, Father filed a petition for contempt of the interim custody order, and on August 4, 2025, after numerous postponements, the court held a contempt hearing. On October 1, 2025, the court issued an opinion ruling on the motion to modify and the petition for contempt. The court found Jasmine Thomas (“Mother”) in willful contempt of the custody order and granted Father’s motion to modify custody. It awarded Father primary physical custody and sole legal custody of the parties’ minor child and $5,000 in attorney’s fees.
On appeal, Mother presents the following questions for this Court’s review,1 which we have rephrased as follows:
1. Did the circuit court err in modifying custody based on evidence considered at a hearing on a petition for contempt when Mother was not present?
2. Did the circuit court err in finding Mother in civil contempt?
3. Did the circuit court err in awarding Father attorney’s fees?
For the reasons set forth below, we shall vacate the judgments and remand for further proceedings without affirming or reversing on the merits.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Father and Mother are the parents of K., who was born in
On July 19, 2021, the court issued a temporary order granting Mother temporary custody of K., and Father supervised visitation, pursuant to the final protective order issued by the district court. On September 16, 2021, after a hearing on the protective order and Mother’s exceptions to the magistrate’s custody recommendation, the court overruled Mother’s exceptions to the Magistrate’s recommendations, adopted the Magistrate’s recommendations for joint legal custody and shared physical custody, and dismissed the final protective order.
I.
November 2023 Modification Hearing
On October 20, 2023, Father filed a motion to modify custody. On November 20, 2023, the court held an evidentiary hearing. Both parties appeared unrepresented. At the time of the hearing, Father had physical custody of K., and Mother had not seen K. since October 20, 2023, when Mother transferred K. to Father’s custody pursuant to a contempt order purge provision. Father testified that he had attempted to contact Mother via telephone and text message to arrange for her to see K., but it was almost impossible to contact her because Mother would say that he was threatening her or trying to harass or hurt her. He testified that, after the September 2021 custody order, Mother “fabricated [lies] to try and make it seem like [he] was keeping [K.] from her” and falsely accused Father of violent behavior, leading to his arrest. Father did not see K. for one year due to difficulties with the exchange of custody and Mother’s false allegations.
Father introduced eight police incident reports into evidence, as well as text messages and photographs, relating to his attempt “to retrieve [K.].” He testified that K.’s maternal grandmother, Crystal Green, raised K. and that K. was “never with his mother.” He testified that K. was doing very well in his custody, learning to ride his bike and tie his shoes. Father stated that Mother was abusing drugs while in K.’s presence, and he introduced into evidence documentation showing that Mother canceled a doctor’s appointment that Father had made for K. to get vaccinations for school. Father requested sole custody of K. and that Mother have supervised visitation until she could prove that she is willing to comply with custody arrangements.
Mother testified that, since the September 2021 custody order, “[i]t’s been chaos” because Father did not abide by the order. She stated the Father’s behavior was very intimidating and disparaging toward her. Mother introduced text messages to show that she had attempted to contact Father and that she did not block his cell phone number. She testified that she did not receive a text message from Father, but when probed, she stated that she received messages “from him from someone else’s phone.” She denied cancelling the doctor’s appointment Father made for K. and stated that K. was up to date on all his shots.
At the time of the hearing, K. attended a daycare that was preparing him for kindergarten. Mother and K. were living with Mother’s father, and Mother paid $500 per month to him for rent plus $100 for gas and electric. She also spent $500 monthly on groceries. Mother testified that she was employed at Cassie’s Corner Assisted Living home as a recovery specialist, but she stated that she would not provide an employment address for fear of Father stalking her. She stated that she was a certified medication technician, CNA, had a business degree from CCBC, and had taken classes at Coppin State University to become a registered nurse. She worked 25 hours per week, earning $25 an hour.
Mother stated that Father was an alcoholic and used marijuana. She was “engaged in recovery,” attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings, had a sponsor, and received mental health therapy. She testified regarding the parties’ ongoing issues with custody exchanges, lack of service of court documents, the judgments of contempt against her, and a CPS investigation initiated by K.’s pediatrician.
Dr. Green, a Ph.D. nurse practitioner and K.’s maternal grandmother, testified that Mother worked for her 25 hours per week. She observed Father yelling at Mother and believed Father did not have the “mental maturity . . . to effectively co-parent.” When asked whether Mother lived with her “from time to time,” Dr. Green initially responded in the negative. She then testified, however, that Mother used her mailing address because “she’s been living in my address.” With regard to receipt of court papers, Dr. Green stated that she often went “a week without [ ] checking [her mail].” Regarding Mother’s substance abuse issues, Dr. Green stated that Mother was stable, engaged in recovery activities, three and a half years sober, and currently taking methadone. She was unsure where K. stayed while Mother worked.
The court found that Mother had withheld access to K. from
Father for ten months, but both parties had “not been adhering to the dictates of the [custody] order.” It noted that Mother “appeared during court here to be overmedicated,” and at times, she was not truthful when testifying. The court found that Father was “volatile . . . [and] has difficulty controlling his emotions.” Due to the lack of sufficient evidentiary support for the parties’ arguments, the court postponed ruling on the motion pending completion of a child access evaluation. It issued an interim custody order providing for shared physical custody on an alternating weekly schedule, with exchanges to occur at the local police station. The court granted Father sole legal custody on a temporary basis, citing Mother’s handling of medical issues and her credibility. The court stated that, once the child access evaluation was completed, it would “hold another hearing [a]nd at that time, enter a final order on the request to modify custody.” At the end of the hearing, the court again stated that it would “schedule a hearing for the final decision.”
On March 7, 2024, the child access evaluation was filed. The court evaluator recommended that Father have decision making authority and primary parenting time with K. and Mother have supervised visitation until she completed a substance abuse evaluation. The evaluator also recommended that Mother follow all recommendations of the substance abuse evaluation, including meeting with outpatient mental health providers and sobriety monitoring.
II.
August 4, 2025 Contempt Hearing
On May 2, 2024, Father filed a fourth petition for contempt. He alleged that Mother withheld K. in violation of court orders, and he requested that Mother serve jail time. On July 3, 2025, after multiple delays and postponements, the court held a hearing on Father’s petition for contempt, but Mother did not appear.3 The July 3, 2025 hearing notice indicated that the proceeding scheduled was a hearing on contempt related to visitation and access. Because Father requested jail time in his petition for contempt, the court postponed the hearing until August 4, 2025. On the section of the postponement hearing sheet listing subject matters, the clerk checked off the box for “CONTEMPT” but did not check off the boxes for “CUSTODY” or “MODIFICATION.”
Mother did not appear for the August 4, 2025 hearing. The court stated that Mother was aware of the hearing because she had called the clerk’s office earlier that morning, advising that she was hospitalized and unable to appear. The court stated that a judiciary employee called the number left by Mother, and a man answered, indicating he was a hospital employee. The court representative told the man to fax verification of Mother’s hospitalization to the court. After 30 minutes passed without receiving the fax confirmation, the court representative called again, but the call went to voicemail, which did not indicate that the number was connected to a hospital or health care provider.
The court found that Mother’s claim that she was hospitalized to be “an unsubstantiated effort by [her] to avoid appearing at th[e] hearing.” It found that Mother had notice of the hearing and “deliberately, without excuse, failed to appear.” The court proceeded with the hearing in her absence.
Father testified that, pursuant to the September 2021 custody order, the parties shared access to K. pursuant to a 3-4-4-3 arrangement, and he had legal custody with tiebreaking authority. Father stated, however, that he had not heard from K. in more than 18 months, and he did not know where K. was attending school. Father had “no idea” about K.’s health, but he had called the hospital and was told that K. was missing an immunization. When he called Mother about the immunization, she responded that Father was “harassing her.”
Father had been arrested three times based on Mother’s allegations, but he was never charged with any offenses. He stated that Mother filed over 20 petitions for protective orders against him. The court issued a final protective order in one of the matters, which had expired, but Father testified that the final protective order was issued in error. Father testified that he was never served with the notice of the protective order in the district court, and the circuit court dismissed the final protective order on appeal. Father stated that the final protective order, although ultimately dismissed, caused him to lose his security clearance and employment delivering turbines for Lockheed Martin.
Father last saw K. on February 13, 2024, when Mother had him arrested and K. was taken from him. The court found Mother in contempt of the custody order in December 2022, and ordered her to pay a $1,000 sanction. Mother did not satisfy the purge provision in the contempt order by adhering to the custody order or paying the sanction. The court found Mother in contempt again in October 2023 for withholding K. from Father. It ordered a “body attachment for her apprehension and incarceration.”
Following the October 2023 contempt order, Father had custody of K. in November, but Mother again withheld access until the end of December. Father had K. for Christmas and again in February. On February 13, 2024, after Mother filed something with the court, the police arrested Father at his home and removed K. from his care. In the weeks prior to that date, Mother had refused to abide by the court order to exchange custody at the police precinct. Father testified that Mother never purged the October 2023 contempt order by abiding by the custody order.
Father’s counsel introduced a copy of her billing statement into evidence.4 Father stated that he had “lost everything because of all [Mother’s] false allegations” and had nothing. He relied on family and friends to survive and did not have a vehicle. Father was employed at Blackwell’s Dump. He could no longer drive for government jobs, at ports, or on military bases because of Mother’s continuous allegations of abuse and unsubstantiated petitions for protective orders.
Father’s total bill for attorney’s fees was $12,775. He testified that all of the charges were fair. He stated that Mother was intentionally withholding K. and did not permit him, or K.’s siblings, to speak to K. on the phone.5 Father stated that Mother worked at her own mother’s psychiatry business. He requested that the court make a reasonable attorney fee award, stating: [N]one of this is my fault, this is all me trying to be a good father, and I have to pay and go to jail . . . I want to ask for more, so I can get back to where
I was, but I know it’s not going to happen. So, whatever the Court thinks is sufficient, anything to show her that she can’t get away with it.
Father’s counsel explained that the billing statement reflected work related to the contempt petitions and motions to modify the custody order.
Counsel then stated that she was unsure of the status of Father’s motion to modify. The court stated that it previously had ordered a Child Access Evaluation, but it could not consider the completed evaluation without the agreement of the parties. It then stated, however, that Mother “waived that right” and asked if Father would like the court to “look at it.” Father’s counsel requested that the court take judicial notice of the Child Access Evaluation, stating that the evaluation “begs the question whether an emergency hearing should or could be granted.”6
In considering whether it needed to hold another hearing on the motion to modify, the court stated that it “heard all the evidence” at the November 2023 hearing and held the motion sub curia pending the custody evaluation. It reasoned that its decision on modification was predicated upon the completion of the Custody Evaluation, which has now been completed, and [Father] has consented to me reviewing it. And since I had ordered it, and [Mother] is not here to object, I’m going to do exactly that. And I will consider the testimony on the other issues, because if I order a Modification, there may not be.
Well, I can, we’ll hold her in the Contempt as well, because it brings into play other issues, including the request for attorney’s fees.7
Father’s counsel then continued her questioning of Father. When asked if he was requesting that Mother serve jail time, he said yes because “she constantly commits perjury,” “frivolously filed false allegations,” and needed to understand that she had to respect the law. He also sought jail time for the safety of his son and so he could “at least have a clear couple months . . . [to] not have to worry about” frivolous charges and the police trying to arrest him based on false allegations.
With regard to custody, Father requested that Mother have supervised visitation at a supervised visitation center, in accordance with the recommendations in the Child Access Evaluation.8 Father asked the court to direct law enforcement to return K. to him.
At that point, the court said that it did not need to hear any more testimony. Based on the record, the court found Mother in contempt of multiple orders, including the September 2021 custody order, the November 2023 interim order, and the two prior contempt orders in December 2022 and October 2023. The court found Father’s testimony “to be highly credible” and in alignment with the facts in the record. With respect to the appropriate purge provisions, the court held that sub curia. It stated that it would fashion a purge provision with the objective for Mother to deliver K. to Father, noting that Mother had ignored previous directions to cooperate with Father. The court stated that it would also consider whether it needed to hold another hearing on the modification, which had been pending since November 2023, and it would
“consider all the requests for relief that have been made by [Father] in th[at] context.”9
III. Court’s Opinion
On September 29, 2025, the court issued a written opinion and order on Father’s October 20, 2023 Motion to Modify and his May 2, 2024 Petition for Contempt. It made findings of fact based on the evidence presented at the November 23, 2023 modification hearing, the August 4, 2025 contempt hearing, and the March 7, 2024 Child Access Evaluation. It found that the parties had ongoing difficulty complying with the September 2021 custody order, and Father had not been able to see K. since February 13, 2024, due to Mother’s “continued denial of visitation.” Mother failed to share information about K.’s education, health care, and general well-being with Father, and Mother “repeatedly and willfully failed to appear for multiple court proceedings involving” K.’s custody. The court found that Mother’s conduct and repeated contempt reflected unfavorably on her fitness as a parent.
The court stated that the numerous petitions for protective orders and unsubstantiated criminal charges Mother filed against Father had a “severe impact on [Father’s] ability to earn a living and maintain stable housing.” It found that the charges deprived K. of visitation with his Father, a result the court believed was intended by Mother. The court noted factors included in the Child Access Evaluation, including Mother’s history of substance abuse, frequent petitions for protective orders, and her refusal to cooperate in the custody arrangement. It noted the evaluation’s conclusion that Father was a fit parent to his other children and was able to coparent with the mother of his other children. The court also noted that the Child Access Evaluation recommended that Father have primary physical and legal custody of K., and Mother have supervised visitation.
Based on these facts, the court found that a material change in circumstances had occurred since the September 2021 custody order. It then weighed the factors established in Montgomery County Department of Social Services v. Sanders, 38 Md. App. 406, 381 A.2d 1154 (1977), and Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290, 508 A.2d 964 (1986), as follows:
1. The age, health, and sex of the child; [K.], male, age 6; no apparent health concerns.
2. The age and number of children each parent has in the household; none in Mother’s home; Father has a 2 year old son with his fiancée as well as two adult children from a prior relationship. His fiancée has two children ages 11 and 8.
3. The preference of the child, when the child is of sufficient age and capacity to form a rational judgment; in his interview with the custody evaluator, [K.] is reported to have expressed a preference for His father’s home.
4. The potential disruption of the child’s social and school life; it is unclear at this time where [K.] is going to school as [Mother] has failed to appear for hearings and has not provided information to [Father]. At the time of the custody evaluation, [K.] reported that he had no friends.
5. The fitness of the parents/ The character and reputation of the parties;
a. [Mother]: As outlined above and expanded upon in the Ch[i]ld Custody Evaluation, the court finds that she has failed to attend court or obey the courts orders as they relate to [K.’s] custody. This failure to adhere to her responsibilities reflects poorly on her fitness as a parent. She has regularly denied the father’s access to [K.] which the court finds to be inconsistent with his best interests. She has filed protective order petitions which, in nearly every instance, have proven to be unsubstantiated. This conduct has had a significantly detrimental effect on [Father] and, as result, on [K.’s] opportunity to spend time with his father.
b. [Father]: He has consistently [] sought to remain connected to his son and to provide for his wellbeing, despite the difficulties presented by [Mother]. The court finds that he is a fit and proper custodian for [K.].
6. The geographic proximity of the parents’ residences and opportunities for time with each parent; both parents live in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
7. The ability of each parent to maintain a stable and appropriate home for the child;
a. [Mother]: She lives in a home with her father and his wife. The home study conducted on February 20, 2024 revealed a modest and appropriate home, although it appeared “very cluttered.”
b. [Father]: He lives in a row house with his mother and stepfather. The home study conducted on February the 28, 2024 revealed an appropriate living space.
8. Financial status of the parents; unclear as of this writing.
9. The demands of parental employment and opportunities for time with the child; Employment obligations do not appear to interfere with the parties’ time with the child.
10. The relationship established between the child and each parent; The child custody evaluation reflects a divide between how [K.] (then age 4) and his mother view their relationship.
11. Any prior voluntary abandonment or surrender of custody of the child; None
12. The length of the separation of the parents; The parties have never lived together.
13. The requests of each parent and the sincerity of the requests; Both parents have sought sole legal and primary custody. Those requests appear sincere.
14. Any agreements between the parties; None
15. Willingness of the parents to share custody; By her actions, [Mother] appears unwilling to share custody, even when ordered to do so. [Father] appears willing to share physical custody, so long as [Mother] abides by the schedule.
16. Each parent’s ability to maintain the child’s relationships with the other parent and family; It appears to be very limited given the parties’ inability to cooperate with one another.
17. The capacity of the parents to communicate and to
reach shared decisions; The parents, as is demonstrated by the court filings have poor communication and are unable to effectively share decision making.
18. Any impact on state or federal assistance; None
19. The benefit a parent may receive from an award of joint physical custody, None
Based on the evidence, including the Child Access Evaluation, the court concluded that it was no longer in K.’s “best interests to remain in the primary custody of [Mother].”
The court found that Mother’s interference with Father’s parenting time was harmful to K.’s development, and her refusal to abide by court orders reflected “unfavorably on her fitness as a parent.” It granted Father’s motion to modify and awarded him primary physical custody and sole legal custody. The court awarded Mother visitation rights “so long as she abides by the [Custody] Order,” which established visitation “under such circumstances as are agreed upon by the parties in writing.” The court authorized law enforcement to “take all steps necessary to enforce” the order.
The court also found Mother to be in willful contempt of the November 22, 2023 Interim Order. Because it modified custody, however, the court stated there was “no useful purpose in setting a purge provision for [Mother’s] contempt.”
Finally, the court addressed Father’s request for attorney’s fees. It stated that it had “considered the financial status and needs of each party” and found that there was substantial justification for Father’s pending motions. It found, on the other hand, that Mother’s withholding of visitation, “was without any substantial justification.” The court found that the requested fees were fair and reasonable in amount, but it reduced the award to exclude services that were not directly related to Mother’s conduct. It awarded Father $5,000 in attorney’s fees.
This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Custody Modification
Mother, an unrepresented litigant, contends in her informal brief that the court violated her fundamental right to due process and the opportunity to be heard. She notes that the court “made major decisions transforming [her] parental rights” and cites Section 9.5-205(a) of the Family Law Article, which provides that, “[b]efore a child custody determination is made under this title, notice and an opportunity to be heard . . . shall be given to . . . any parent whose parental rights have not been previously terminated.” She argues that the court abused its discretion and committed legal error in finding that she voluntarily waived her right to be present at the custody modification and contempt hearing. Father did not file a brief in this appeal.
We review decisions of the circuit court to modify custody using three interrelated standards of review. We review factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard and legal questions without deference, and we shall not disturb the ultimate conclusion of the circuit court unless there has been a clear abuse of discretion. In re Yve S., 373 Md. 551, 586 (2003). Because the circuit court sees the witnesses and the parties and hears the testimony, it “is in a far better
position than is an appellate court, which has only a cold record before it, to weigh the evidence and determine what disposition will best promote the welfare of the minor.” Id.
Due process requires that a party be given adequate notice of the time, place, and nature of a hearing. Van Schaik v. Van Shaik, 90 Md. App. 725, 739 (1992). As we explained, “[i] t is clear that if a court is contemplating holding a hearing at which it will, or may, determine custody issues, a parent with custodial rights, or one who has the right to claim custody, must be notified that such an issue may be the subject of the hearing.” Id. at 738. Accord Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law (“FL”) § 9.5.205(a) (2019 Repl. Vol.).
Here, the record reflects that Mother received notice of the time and place of the hearing, but not the nature of the hearing would involve consideration of custody. The notices for the August 4, 2025 hearing stated that it was a hearing on contempt, not custody.10 When a hearing notice does not inform parties that child custody will be at issue, but the court nevertheless orders a custody modification, we have found a violation of FL § 9.5.205(a) and a denial of due process rights. See Van Shaik, 160 Md. App. at 739 (father’s due process rights violated where hearing notice indicated visitation and child’s possessions were at issue, but court instead terminated father’s joint custody rights). Accord Burdick v. Brooks, 160 Md. App. 519, 527 (2004) (court erred in modifying custody at scheduling conference based on Mother’s failure to comply with psychological evaluation order where notice letter failed to inform her of possible custody determination).
In its opinion modifying custody, the court relied heavily on the Child Access Evaluation findings, citing to the evaluation as a basis for its finding that there was a material change in circumstances and in its ultimate custody determination. Mother, however, did not have notice that the court would consider the Child Access Evaluation findings or that custody modification would be at issue at the contempt hearing.11
Mother was deprived of the opportunity to address the Child Access Evaluation and its impact on Father’s motion to modify custody. A separate hearing on custody modification was required to provide Mother with due process and an opportunity to be heard on the Child Access Evaluation findings. To keep stability for the child, however, the court’s order will stand pending a new hearing and order. Accordingly, we remand for further proceedings without affirming or reversing. See Krebs v. Krebs, 255 Md. 264, 267 (1969) (remanding for further evaluation without affirming or reversing).
II. Contempt
We turn now to the court’s finding of contempt. Mother contends that the court erred in finding her in contempt because it did not include a purge provision. She asserts that the contempt finding, therefore, was improperly punitive.
The court generally will not “disturb a contempt order absent an abuse of discretion or a clearly erroneous finding of fact upon which the contempt was imposed.” Sayed A. v. Susan A., 265 Md. App. 40, 69-70 (2025) (quoting Kowalcyzk v. Bresler, 231 Md. App. 203, 209 (2016)). When the circuit
court’s “decision encompasses an error of law,” however, we review the court’s conclusion under a de novo standard of review. Breona C. v. Rodney D., 253 Md. App. 67, 73 (2021).
The contempt finding at issue here was for constructive civil contempt. Constructive civil contempt occurs outside the presence of the court. Id. Civil contempt proceedings are intended to coerce present or future compliance with a court order. Id. A party cannot be held in contempt for failure to comply with a court order unless there is a showing that the failure to comply was willful. Md. Dep’t of Health v. Myers, 260 Md. App. 565, 634 (2024), cert. denied, 487 Md. 267 (2024). “The coercive mechanism of an order of constructive civil contempt is the imposition of a sanction that the contemnor is able to avoid by taking some definite, specified action of which the contemnor is reasonably capable.” Breona C., 253 Md. App. at 74.
An order holding a party in constructive civil contempt is valid only if it:
(1) imposes a sanction; (2) includes a purge provision that gives the contemnor the opportunity to avoid the sanction by taking a definite, specific action of which the contemnor is reasonably capable; and (3) is designed to coerce the contemnor’s future compliance with a valid legal requirement rather than to punish the contemnor for past, completed conduct.
Id. Accord Myers, 260 Md. App. at 634. If incarceration to compel compliance with a court order is requested, the alleged contemnor has a right to an attorney. Md. Rule 15206 (c)(2)(C). The court may find that the alleged contemnor has waived his or her right to an attorney, however, if it “finds that there is no meritorious reason for the alleged contemnor’s appearance without counsel.” Rule 15-206 (e)(2)(C). Moreover, “[i]f the alleged contemnor in a civil contempt proceeding fails to appear in person or by counsel at the time and place set by the court, the court may proceed ex parte.” Rule 15-207(c)(2). The court here found Mother to be “in willful contempt of the November 22, 2023 Interim Order,” but it did not include a purge provision or impose a sanction for the contempt. It expressly found that there was “no useful purpose in setting a purge provision” because it was modifying custody. As we have explained, however, “there cannot be a finding of contempt unless the contemnor has the present ability to comply with a proper purging provision.” Kowalczyk, 231 Md. App. at 211. Here, there was no purge provision. Accordingly, the finding of contempt is invalid, and we shall reverse it.
III. Counsel Fees
Mother’s final argument is that the court erred in awarding attorney’s fees to Father without providing her with a fair opportunity to be heard. Section 12-103 of the Family Law Article provides that “[t]he court may award to either party the costs and counsel fees that are just and proper under all circumstances in any case in which a person . . . files any form of proceeding . . . to enforce a decree of custody or visitation.” FL § 12-103(a). Before a court may award counsel fees under § 12-103, it must consider: “(1) the financial status of each party; (2) the needs of each party; and (3) whether there was substantial justification for bringing, maintaining, or defending the proceeding.” Id. § 12-103(b). By its plain language, FL § 12-103 applies to constructive civil contempt actions brought to enforce custody orders. Sayed A., 265 Md. App. at 89. We may uphold an order’s provision awarding attorney’s fees based on contempt even when the contempt order is vacated based on an invalid purge provision. Id. at 90-91.
The court has “significant discretion in applying the factors” set forth in § 12-103(b), but the failure to consider those factors constitutes legal error. Ruiz v. Kinoshita, 239 Md. App. 395, 438 (2018). The court does not need “to recite any ‘magical’ words so long as its opinion, however phrased, does that which the statute requires.” Horsely v. Radisi, 132 Md. App. 1, 31 (2000) (quoting Beck v. Beck, 112 Md. App. 197, 212 (1996)).
The court here found that there was substantial justification for Father to bring the petition for contempt and motion to modify because Mother withheld Father’s visitation “without any substantial justification.” It also found that the fees requested were fair and reasonable in amount. With regard to the financial status and needs of each party, the court stated only that it had considered those factors, without further discussion. In the earlier portion of the opinion discussing custody, however, the court indicated that the “[f]inancial status of the parents” was “unclear as of this writing.”12
Based on the record here, the court had “inadequate financial information upon which to have based a FL § 12103(b) award.” See Guillaume v. Guillaume, 243 Md. App. 6, 28 (2019) (court erred in awarding attorney’s fees where there was insufficient financial information in the record and no discussion of the needs of the parties). Accordingly, we vacate the court’s award of attorney’s fees to Father and remand for further proceedings.13
JUDGMENTS OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY VACATED AND REMANDED WITHOUT REVERSING OR AFFIRMING FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS. COSTS DIVIDED EQUALLY BETWEEN THE PARTIES.
1
FOOTNOTES
A. Whether the court below abused its discretion and committed Legal Error by finding that the appellant voluntarily waived her right to be present at the August 4, 2025 Child Custody and Contempt Hearing because the court believed that Appellant’s non-Appearance was not due to her being treated for Medical Conditions at a Healthcare facility, but rooted in false pretenses;
B. Whether the finding of contempt, particularly in the expression of the court below that no opportunity for the Appellant to “purge” herself from contempt was necessary, and because the contempt finding was “punitive” against the backdrop of why a monetary award for Counsel fees were awarded without a fair opportunity to be heard.
2 Although Mother alleges, and the Child Access Evaluation indicates, that there is a February 16, 2024 open case against Father for assault, our review of the docket shows that the court denied Mother’s February 16, 2024 petition for a final protective order after granting a temporary protective order against Father and requesting a Department of Social Services investigation.
3 Mother also failed to appear for the October 18, 2023 contempt hearing.
4 The court took judicial notice of the September 15, 2021 custody order, and the December 2022 and October 2023 contempt orders.
5 Father also has a 23-year-old son, a 20-year-old daughter, and a 2-year-old son from other relationships.
6 Father’s counsel then elicited testimony regarding K.’s health insurance coverage and medical appointments. Father testified that Mother stopped K.’s health insurance and deliberately canceled a medical appointment for K. in October 2023. He established medical insurance for K. through a state program, but he was unable to obtain medical information about K. because, if he inquired, Mother would retaliate by making false allegations against him.
7 The court did not admit the Child Access Evaluation into evidence at the hearing. On September 10, 2025, the court issued an Order Correcting Record directing that the Child Access Evaluation be marked and admitted into evidence.
8 The Child Access Evaluation indicated that Mother had ongoing drug addiction and mental health issues.
9 The court noted that the custody proceedings began in 2020, and at the time of the August 2025 hearing, the case had “generated 449 documents.”
10 The August 2025 hearing was postponed from hearings set for April 8, 2025 and July 3, 2025 hearings, both of which listed the “Type of Proceeding” as “Hearing-Contempt.” The post-hearing summary sheet for the July 2025 hearing noted that Mother failed to appear and checked off the box for “CONTEMPT” to indicate the type of hearing held. The “Hearing Notes” section stated that Father requested jail time for contempt and that the case would be postponed until August 4, 2025. On the hearing sheet summarizing the August 4, 2025 hearing, the clerk checked off the boxes for “SHOW CAUSE” and “CONTEMPT” and left blank the boxes for “CUSTODY” and “MODIFICATION.” Additionally, in his petition for contempt, Father did not request a modification of the custody order; rather, he requested only that Mother serve jail time.
11 We note that, at the close of the November 20, 2023 modification hearing, the court stated that it would hold another hearing for a final decision once the Child Access Evaluation was complete.
12 Mother did testify at the November 20, 2023 modification hearing regarding her employment, her hourly wage, and certain living expenses. This was not in the context of a request for attorney’s fees, however, as both parties were unrepresented at the time, and that hearing was nearly two years prior to the August 2025 contempt hearing. As indicated below, the parties current financial status was unclear at the time of the contempt hearing.
13 Because we vacate the circuit court’s judgments on contempt, modification, and attorney’s fees on other grounds, we need not reach the issue of whether the court properly proceeded with the August 4, 2025 hearing in Mother’s absence. We note, however, that Rule 12-207(c)(2) “provides two, succinct alternatives for the court to select from should a contemnor fail to appear in a civil contempt proceeding”: (1) proceed ex parte; or (2) order that the alleged contemnor be arrested and brought before
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
Cite as 11 MFLU Supp. 6 (2026)
Final judgment; interlocutory; appeal
In the matter of Julia Taylor
No. 2007, September Term 2024
Argued before: Wells, C.J., Friedman, Zic, JJ.
Opinion by: Friedman, J.
Filed: March 30, 2026
The Appellate Court dismissed the appeal. Because it fell within none of the exceptions to the final judgment rule — statutory, rule-based or common law — it is an impermissible interlocutory appeal and must be dismissed.
FACTS1
Julia Taylor is a person subject to a guardianship of her person and property, established in 2018. Jo Ann Myles currently serves as her guardian. In 2022, Julia’s brother, Christopher Taylor, sought to participate in the guardianship proceedings by filing a document entitled “Addition of Interested Person and Entry of Appearance.” Julia moved to strike Christopher’s appearance. Christopher then moved to intervene in the guardianship. The circuit court denied Christopher’s motion to intervene but designated him as an interested person entitled to receive notice of proceedings.2 This appeal followed. On appeal, Julia argues that the circuit court erred in designating Christopher as an interested person or by failing to strike him as an interested person. She also argues that the circuit court erred by not holding a hearing on her motion to alter or amend its judgment. We are prohibited by Maryland law from considering these issues.
ANALYSIS
Ordinarily, Maryland adheres to the “final judgment rule” permitting appeals only from final judgments. MD. CODE, CTS. & JUD. PROC. (“CJ”) § 12-301; Rohrbeck v. Rohrbeck, 318 Md. 28, 41 (1989); see also KEVIN F. ARTHUR, FINALITY OF JUDGMENTS AND OTHER APPELLATE TRIGGER ISSUES 4-5 (4th ed. 2025). There are, however, three categories of permissible interlocutory appeals: statutory, rule, and common law. Each is carefully circumscribed. Falik v. Hornage, 413 Md. 163, 175 (2010) (stressing that there are only three limited exceptions to the final judgment rule); ARTHUR, supra at 52. If the order appealed from is not final and none of the three exceptions apply, we must dismiss the appeal. MD. R. 8-602(b)(1) (must dismiss appeal not allowed by law).
The first category is statutory. Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article § 12-303 enumerates specific interlocutory orders
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
that are appealable as of right. The right extends no further than the statute’s enumerated categories; an order that falls outside them cannot be brought within the statutory exception by analogy or liberal construction. Julia’s appeal does not fall within any of these enumerated categories.
The second category is rule-based. Maryland Rule 2-602(b) permits a trial court, when multiple claims or parties are involved, to direct entry of final judgment as to fewer than all claims or parties upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay. Rule 8-602(g) is the appellate counterpart, authorizing this Court to treat a notice of appeal from a non-final order as an application for leave to appeal. Both provisions require an affirmative exercise of judicial discretion, and neither confers an appeal as of right. Julia has neither sought nor received the appropriate permission under these Rules. And if she had sought it, it could not have been granted: Rule 2-602(b) applies only where multiple claims or parties are involved, and this case involves neither. See generally USA Cartage Leasing, LLC v. Baer, 202 Md. App. 138, 170 (2011); ARTHUR, supra at 71-72.
The third category is a product of the common law. Under the collateral order doctrine, an interlocutory order is immediately appealable only if it satisfies four conjunctive requirements: “(1) conclusively determines the disputed question, (2) resolves an important issue, (3) resolves an issue that is completely separate from the merits of the action, and (4) would be effectively unreviewable if the appeal had to await the entry of a final judgment.” In re M.P., 487 Md. 53, 66 (2024) (quoting Stephens v. State, 420 Md. 495, 502 (2011)); see also ARTHUR, supra at 55. The doctrine is narrow by design, and all four requirements must be satisfied. Courts have been cautious about expanding the categories of orders that qualify.
First, the order does not conclusively determine the disputed question of Christopher’s status as an interested person. The circuit court was explicit on this point: “The Court does not designate Christopher Taylor as an interested person in this case because it expects him to do anything. The Court certainly has not determined that he is entitled to do anything in this action. The objections that Ms. Taylor has to his involvement may be asserted in opposition to any action he may take or seek to take in this action.” The order thus resolves nothing about the extent of Christopher’s participation — it merely preserves the question for future proceedings. An order that leaves the central issue expressly open is the opposite of a conclusive determination.
The second requirement is also not satisfied. We do not minimize the significance of this issue to Julia, but the
question of whether an issue is important is not tested by its importance to the litigants. Rather, it is its importance in the life of the litigation. In that context, whether Christopher receives notices as an interested person is not an important issue.
The third requirement — that the order resolve an issue completely collateral to the merits — is satisfied. The question of Christopher’s participation as an interested person is distinct from the underlying guardianship, which is not the subject of any active dispute.
The fourth requirement is not satisfied. For an interlocutory order to be immediately appealable, the right it affects must be one that would be effectively lost if review awaited final judgment. That is not the case here. The circuit court’s order leaves Christopher’s future participation expressly
unresolved and subject to further proceedings. If the court were at some future point to allow Christopher to participate more actively, Julia would be able to raise all objections at that time — and to seek review of any adverse ruling at the conclusion of the case. We understand that Julia would prefer that Christopher receive neither the notice nor the annual reports that interested-person status entails. The standard is effective loss of a right, and no such loss is threatened here.
Three of the four required elements of the collateral order doctrine are not satisfied. As a result, the collateral order doctrine does not apply.
Because this appeal falls within none of the exceptions to the final judgment rule — statutory, rule-based, or common law — it is an impermissible interlocutory appeal and must be dismissed.3 MD. R. 8-602(b)(1).
APPEAL DISMISSED. COSTS ASSESSED TO APPELLANT.
FOOTNOTES
1 We refer to the siblings by their given names as they share a surname. Julia, as a person under guardianship, lacks legal capacity to take action on her own behalf; it is Myles, as guardian, who is the real party in interest. Nevertheless, we discuss Julia as the participant in these proceedings.
2 The circuit court based that ruling on MD. R. 10-103(f)(1) (defining “interested persons”).
3 Because this is an impermissible interlocutory appeal, we do not consider the merits. Nevertheless, because Julia is a person under guardianship, she remains under the continuing protection of the court. See MD. CODE, EST. & TRUSTS § 13-221(b) (guardianship of property continues until death, end of disability, or other good cause is shown); MD. R. 10209 (same for guardianship of the person); see also In re Rosenberg, 211 Md. App. 305, 323 (2013) (“in reality the court is the guardian; an individual who is given that title is merely an agent or arm of that tribunal in carrying out its sacred responsibility”). We direct the circuit court to review the pleadings filed on her behalf and to determine whether the positions taken, their likelihood of success (particularly in light of Rule 8-131), and the counsel fees incurred, reflect a litigation strategy that was in Julia’s best interests. We also observe that this appeal — which consumed the resources of both sides and this Court — reflects litigation choices that are difficult to reconcile with those interests.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court vacated the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s monetary award and the attorney’s fees award. The circuit court didn’t classify the properties explicitly as marital, nonmarital or partly marital and partly nonmarital, and its valuation of the marital portion of the properties’ equity values derived from miscalculations. Moreover, the circuit court should not have counted husband’s Discover bank accounts as marital property.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
Exhibit 1 listed certain real properties and bank accounts that are pertinent to this appeal:
13908 Carlene Drive, in Upper Marlboro (“Carlene Drive”)
6505 100th Avenue, in Lanham (“100th Avenue”)
9110 5th Street, in Lanham (“5th Street”)1 Bank of America Savings
Bank of America Checking SECU Savings SECU Checking2
The agreement stated as well that “marital property acquired after marriage shall remain subject to division, either by agreement or by judicial determination.”
The parties married seven days later, on July 17, 2009, and lived together at Carlene Drive. Wife rented the basement of their home for her licensed daycare business and deposited her income into a joint marital account. Their union dissolved after Husband’s unsubstantiated accusations of infidelity. On or around January 26, 2017, he evicted Wife from their home.
Khamisi Easton (“Husband”) and Tamara Easton (“Wife”) married in July 2009. The marriage began to fall apart in 2016 and ended on August 1, 2024, when the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County issued a Judgment of Absolute Divorce. In that judgment, the court counted as marital property the equity value of three homes that the parties’ prenuptial agreement had defined as nonmarital property; a 2022 BMW i4 that Husband said he purchased during the marriage using a Home Equity Line Of Credit (“HELOC”) secured by equity in one of the excluded homes; and two Discover Bank accounts that Husband had closed during the divorce. The court granted Wife a monetary award of $325,450 and an attorney’s fee award of $20,000. Husband challenges the court’s determination of marital property and award of attorney’s fees. We vacate the monetary award and the attorney’s fees award and remand this matter to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. BACKGROUND
On or around July 10, 2009, Husband and Wife executed a prenuptial agreement. The agreement provided, in relevant part, that “[a]ll property, assets, or liabilities” that belonged to Husband, as set forth in Exhibit 1 of the agreement, “shall be, and shall forever remain, [his] personal estate, including all interest, rents, and profits which may accrue” from that property, which “shall remain forever free of claim” by Wife.
A few months before their separation, Wife had brought an action against Husband for equitable relief, case no. CAL16-36414. She alleged that Husband had promised to put her name on the Carlene Drive deed in return for her contributions to its expenses. She alleged further that she had paid all the utility expenses for the home, had made improvements to it, and had given Husband access to funds to pay down the mortgage and other expenses associated with the property in accordance with their agreement. She claimed that Husband’s misleading statements had caused her to enter into the prenuptial agreement with limited information. Wife asked the circuit court to place Carlene Drive into a constructive trust (Count I), issue a monetary judgment to avoid Husband’s unjust enrichment (Count II), and vacate the prenuptial agreement (Count III). The parties agreed to dismiss the first two counts, and the court held the third count in abeyance pending further divorce proceedings.
Then on February 1, 2017, Wife filed a Complaint for Limited Divorce and Alimony, case no. CAD17-02880. In response, Husband filed a Complaint for Absolute Divorce or, in the Alternative, Counter-Complaint for Limited Divorce. On December 28, 2017, the parties filed a joint property statement. After a merits hearing, the court granted Wife a limited divorce and denied Husband’s request for absolute divorce as premature. At the conclusion of this litigation, the circuit court ordered Husband to pay Wife rehabilitative alimony and to pay $40,000 for her attorney’s fees in addition to a $10,000 fee award contained in an earlier pendente lite order.
Meanwhile, Husband filed a Complaint for Absolute Divorce and Other Relief, case no. CAD19-042661. He asked the circuit court to ratify and incorporate the terms of the prenuptial agreement into any judgment of absolute divorce, to identify and value all their marital property, and to grant him a monetary award. Wife filed a Counter-Complaint for Absolute Divorce a few months later and requested, again, that the court vacate the agreement.
The circuit court held a merits hearing on Wife’s first action to set aside the prenuptial agreement (CAL16-36414). The court found that there had been “ample opportunity” for each party to seek counsel before entering the agreement. It found further that the properties had outstanding mortgage balances when Husband and Wife executed the agreement. The court concluded that the prenuptial agreement would not exclude any deductions to the mortgage balances that occurred during the marriage and didn’t originate from “interest, rents, and profits which may accrue” from the properties:
COURT: So any changes between 2009, the date that [the prenuptial agreement] was executed, to whenever [the absolute divorce] matter is heard in a subsequent hearing, unless it is derived from interest, rents, or profits any deductions would not be included as part of this agreement. So, any payments that were made to lessen the loan amount aside from any interest, rents, or profits would be considered marital property and would not be included in this prenuptial agreement.
The court applied this logic to the bank accounts in the prenuptial agreement as well:
COURT: So . . . the balances of any Bank of America savings or checking accounts, any of those accounts as of July 10, 2009, the only [value] that would be added that would remain [Husband’s] property would be the interest that had accrued from that time, and that is what the Court understands as the parties understanding and acceptance.
Wife confirmed that she shared the court’s understanding of the agreement. The court explained the bounds of the prenuptial agreement to Husband after he expressed confusion about the status of the properties:
[HUSBAND]: I’m a little confused in regards to the properties that you mentioned.
COURT: Okay. The agreement stated that, in paragraph 1, these are nonmarital assets so they are your properties because they were purchased prior to marriage. Any interest, rents, and profits that have been acquired from that nonmarital asset or assets would remain in your possession. However, anything exclusive of that, any—where marital funds may have been used to bring the mortgage loan down is not part of this agreement that was signed by the party. [The agreement] only entailed interest, rents, and profits so any mortgage that was paid either lump sum or monthly is not part of this agreement that the parties had signed. That doesn’t mean the property in [and] of itself
does not—it’s still your property and its free and clear. But if there are—if the loans have been reduced the Court would need to know did that— were those deductions derived from interest, rents or profits. If not, that’s not what the parties agreed. Do you understand?
[HUSBAND]: Yes.
Husband took a recess to consult with his counsel. When they returned, his attorney restated the bounds of the agreement as he had explained it to Husband:
[COUNSEL FOR HUSBAND]: Mr. Easton, with regards to these real properties the agreement is that they are protected and your properties, but to the extent that the mortgages have been paid down during the marriage by funds that can not be characterized as interest, rents, or profits, that is what—this agreement does not cover that. So to the extent that these funds that you used to pay down the mortgage during the marriage can be characterized as interest, rents, and profits, you’re protected. But to the extent that they can not fit into those categories, that’s an issue for another day. This agreement doesn’t cover that. Is that fair, Judge?
COURT: Yes, that is.
[COUNSEL FOR HUSBAND]: Okay.
COURT: And that’s your understanding, Mr. Easton?
[HUSBAND]: Yes, Your Honor.
The court placed the parties’ agreement on the record and found the prenuptial agreement valid and enforceable. At that point, the unadjudicated issues were the divorce, the marital award, and both parties’ requests for attorney’s fees. The court consolidated Wife’s action for limited divorce (CAD17-02880) and Husband’s suit for absolute divorce (CAD19-042661) and scheduled trial for February 21, 2023. The court continued the trial date so that the parties could supplement discovery with updated financial information about the fair market values of the properties and the sources of the funds used to pay down each mortgage.
The trial took place on June 14, 2023. Jerome Bell testified as Wife’s expert in real estate and forensic appraisals.3 Mr. Bell concluded to a reasonable degree of certainty that the fair market value of Carlene Drive on July 10, 2009 was $375,000. He appraised its fair market value as $420,000 on October 21, 2017 and $645,000 on February 26, 2023. Mr. Bell testified that the fair market value of 100th Avenue was $210,000 on July 10, 2009, $290,000 on October 26, 2017, and $384,000 on February 26, 2023. Lastly, he appraised the fair market value of 5th Street as $247,000 on July 10, 2009, $285,000 on October 20, 2017, and $385,000 on February 23, 2023.4 Wife submitted the appraisal reports into evidence.
Husband testified that he purchased the Carlene Drive parcel in 2006 and contracted to have the house built on it between 2006 and 2007. He purchased 100th Avenue in 2001 for $130,000 and 5th Street in 2007, and he took out mortgages on all three properties. He submitted into evidence the original deeds for each property and the loan settlement sheets for Carlene Drive and 5th Street. The evidence revealed
that he purchased the Carlene Drive parcel for $250,000 after receiving a land advance on a construction loan and making a down payment of $101,171.48. The evidence revealed also that he purchased 5th Street for $305,000 after making a down payment of $45,266.86.
Husband testified about the prenuptial agreement, his rental income, and his mortgage payments. He said that he lived at Carlene Drive with his daughter and a tenant who paid rent to live in the basement, rented 100th Avenue and 5th Street to tenants, and deposited all rental income into his bank accounts. He testified that he used rental income to pay each mortgage; that he paid all mortgages from BOA #7438; that BOA #7438 held direct deposits of his wages during the marriage as well; and that he transferred funds from his joint account with Wife, including her rent payments for Carlene Drive, into BOA #7438. Later, he said that he deposited rental payments into both his BOA and SECU accounts. To support these claims, Husband submitted into evidence bank statements to trace the rent payments he received, two documents that he prepared—the first listed the rental income he received compared to the mortgage payments he made between 2009 and 2017 and the second listed his mortgage payments from 2001 to 2009 and a paystub indicating that his monthly mortgage obligation for 5th Street was $1,700.76 in 2008.
Next, Husband submitted evidence through which he sought to establish the mortgage balances outstanding at the time of marriage and separation. His documents stated that Carlene Drive had an outstanding balance of $408,660.65 at the end of 2009 and 100th Avenue had a balance of $107,833.77 in 2007, and he testified that 5th Street had a loan of $275,000 in 2009, an amount Wife verified through her own evidence. Relying on his representation in the parties’ joint 2017 statement, Husband testified that the mortgage balance of Carlene Drive in 2017, when the couple separated, was $388,365 and that he had paid off the mortgage for 100th Avenue by then. He submitted a mortgage statement dated January 10, 2017, demonstrating that 5th Street had an outstanding mortgage balance of $257,892.21. He said he paid off that mortgage in 2017 with money he had received from his father (“Father”). He submitted evidence that he deposited $62,940.00 into SECU #1544 in October 2014 and said he received a second payment of $33,437.00 from Father the following month. Husband testified that Carlene Drive still had an outstanding mortgage balance that he continued to pay from BOA #7438.
Husband provided evidence about his BMW and his Discover Bank Accounts. He asserted that his BMW was nonmarital because he had used rental income to purchase it after the couple separated. He said he used a HELOC secured by equity in Carlene Drive for the purchase. He testified that he closed Discover account #7186 in 2016 or 2017 and used those funds to pay for attorney’s fees and the mortgage on 5th Street. He said that he used money from his bank accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance to pay Wife $50,000 in attorney’s fees and $72,000 in alimony and to pay his own attorney.
Wife testified about the couple’s finances during the marriage also. She said Husband would take money from their joint account as her rent payment and that her wages
contributed to updates to Carlene Drive and to paying down the mortgages on the properties. She submitted into evidence records from Husband’s Bank of America accounts, from two jointly held bank accounts, from Husband’s SECU accounts, and from his three Discover Bank accounts. And she established that between March 15, 2019 and June 12, 2023, she incurred $42,934.00 in attorney’s fees.
After trial, the parties filed written closing arguments and an updated joint statement. Their joint statement stipulated that Carlene Drive had an outstanding mortgage balance of $259,126 and that the mortgages for 100th Avenue and 5th Street had a zero balance.
On August 1, 2024, the circuit court granted Husband a judgment of absolute divorce from Wife, awarded Wife a monetary award of $325,450, and ordered Husband to pay $20,000 for attorney’s fees. The court determined that the total value of the marital property was $1,057,455.97, including marital values in the properties of $259,126 (Carlene Drive), $151,771.43 (100th Avenue), and $353,921.00 (5th Street). The court found that Husband hadn’t produced adequate evidence to prove that “interest, rents or profits were derived” from Carlene Drive or that any interest that accrued from the bank accounts named in the prenuptial agreement were nonmarital “as both parties deposited into the accounts during the marriage.” By title alone, the court determined that Husband possessed 97% of the marital property, so it adjusted the equities to award Wife 35% of the marital property less the rehabilitative alimony Husband had paid already. With regard to the attorney’s fees award, the court noted that the case had “lingered for many years” and that even though Wife had contested the prenuptial agreement, the court had to address several motions and hold multiple proceedings because of Husband’s “repeated delay and noncompliance with the Court’s orders.” Based on the “significant disparity in income” and the required statutory factors, the court determined that a fee award was appropriate.
Husband noted a timely appeal.
II. DISCUSSION
Husband presents two main issues that we rephrase slightly: (1) did the circuit court err in counting the properties, his BMW, and his Discover Bank accounts as marital property and (2) did the court award attorney’s fees to Wife justifiably.5 For the reasons detailed below, we vacate the monetary award and the attorney’s fee award and remand this matter to the circuit court for additional proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Whether “all or a portion of an asset is marital or non-marital property” and the value of each item of marital property are questions of fact. Innerbichler v. Innerbichler, 132 Md. App. 207, 229 (2000); Flanagan v. Flanagan, 181 Md. App. 492, 521 (2008). We will not disturb a circuit court’s factual determination unless it is clearly erroneous. Flanagan, 181 Md. App. at 521. Because circuit courts have broad discretion to award attorney’s fees, we consider whether the award was an abuse of discretion and will not set it aside “unless the exercise of discretion was arbitrary or the judgment was clearly wrong.” Malin v. Mininberg, 153 Md. App. 358, 435–36 (2003).
A. The Marital Award Didn’t Classify Or Determine The Marital Value Of The Properties Or The Discover Bank Accounts Correctly.
1. The circuit court didn’t classify the properties explicitly as marital, nonmarital, or partly marital and partly nonmarital and its valuation of the marital portion of the properties’ equity values derived from miscalculations.
Husband argues first that the circuit court erred when it failed to decide which properties were marital, nonmarital, or partly marital and partly nonmarital (i.e., mixed) and, instead, counted them as “wholly” marital. Wife asserts that the court didn’t classify any of the properties as “100% marital” because it relied on (her) calculations that sought to account for the properties’ mixed status. Because the circuit court didn’t classify the properties explicitly, we understand Husband’s confusion and agree that it failed to make a proper determination on the record.6
Maryland law defines marital property as “property, however titled, acquired by [one] or both parties during the marriage.” Md. Code (1999, 2019 Repl. Vol.) § 8-201(e)(1) of the Family Law Article (“FL”). If division of marital property strictly according to title would lead to inequity, the court may adjust the equities through a monetary award. Flanagan, 181 Md. App. at 519. Before doing so, the court must undertake a three-step analysis. Alston v. Alston, 331 Md. 496, 498–99 (1993); see FL §§ 8-203–8-205. First, if there is a dispute about what is or isn’t marital property, the court must determine which property items are marital. FL § 8-203(a). Next, the court must determine the value of each marital property item. FL § 8-204(a). Then, the court “may . . . grant a monetary award . . . as an adjustment of the equities and rights of the parties concerning marital property.” FL § 8-205(a).
Property that doesn’t fit neatly into the marital or nonmarital category can be partly marital and partly nonmarital “in accordance with the source of the funds used to acquire it.” Kline v. Kline, 85 Md. App. 28, 41 (1990). In the context of homeownership, nonmarital property can become partly marital if a spouse uses marital funds toward its mortgage payments. See id. (“[T]o the extent that [marital] payments reduced the balance due on the mortgage” we consider the property to have been acquired during the marriage); Noffsinger v. Noffsinger, 95 Md. App. 265, 286 (1993) (“Mortgage payments made during the marriage . . . were marital contributions, derived from earnings that were clearly marital income.”). When that happens, courts can characterize the formerly nonmarital property “as part nonmarital and part marital” depending on “the source of each contribution as payments are made.” Harper v. Harper, 294 Md. 54, 80 (1982). Importantly, “the time at which legal or equitable title to or possession of the property is obtained” doesn’t dictate the classification of the marital, nonmarital, or mixed status of a given property item. Id.
In this case, the circuit court’s order didn’t classify the properties clearly. It is undisputed that Husband purchased and made nonmarital investments in the properties before the marriage. He purchased the Carlene Drive parcel, had the house constructed, and made construction and mortgage loan payments. He made down payments and loan payments
toward the purchases of 100th Avenue and 5th Street before the marriage. But the court’s opinion doesn’t state explicitly that the properties are partly marital and partly nonmarital, and it should have. Harper, 294 Md. at 80–82; Hoffman v. Hoffman, 93 Md. App. 704, 713–14 (1992).7 Nor did the court make express findings about the extent of Husband’s nonmarital investments relative to the investments made by the marital unit and the total investments in the properties. See id. These findings are essential to valuing the marital property available for equitable distribution accurately.
We recognize that the evidence at trial didn’t persuade the court that Husband’s mortgage payments derived exclusively from “interest, rents, and profits which [accrued]” from the properties and, thus, fell within the reach of the prenuptial agreement. Nonmarital property, especially that in the form of funds, can lose its nonmarital status when it’s mingled with marital property. See Golden v. Golden, 116 Md. App. 190, 203 (1997); Melrod v. Melrod, 83 Md. App. 180, 187–88 (1990); Murray v. Murray, 190 Md. App. 553, 572 (2010). Money is fungible, and without a detailed record of each dollar from rent money having been used to pay the rental property’s mortgage, mingling can convert nonmarital funds into marital funds. See Merriken v. Merriken, 87 Md. App. 522, 540 (1991) (“‘Since [appellant] commingled his income . . . no specific sum of money used to acquire property or reduce an indebtedness on any property can be traced to any source. This inability to trace property acquired during the marriage directly to a non-marital source simply means that all property so acquired was marital property.’” (quoting Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 187)); Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 186 (“With respect to most of his properties, because of commingling of non-marital and marital income, [husband] could not directly trace any given payment of money to any specific source of funds.”). A spouse who claims that a nonmarital asset should retain that status despite commingling must be able to trace the asset directly to a nonmarital source. Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 188; Golden, 116 Md. App. at 205 (“[A]s to all of the value increases of property resulting from the expenditure of either party’s marital income . . . the party asserting that a portion is nonmarital bears the burden of tracing the expenditure to nonmarital funds.”). And if they can’t, the property at issue is marital. Noffsinger, 95 Md. App. at 282 (citing Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 187); Golden, 116 Md. App. at 205.
In this case, there is no dispute that marital and nonmarital funds were mingled in connection with these properties. Crediting Husband’s representation that the prenuptial agreement excluded BOA #7438 as nonmarital property, the parties agree that account held both rental income and marital property in the form of Husband’s wages and that Husband made mortgage payments on the properties from that account while they were married. As a result, Husband carried the burden of untangling these funds and proving that he paid the mortgages exclusively from the “interests, rents, and profits” that accrued from the properties. See Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 188.
Husband argues that he traced his mortgage payments to nonmarital funds. Specifically, he claims that the spreadsheet he submitted into evidence demonstrated that the rental income he received for each property exceeded the monthly
mortgage due and that he deposited the rent into the same bank account from which he paid each property’s mortgage. He contends that he has proven that direct tracing isn’t impossible and, therefore, the funds weren’t mingled to the point of causing the mortgage payments to lose their nonmarital status. In response, Wife asserts that Husband didn’t meet his burden because he couldn’t prove that the rental income he received exceeded the monthly mortgage payment obligation for each property.
We agree that Husband didn’t satisfy his burden of proving that the properties were fully nonmarital. Husband didn’t present a complete evidentiary picture of how his mortgage payments traced back to an exclusively nonmarital source. For example, he didn’t prove that the dollar-fordollar amount of monthly rental income for 100th Avenue went out dollar-for-dollar as a payment to the mortgage lender for 100th Avenue. See Callahan & Ries, supra, § 139(d) (“‘Directly traceable’ means a dollar for dollar trace is required.”). Husband didn’t provide any evidence of or demonstrate a dollar-for-dollar match between the rent he received from his tenants at 100th Avenue and 5th Street and his payments toward those mortgages, or a dollar-fordollar match between the rent he received from tenants to lease the basement of Carlene Drive and his payments on the Carlene Drive mortgage. He submitted into evidence a spreadsheet that indicated that rental income came in and mortgage payments went out, but those flows don’t match the rental income to the mortgage payments dollar-for-dollar or prove that only rental income sourced those payments. If anything, it reveals that the aggregate amount of mortgage payments Husband made each month during the marriage exceeded the aggregate amount of rental income he received each month. The account Husband used to pay his mortgages held his earnings as well, and we question whether the rental income from Wife leasing only part of Carlene Drive could have covered the monthly mortgage completely. The record indicates to us, as it did to the circuit court, that funds other than rental income had to have covered the difference.
The four hundred pages of bank statements that Husband submitted into evidence did not draw a dollar-for-dollar connection between the rental income he received for each property and its corresponding mortgage payment. For example, some of the statements showed deposits of varying amounts into BOA #6941 followed by transfers of varying amounts into BOA #7438. But there is no dollar-for-dollar match that connects the deposit of an alleged rent payment for a certain sum into BOA #6941 followed by a transfer of that sum to BOA #7438 and a payment of that exact sum out of BOA #7438 to the mortgage lender for the property.
Moreover, Husband didn’t submit any evidence about the rental income he received or establish facts about his monthly mortgage obligations sufficient to allow the court to trace the income to those payments. The record contained no evidence of the terms of the tenancies for each property, the number of tenancies, or their rental payment amounts, nor did it paint a complete picture of the monthly mortgage amounts due for each property during each year of the marriage. As the party seeking to keep the nonmarital property separated, Husband bore the burden of putting the pieces together,
not the circuit court. And because he didn’t, the court could treat any mortgage payments made on the properties after July 17, 2009, and the equity built from those payments, as marital property. Noffsinger, 95 Md. App. at 282. The circuit court’s conclusion that Husband hadn’t traced the mortgage payments directly to a purely nonmarital source wasn’t clearly erroneous.
But even though the circuit court was right to treat mortgage payments made after July 2009 as marital property, the work didn’t end there. Husband contends that the court disregarded the nonmarital contributions he made and didn’t give him credit for the nonmarital portion of each property when it made the monetary award. He asserts entitlement to a “proportionate return of his investment” and asks us to remand the case and instruct the court to value his nonmarital contributions to the properties and credit him with those contributions by excluding them from the marital award. Unfortunately, we don’t know if Husband is right because the circuit court didn’t make findings about the nonmarital and marital portions of the equity values of the properties or state whether it credited Husband for his nonmarital investments. The properties were marital only to the extent that Husband paid down their mortgages using marital funds.
See Kline, 85 Md. App. at 41, 46; Noffsinger, 95 Md. App. at 286. The court still had to determine which portions of their equity values were marital and nonmarital, and it didn’t. We discuss each property in turn.
a. Carlene Drive
In its opinion, the circuit court determined that the marital portion of the equity value of Carlene Drive was $259,126. It didn’t explain how it arrived at this value, but the number appears in joint statements filed before and after trial. In both, the parties stipulated that Carlene Drive had an outstanding principal mortgage balance of $259,126, the number listed in the opinion as the marital portion of Carlene Drive’s equity value in a column marked “[fair market value] less any liens/ encumbrances.” This reliance solely on the mortgage balance was clearly erroneous.
Harper v. Harper, 294 Md. 54 (1982) sets the groundwork for this analysis. Harper explains how courts should manage property that “[was] purchased and paid for in part before marriage and in part during marriage with nonmarital and marital funds.” 294 Md. at 81. In that case, husband purchased an unimproved parcel of land under a land installment contract before the parties married. 294 Md. at 57. He made all the loan payments before the marriage and continued to make those payments afterwards. Id. When he married wife, husband built a house on the land that became their marital home. Id. at 57–58. The circuit court decided that both the land and the home were marital property and that each spouse was entitled to half of its value. Id. at 58–59. This Court agreed, reasoning that husband had equitable title to the land before the marriage and had acquired legal title only afterwards. Id. at 59–61. The Supreme Court disagreed and held that courts must classify a property with mixed status according to the source of funds used to acquire it. Id. at 80. Only then, it said, can a court classify and determine the value of the marital property subject to equitable distribution:
[A] spouse contributing nonmarital property is entitled to an interest in the property in the ratio of the nonmarital investment to the total nonmarital and marital investment in the property. The remaining property is characterized as marital property and its value is subject to equitable distribution. Thus, the spouse who contributed nonmarital funds, and the marital unit that contributed marital funds, each receive a proportionate and fair return on their investment.
Id. Under Harper, Husband would be entitled to an interest in Carlene Drive in the ratio of his nonmarital investment to the total investments that have been made in the property. See id. at 80. And the source-of-funds analysis requires the court to calculate the nonmarital portion of the property. See Hoffman, 93 Md. App. at 714. As a result, we must vacate the monetary award and remand this matter for a determination of the marital and nonmarital portions of the equity value of Carlene Drive.
On remand, the court can take additional evidence or perform its calculation against the record developed at trial. The calculation used in Hoffman v. Hoffman, 93 Md. App. 704 (1992), may be instructive because it covers circumstances like this where an outstanding mortgage remains on the property. Id. at 714–16. In that case, husband contributed $8,997.35 of nonmarital funds to purchase the marital home, then the couple purchased the home for $74,500. Id. at 714–15. The parties agreed that the home had a fair market value of $110,000 and an outstanding mortgage balance of $56,876 at the time of trial. Id. at 715. After dividing the nonmarital investment ($8,997.35) by the purchase price ($74,500) the court determined that husband’s nonmarital investment amounted to twelve percent of the purchase price and that twelve percent of the current fair market value was $13,200. Id. After deducting the nonmarital portion ($13,200) and the outstanding lien ($56,876) from the fair market value ($110,000), the court concluded that the marital property available for equitable distribution was $39,924. Id.
To summarize, we vacate the monetary award and remand this matter to the circuit court to determine the marital and nonmarital portions of the equity value of Carlene Drive, to ensure that Husband receives “credit for the net equity attributable to his investment of nonmarital funds,” Noffsinger, 95 Md. App. at 289, and to make findings to that effect.
b. 100th Avenue
In its opinion, the circuit court determined that the marital portion of the equity value of 100th Avenue was $151,771.43, a number it took from Wife’s calculation. Wife took two steps to reach that value. First, because neither party had established 100th Avenue’s outstanding mortgage balance in July 2009, Wife agreed to accept its “principal balance [of] $83,000,” in 2013 to represent the 2009 balance, even though that number wouldn’t account for all the mortgage payments made during the marriage. Second, Wife proposed using the calculation set forth in Jandorf v. Jandorf, 100 Md. App. 429 (1994), “to determine [100th Avenue’s] marital equity,” being the only property with equity existing at the beginning of the marriage.
We agree that Jandorf is a useful guide for ascertaining the marital and nonmarital portions of a property, like 100th Avenue, with a zero-mortgage balance. In that case, husband inherited a house from his mother that he used as the marital home. 100 Md. App. at 433. At the time of his mother’s death, the property had a fair market value of $40,500 and an outstanding mortgage of $7,000. Id. Husband and wife paid that mortgage completely using marital funds. Id. At the time of trial, the fair market value of the property was $110,000. Id. at 435.
On review, we determined the proper formula for calculating the marital and nonmarital portions of a property that had equity before the marriage that grew after the marriage. Jandorf, 100 Md. App. at 437–38. We determined that the proportions of nonmarital equity ($40,500) and marital equity ($7,000) to the total equity in the property was, respectively, 85.3% ($40,500/$47,500 x 100) and 14.7% ($7,000/$47,500 x 100). Id. at 438. Multiplying the fair market value of the property ($110,000) by these percentages, we concluded that $93,830 of its fair market value was nonmarital and $16,170 of it was marital. Id.
Wife’s calculation in this case, as relied on by the court, was erroneous. The first problem is Wife’s reliance on $83,000 to represent the outstanding mortgage in 2009. She points out correctly that neither party established the actual mortgage amount in place at that time. Husband submitted into evidence a document indicating that his mortgage balance was $107,833.77 in 2007, and Wife’s evidence revealed a principal balance of $83,392.95 when Husband refinanced his mortgage in February 2013. But even if the court accepted the principal balance of the mortgage in February 2013 for purposes of this calculation, the correct number would have been $83,392.95.
The second problem is that Wife’s calculation didn’t follow the Jandorf formula. Wife divided the 2013 mortgage balance by the property’s fair market value in 2009, as established by her expert. That calculation is inconsistent with Jandorf. To perform the calculation correctly, the court would need to know three facts: (1) the equity Husband built in 100th Avenue through his loan payments before the marriage, which we represent as nm;8 (2) the contributions made by the marital unit, represented as m;9 and (3) the fair market value of 100th Avenue at the time of trial, which is in the record.10 From there, the court can compute the ratio of marital investments to total investments by dividing the marital contributions by the sum of the marital payments and Husband’s nonmarital investments. See Harper, 294 Md. at 81–82; Jandorf, 100 Md. App at 437–38. Then the court can multiply the fair market value by that number to get the marital portion of the equity value of the home, or M
See id. at 437–38. Visually, the calculation would be:
The court can perform a similar calculation to determine the nonmarital portion of the equity value of 100th Avenue, NM:
With this guidance, we vacate the monetary award and remand for further proceedings.
c. 5th Street
In its opinion, the circuit court determined that the marital portion of the equity value of 5th Street was $353,921, a number carried over from Wife’s calculation. The evidence submitted at trial reveals that Husband purchased 5th Street in 2007 for $305,000 after making a down payment of $45,266.86. On June 3, 2008, Husband refinanced his mortgage with CitiMortgage, Inc., when the unpaid principal balance was $269,515.89. He refinanced the mortgage again on February 21, 2013, when the principal loan balance was $273,921.08. According to the appraisals of record, the fair market value of 5th Street was $247,000 around the time the parties married and $384,000 around the time of trial.
Wife’s calculation didn’t track Jandorf. Because 5th Street had zero equity when the parties married in 2009, Wife used the unpaid mortgage balance from Husband’s 2013 refinance ($273,921) to calculate the contributions of the marital unit, then subtracted that amount from Husband’s purchase price ($305,000) to conclude that he paid $31,079 in mortgage payments before their marriage. Then Wife subtracted Husband’s nonmarital payments ($31,079) from 5th Street’s fair market value in 2023 ($384,000)11 to determine that the marital portion of the property’s equity was $353,921. That calculation isn’t quite right. The parties agree that Husband paid off the 5th Street mortgage by the time of trial. By adopting Wife’s calculation, the court appeared to accept also that the marital payments on the loan amounted to $273,921, m, that Husband made $31,079 in payments before the marriage, nm, and that the 2023 fair market value of the property was $384,000. From that, the correct calculation would be:
$273,921
($273,921 + $31,079) = 0.898
From there we multiply the fair market value ($384,000) by 0.898 and determine that the marital portion of the total equity value of 5th Street is $344,832, or 89.8%, and the nonmarital share is $39,168, or 10.2%.
Husband argues that the circuit court disregarded the fact that Father gifted him money which he used in turn to pay off the 5th Street mortgage. A gift is the “voluntary transfer of property to another without compensation.”
Gift, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024). The donor (i.e., giver) must have a clear and unmistakable intent “‘to permanently relinquish all interest in’” the gift, there must be actual delivery, and the donee (i.e., receiver) must accept it. Fantle v. Fantle, 140 Md. App. 678, 689 (2001) (quoting Dorsey v. Dorsey, 302 Md. 312, 318 (1985), superseded on other grounds by statute, Marital Property Act, 1994 Md. Laws, Chap. 462).
We question whether these payments were gifts. At trial, Father testified that Husband loaned KB & Dako Properties, LLC (“KB & Dako”) $62,000 in 2005 to buy a property in Washington D.C. Father said he started KB & Dako with his wife and described it as a “family business,” but said he
didn’t know whether Husband was an owner. He testified that KB & Dako sold the property in 2014 and reimbursed Husband from the proceeds of the sale. Husband submitted into evidence a settlement sheet for that transaction dated October 9, 2014 that included a $62,000 “loan repayment” to him in the settlement charges for the transaction, leaving KB & Dako with $260,583.32 in sale proceeds. But the company’s repayment of a loan to Husband wouldn’t have transferred its interest in property to him. See Fantle, 140 Md. App. at 689. Father testified also that he gave Husband $33,000 a few months later as “a gift.” The settlement sheet in evidence included a “Partners/Investor Investment Analysis” from KB & Dako, indicating that Husband, in his capacity as partner or investor, made a capital investment of $62,000 in the company and loaned it $48,021.90. The real estate sale seems to have been part of a liquidation process—using the sale proceeds and its cash on hand, KB & Dako paid Husband back $48,021.9012 and divided the remaining money by three, resulting in a $33,437 distribution to Husband. Father testified that when the company closed, he made a capital distribution to Husband and “returned . . . the money that he loaned.”
And even if the circuit court had considered KB & Dako’s $33,437 payment a gift, the evidence adduced at trial didn’t establish that Husband applied it to the 5th Street mortgage. At his deposition and at trial, Husband said he put Father’s payments into a Certificate of Deposit account, SECU #1363, and closed it in 2017 to pay off the mortgage. The record contains SECU #1363 bank statements that cover the periods of November 2016 and December 2016 but neither reveals a payment, withdrawal, or transfer of money from that account. At his deposition, Husband said that he closed Discover #5140 to pay off the mortgage and said this again at trial. The record contains bank statements revealing that he deposited $40,000 in Discover #5140 on March 10, 2016 and that he withdrew $40,213.75—all the funds in the account—via official bank check on February 15, 2017. But Husband didn’t provide a corresponding mortgage record showing a payment for this amount or show where that bank check went. Husband submitted evidence indicating that his mortgage balance was $257,892.21 in 2017 and at his deposition, he testified that he paid off the mortgage after Wife filed her complaint for limited divorce in February 2017, but he doesn’t identify record items that cement the connection between Father’s payment and his satisfaction of the mortgage. Again, it is up to Husband to put the evidentiary pieces together to form a picture for the court that supports his claim to nonmarital property status. Because he didn’t, the circuit court didn’t have to factor Father’s payment into its assessment of the marital portion of the equity value of 5th Street.
2. The circuit court didn’t err in counting Husband’s BMW as marital property because Husband didn’t prove that he purchased the car using a HELOC secured by equity in Carlene Drive.
Husband argues next that the circuit court erred when it counted his 2022 BMW i4 as marital property. He maintains that he purchased the BMW using nonmarital funds, referring to a HELOC secured by equity in Carlene Drive.
Wife responds that the equity in Carlene Drive is partly marital, so the BMW is marital property because it was funded in part by marital property. We hold that the circuit court classified the full value of the BMW as marital property correctly.
At trial, Husband testified that he used a HELOC secured by equity in Carlene Drive to buy a 2022 BMW i4 for approximately $55,000. At his deposition, he said that SECU issued the HELOC that he used for this purchase and that he took that HELOC out in 2019. At trial, Wife asserted that the BMW was marital property because Husband bought it during the marriage. And in her Closing Argument Memorandum to the circuit court she challenged Husband’s assertion that he used a HELOC to buy the BMW because “he did not submit any documentation to verify his claims.” We agree with Wife.
Husband didn’t provide the court with any documentation associated with the BMW purchase or even specify the date he bought the car. He provided approximately one hundred and fifty pages of SECU bank statements, but most were incomplete. None of those statements proved that Husband took out a HELOC or borrowed against an existing HELOC for an amount around $55,000. And Husband hasn’t provided any documentation that he used the equity in Carlene Drive to secure the HELOC that SECU issued. For these reasons, the circuit court’s classification of the BMW as marital property wasn’t clearly erroneous.
3. The circuit court should not have counted Husband’s Discover Bank accounts as marital property.
Husband’s third argument is that the circuit court included Discover Bank accounts #5140 and #7186 as marital property improperly. He asserts that he closed both accounts in 2017 before the parties divorced and asks us to remand this matter to the circuit court with instructions to exclude those accounts for purposes of the monetary award. In response, Wife suggests that the court didn’t credit Husband’s testimony that he spent down and closed the accounts or used them to pay the 5th Street mortgage and Wife’s attorney’s fees. We disagree. Husband testified that he used the money in those accounts, in part, to pay Wife’s attorney’s fees and alimony. That use, the court reasoned, could not serve as a ground for a dissipation finding, and the court found that Husband hadn’t dissipated those assets. Having found that Husband hadn’t dissipated those assets, and there being no dispute that he had closed the Discover accounts before the date of, the circuit court shouldn’t have included them as marital property.
Typically, if a bank account is closed prior to the date of divorce, it is not subject to equitable distribution. Williams v. Williams, 71 Md. App. 22, 35 (1987) (“The record supports the contention that the [bank] accounts had been closed and, therefore, did not exist on the date of the divorce. The exhibits produced by both parties reflect that this is so. In fact, they reveal that those accounts were closed at least two years before the divorce proceedings. Consequently, the accounts are not marital property in the consideration of which a monetary award may be based.”); see also Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 194–95 (circuit court did not err when it excluded husband’s share of proceeds from the sale of his
real estate partnership from marital property award where sale occurred before the divorce and partnership interest didn’t exist at time of divorce); Callahan & Ries, supra, § 13-11 (dissipation is the exception to the general rule that “property not in existence as of the date of the divorce cannot be marital property.” (cleaned up)). To support her dissipation claim, Wife submitted into evidence bank statements from Discover accounts #7186, #5140, and #5133.13 Each statement showed that Husband closed the accounts in 2016 and 2017, before the parties divorced. In its opinion, the circuit court found that Husband hadn’t dissipated his assets; yet it determined that Discover #7186 and #113814 were marital property, assigned the former a value of $15,172.45, and valued the latter at $40,310.28. This determination was clearly erroneous, see Melrod, 83 Md. App. at 194–95 (without evidence that husband dissipated his share of real estate proceeds, “there was no basis for considering the proceeds as marital property”), and we reject Wife’s suggestion that a $55,482.73 difference in the marital property calculation amounts to harmless error. We vacate the monetary award and remand this matter to the circuit court to recalculate it without factoring in the Discover Bank accounts.
B. Reconsideration Of The Attorney’s Fee Award Is Necessary Because Of Our Vacate And Remand Of The Monetary Award.
Lastly, Husband argues that the circuit court didn’t consider his financial status or the attorney’s fees he had incurred throughout the divorce when it decided to grant Wife attorney’s fees. He contends also that the court failed to consider how Wife had prolonged litigation and added to court costs when she challenged the validity of the prenuptial agreement even after the court deemed it valid and enforceable. And he states that the court failed to provide a “sufficient rationale” for the award, including why he should have to pay another round of attorney’s fees and what specific conduct warranted this outcome. Wife responds that the court considered the parties’ incomes, expenses, and financial conditions and developed a sufficient record to substantiate its attorney’s fee award.
In a proceeding to dispose of marital property, circuit courts can order a party to pay “an amount for the [other party’s] reasonable and necessary expense of prosecuting or defending the proceeding.” FL § 8-214(b). Before doing so, the court must consider “(1) the financial resources and financial needs of both parties; and (2) whether there was substantial justification for prosecuting or defending the proceeding.” Id. § 8-214(c). If the court finds that either party wasn’t substantially justified in bringing or defending against the proceeding and there is no good cause for the lack of substantial justification, the court must “award to the other party the reasonable and necessary expense of prosecuting or defending the proceeding.” Id. § 8-214(d). Because we have vacated the monetary award, we must vacate the attorney’s fee award for reconsideration on remand. See, e.g., Flanagan, 181 Md. App. at 544. We notice, however, that the circuit court’s award didn’t include a finding as to the reasonableness of the fees incurred by Wife. See Collins v. Collins, 144 Md. App. 395, 449 (2002) (“The
reasonableness of the attorney’s fees must be analyzed once evidence is presented in favor of attorney’s fees.”). That discussion would include consideration of the “labor, skill, time and benefit received.” Id. The court’s opinion suggests that both parties lacked substantial justification for initiating or defending certain aspects of the proceedings at different times but only awarded attorney’s fees to one of the parties. That treatment caught our attention because of
FL § 8-214(d). See supra. And the opinion doesn’t explain how the unjustified conduct bore out in the proportion of attorney’s fees awarded or make findings about Husband’s ability to pay the fees, Wife’s financial resources, or either party’s needs. See Flanagan, 181 Md. App. at 546. Because the order leaves questions unanswered, the circuit court will need to address them if it decides to award attorney’s fees on remand.
JUDGMENT VACATED WITH RESPECT TO MONETARY AWARD AND ATTORNEY’S FEES; CASE REMANDED TO THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION; COSTS TO BE DIVIDED EVENLY.
FOOTNOTES
1 We’ll refer collectively to Carlene Drive, 100th Avenue, and 5th Street as the “properties.”
2 The prenuptial agreement didn’t specify the bank accounts by account number. Husband represented to the court that the accounts referred to the following bank accounts: Bank of America Savings – BOA #6941; Bank of America Checking – BOA #7438; SECU Savings – SECU #1544; and SECU Checking – SECU #4252 and #3056.
3 Mr. Bell explained that forensic appraisal is the process of assessing the value of real estate on a retrospective date from research of comparable sales, the perceived condition of the property, public records, and Multiple Listing Service data.
4 Mr. Bell appears to have testified to this last amount mistakenly because his report appraises the house at $384,000.
5 Husband phrased the Questions Presented in his brief as follows:
1. Did the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County err in determining that three properties named in a valid prenuptial agreement are wholly marital property for purposes of monetary award?
2. Did the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County err in granting an award of attorney’s fees to the Appellee?
Wife did not state any Questions Presented in her brief.
6 We don’t construe Husband’s argument to challenge the bounds of the prenuptial agreement itself. Prospective spouses enter into a prenuptial agreement prior to marriage to “settle in advance alimony or property rights of the parties upon divorce.” Cynthia Callahan & Thomas C. Ries, Fader’s Maryland Family Law § 14-2(a) (7th ed. 2021) (cleaned up). Here, the parties entered into a prenuptial agreement on June 24, 2009 and the circuit court found it valid and enforceable in case no. CAL1636414. When it did, the court explained that “any interests, rents, and profits that have been acquired from [the properties] would remain in [Husband’s] possession. However, anything exclusive of that, where marital funds may have been used to bring the mortgage loan down is not part of [the prenuptial] agreement . . .” The court extended this logic to the bank accounts identified in the prenuptial agreement, confirmed that Husband and Wife understood its limits, then placed their shared understanding on the record. We analyze the issues in this appeal against that history.
7 In light of our conclusion that the circuit court should have classified the properties as partly marital and partly nonmarital, we are not persuaded by Husband’s argument that Wife conceded the status of the 100th Avenue property when she listed it as nonmarital in the parties’ Joint 5-207 statement. The fact that Wife categorized 100th Avenue in that document as both a nonmarital property and a property with a disputed status only reinforces its mixed status.
8 In Jandorf, the husband inherited the home, and the court valued his nonmarital contribution by the home’s fair market value at the time of inheritance. Jandorf, 100 Md. App. at 437–38; see also Merriken, 87 Md. App. at 535 (“We define the value of the inherited property as the value that the property held at the time it was inherited . . . .”). In contrast, Husband purchased and built equity in 100th Avenue before the marriage. Therefore, the circuit court should calculate Husband’s nonmarital equity contributions by subtracting 100th Avenue’s principal loan balance at the start of the marriage from the property’s fair market value in 2009 instead of relying solely on the 2009 fair market value, as Wife suggested and as done in Jandorf See Hoffman, 93 Md. App. at 714–15 (for example, if spouse used nonmarital funds to cover downpayment on the marital home, and the resulting equity amounted to one fourth of the property’s value, then one fourth of the fair market value of the property at the time of trial would be nonmarital property); Harper, 294 Md. at 80 (“[T]he spouse who contributed nonmarital funds [should] receive a proportionate and fair return on their investment.”).
9 The contributions made by the marital unit equal the amount by which marital funds paid down the principal loan balance during the marriage. The record reveals that Husband had paid off the mortgage for 100th Avenue by 2017.
10 On remand, the circuit court can decide whether to take additional evidence or to rely on the evidence adduced at trial. See Brewer v. Brewer, 156 Md. App. 77, 108 (2004) (“[E]quity only ‘requires that reasonable efforts be made to ensure that valuations of marital property approximate the date of judgment of divorce . . . .’” (quoting Fox v. Fox, 85 Md. App. 448, 460 (1991))).
11 Wife’s calculation had used $385,000, the appraisal amount that Mr. Bell testified to incorrectly.
12 Under “Sale of Property,” the analysis lists the refunded loan amount as $48,321.90. This entry appears to be a clerical error.
13 At trial, Husband objected to the admission of his Discover Bank statements because their closing predated the parties’ separation. The court overruled his objection based on its understanding that Wife had submitted the statements for the purpose of showing that Husband had dissipated the money in those accounts.
14 There is no record of a Discover account ending in #1138. The court appears to have valued this account based on the average daily balance of Discover #5140 during the statement period of October 1, 2016 to January 3, 2017, as shown by a statement with a page stamp of “TE 1138.” Therefore, it appears that the court meant to identify Discover #5140 in its opinion and that the reference to Discover #1138 was a clerical error.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court affirmed the Howard County Circuit Court’s decision awarding wife primary custody of the parties’ two minor children, while granting husband access to the children on alternating weekends. The court conducted an exhaustive analysis of the relevant factors, properly weighed those factors considering the totality of the circumstances, and reached a reasoned decision based on the children’s best interests.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
BACKGROUND
Husband and Wife were married in 2009. The parties had two children: the first child was born in 2010, and the second child was born in 2013 (collectively the “children”). In January 2024, Wife filed for divorce. Husband filed a counter-complaint for divorce shortly thereafter. Around that time, the parties began living apart. The children lived primarily with Wife following the parties’ separation.
Discovery Sanctions
On March 5, 2024, Wife served Husband with Interrogatories and Requests for Production of Documents. On August 15, 2024, Wife filed a Motion to Compel and Request for Sanctions. In that motion, Wife alleged that, although Husband had responded to her discovery requests, those responses were deficient and failed to include pertinent documents regarding Husband’s finances. Husband opposed the motion, arguing that he had complied with Wife’s discovery requests.
Aderonke Olatunde (“Wife”) filed, in the Circuit Court for Howard County, a complaint seeking an absolute divorce from Daniel Olatunde (“Husband”). Following a trial, the trial court entered a judgment granting the parties a divorce and deciding issues of custody, marital property, and attorneys’ fees. Husband thereafter noted this appeal, raising six questions for our review. 1 For clarity, we have rephrased those questions as:2
1. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in imposing discovery sanctions against Husband?
2. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in awarding Wife primary physical custody of the parties’ minor children?
3. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in denying intervention by a third party?
4. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in declining to grant a monetary award and in ordering the parties to keep all personal property in their possession?
5. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in ordering Husband to pay attorneys’ fees to Wife?
6. Does the cumulative effect of the court’s alleged errors warrant reversal?
For reasons to follow, we hold that the trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in any of the rulings challenged by Husband. Accordingly, we affirm.
On September 9, 2024, the court entered an order granting Wife’s motion. The court ordered Husband to “provide full responses to discovery requests within 14 days of the entry of this order.”
On October 25, 2024, Wife filed a second motion for sanctions. In that motion, Wife alleged that, since the court’s previous order, Husband had provided “very minimal information” and “no substantive response” to a discovery deficiency letter sent by Wife on October 1, 2024. Wife alleged that Husband was “purposefully withholding important income and asset information,” particularly as it related to several businesses owned by Husband. Wife noted that those businesses owned several undisclosed rental properties and that, on at least one occasion, Husband had sold one of those properties in an effort to hide assets from Wife. Wife further noted that Husband had failed to provide updated information regarding his current income and employment status.
On November 21, 2024, after Husband filed a response denying the allegations in Wife’s motion and claiming that all pertinent information had been disclosed, the court entered an order granting Wife’s motion. In that order, the court found that Husband had “failed to provide full responses” and that his “discovery responses [were] patently deficient.” The court also found that Wife had made various good faith efforts at resolving the discovery dispute and that Husband “did not respond nor did he provide further information.” The court found that Husband’s “lack of response and absence of production [was] in bad faith.” The court then set forth a list of documents that Wife claimed were missing and
ordered Husband to produce those documents within 14 days. The court added that, if Husband failed to produce those documents in the time provided, “then upon written request by [Wife], the Court shall grant an Order prohibiting [Husband] from participating in any hearing or trial for any reason whatsoever including, defending against any of [Wife’s] claims, cross-examining any witnesses, offering any evidence as it applies to the property adjudication in this case[.]”
On December 5, 2024, Husband filed a motion to alter or amend the court’s sanctions order, arguing, among other things, that he did not have the documents requested and that the documents he did have had already been disclosed. Wife subsequently filed a response refuting Husband’s claims.
On December 31, 2024, the court denied Husband’s motion. The court found that Husband’s motion “contains inappropriate content directed towards the Court and towards [Wife’s] counsel that is not consistent with this Court’s expectations of professional and civil conduct.” The court also found that Husband had failed to comply with the disclosure requirements set forth in the court’s November 2024 order. As such, the court ordered that Husband was barred from offering any evidence at trial “regarding finances (to include but not be limited to alimony, property of any kind, and attorney’s fees).” The court made clear that Husband was not prohibited “from participating in the custody and access portion of the case.”
Motion to Intervene
In December 2024, a corporation, DMV Management Series – Z0 LLC (“DMV”), filed a motion to intervene. DMV, which was owned by Husband’s former business partner, alleged that it owned two properties that were “in contention” in the divorce proceedings and that were “subject to marital division by this court.” The properties, both of which were residential properties in Baltimore, purportedly had been transferred to DMV in 2020 when Husband and his business partner terminated their partnership. DMV argued that, because the divorce action would impair or impede its interests in the subject properties, it should be permitted to intervene as a matter of right.
After Wife filed a motion in opposition, the court denied DMV’s motion to intervene. The court did not provide an explanation for its decision.
Merits Trial
In January 2025, a six-day merits trial ensued. At that trial, both parties presented evidence and testimony relevant to custody. In addition, Wife presented ample evidence, including expert testimony, regarding the parties’ finances and Husband’s business dealings. As a result of the court’s discovery sanctions, Husband was not permitted to offer evidence on the issue of marital property. Wife also presented evidence establishing that she had incurred $104,980.00 in attorneys’ fees and costs over the course of the litigation.
Judgment of Absolute Divorce and Memorandum Opinion
On August 27, 2025, the trial court entered a judgment of absolute divorce and issued a 14-page memorandum
detailing the evidence presented at the merits hearing and the court’s findings based on that evidence. In that judgment and memorandum, the court addressed and resolved issues related to custody, child support, alimony, marital property, and attorney’s fees.
Court’s Opinion - Custody
Regarding custody, the court included the following factual findings:
• Fitness of the parties: The court finds that both parents are fit to parent the children. Wife has been the more involved parent as detailed above. She is familiar with the children’s teachers, healthcare providers, and coaches. She attends their basketball practices and games. She arranges their tutoring and summer school, as well as their summer activities. Husband has not shown an interest in having greater involvement with the children unless he is granted 50/50 custody.
• Character and Reputation of the parties: The parties have a difficult and contentious relationship. Nothing is known of their reputations, but the Court has concerns that Husband attempted in his testimony to paint Wife in an unfavorable light through deceptive testimony. He introduced a picture of her smoking a hookah, suggesting that she is a drug user, when in rebuttal it was shown that Husband and Wife were at a hookah bar together, both smoking tobacco at the time. In addition, Husband was secretive and not forthcoming in discovery, making it impossible for the parties to engage in meaningful negotiation or for the Court to arrive at a fair and equitable division of property. This deceptive and secretive litigation strategy reflects poorly on Husband’s character.
• Desire of the parents and any prior agreements: The parties agreed that on a [pendente lite] basis that the children would live primarily with Wife at least during the school year. Wife is seeking the same schedule going forward, with each party having 2 weeks vacation time with the minor children during the summer. Wife also asks that she be awarded sole legal custody. Husband seeks 50/50 shared physical custody on a week on/week off schedule and joint legal custody. Wife offered Husband dinner visits with the children on Wednesday evenings, but he declined if the visits were not overnight visits.
• Potentiality of maintaining natural family relations: There should be no trouble maintaining natural family relations. Neither parent has interfered with the other’s parenting time pendente lite.
• Preferences of the children: No evidence of the children’s preference was offered.
• Material opportunities affecting future life of the children: Wife runs a successful business that has provided support for herself and the children. At the time of the divorce hearing, it was difficult to determine Husband’s ability to meet the children’s financial needs in the future because he was living off of residual pay, he received for agreeing to a deferred resignation from his federal job. His reemployment prospects were unknown when the trial ended.
• Age, health and gender of the children: [Child 1] is a healthy fourteen-year-old boy. [Child 1] has been diagnosed with ADHD. [Child 2] is a healthy eleven-year-old boy. [Child 2] has migraines.
• Residences of the parents and opportunity for visitation: Wife is in the former marital home in Jessup, MD. Husband is in a home that was previously a rental located in Dundalk, MD. Husband testified that the parties reside twenty-five minutes apart. Wife testified that the drive takes longer.
• Length of separation from natural parents: The children have never been separated from either parent for an appreciable period of time. Wife testified that during the marriage, Husband often traveled without her and the children with the trips being about one week in length.
• Prior voluntary abandonment or surrender: None.
• Other: The Court is concerned that [Husband] has used extremely poor judgment at times with respect to the minor children. He sent one of the children a copy of a court document from the [domestic violence] case, along with a video of him declaring victory for men. He has brought the police to the home in the presence of the children when there was no threat of violence or need for the police. Husband sent an email to [Child 1’s] Spanish teacher seeking assistance with the divorce and mentioning involving [the Department of Social Services]. Husband has failed to take [Child 1] for medical care on his weekend and [Child 1] was returned to Wife with pneumonia. On another occasion, [Child 2] fell while in Husband’s care sustaining a fracture on his shin, but Husband did not take him for a medical exam.
• Wife has also demonstrated poor judgment. On one occasion she took the children to McDonalds at 4:00 p.m. for their scheduled visit with Husband after Husband had notified her that he could not be there until 6:00 p.m. In addition, she posted a note on the front door indicating that [Husband] is not welcome there. The notice was there for a few months in late 2024. * * *
• Capacity of parents to communicate: Wife testified that the parties are unable to communicate productively. She testified that Husband is aggressive and she does not feel comfortable with him. Husband testified that he feels that the parties will be able to make major decisions for the children and communicate more effectively after the litigation ends. A review of the parties’ communications suggests that the parties are able to communicate civilly at times, but many of Husband’s messages have been hostile, accusatory, and insulting. There was little evidence suggesting that the parties have disagreed about the children’s education, religion, medical treatment, or extracurricular activities in the past, but it appears that Husband acquiesces to Wife’s decisions on behalf of the children.
• Willingness to share custody: Husband expresses a willingness to share physical and legal custody with Wife. Wife wants primary physical and sole legal custody.
• Relationship between parent & child: Wife’s witness testified as to the close loving relationship between the children and Wife. Husband’s witness testified as to the close loving relationship between the children and Husband. The Court does not doubt that the children love both parents and that each party is an important person in their lives. Wife testified that even during the marriage Husband was uninvolved in the children’s academics, activities, and healthcare, and that he remains uninvolved. Wife is the one who has enrolled the children in extracurricular activities and summer classes. Wife has been primarily responsible for taking the children to medical appointments. Wife takes an active role in the children’s daily care and is primarily responsible for making major decisions for the children. Wife has kept Husband abreast of the children’s activities, schedules, medical appointments, etc., but Husband has not taken the initiative to become involved.
• Potential disruption of the child’s life: The children have busy schedules, both during the school year and during the summer. Both children have historically attended summer classes and play basketball. The children’s extracurricular activities are important to them. Wife testified that Husband has been at times unwilling to take the children to their activities on his time, and they have had to miss practices and STEM activities. In addition, Wife has concerns that the distance between Husband’s home and the children’s school make school-week visits suboptimal.
• Geographic proximity of parental homes: The parties live in close enough proximity to
permit frequent contact between each parent and the children.
• Demands of parental employment: Inconsistent evidence was offered regarding the demands of either party’s employment. Historically, Wife’s employment has not interfered with her ability to meet the children’s needs. Husband was last working in the DC area, making for a long commute on workdays. It is unknown where he will be working next.
• Financial status of the parents: Wife’s financial status seems relatively stable. She is able to meet her own needs and contribute to the needs of the children. Husband’s financial status is not fully known due to his failure to make full discovery.
• Impact on state or federal assistance: No evidence was offered suggesting that either parent is receiving state or federal assistance. Wife has the children enrolled in insurance through the Maryland Healthcare Exchange, but nothing in this case will affect that.
• Benefit to parents: The primary benefit to both parents is the opportunity to bond with and teach the children. If Husband was awarded shared physical custody, his child support obligation might be lower.
From that, the court found that it was “in the children’s best interests to remain in the primary physical custody of Wife.” The court granted Husband access to the children on alternating weekends. The court ordered that the parties would share legal custody.
Court’s Opinion – Marital Property
Regarding the parties’ marital property, the court noted that “the entire process has been frustrated by Husband’s failure to comply with the rules and this Court’s orders concerning discovery.” The court found that, although Wife was “able to bring some of the information on property in Husband’s name or under his control before the court by hiring a licensed real estate appraiser and issuing subpoenas to banks,” she “did not have access to information about the various companies Husband owns and operates or the location of monies withdrawn from marital accounts.” The court remarked that the “problem created by Husband’s lack of transparency and disclosure is that much of the information sought is within Husband’s exclusive control and not otherwise obtainable by Wife.” The court concluded that it was “left in a quandary when it comes to distribution of marital property.”
Despite those evidentiary shortcomings, the court made the following findings:
Listed below is the information the Court was able to glean from the evidence presented in Court and admissions on the 9-207 Joint Statement Concerning Marital and Non-Marital Property. The Court notes that on August 11, 2025, shortly before the last day of the hearing, Husband filed an “Amended Joint Statement Concerning Marital
and Non-Marital Property” which was not signed by Wife. This document is considered only to the extent that it reveals that Husband received $23,597.25 in surplus funds from the foreclosure on the Belle Vista property, funds that he claims are non-marital. Significantly, Husband did not reveal the location of these alleged funds or the date that they were received by him.
The Court finds that the parties own the following marital property:
• 8446 Jacqueline Court, Jessup Md. Titled to Wife. Fair market value is $700,000.00 Mortgage balance is $316,380.74. Net value $383,691.26.
• 8214 Seaworthy Way, Dundalk Md. Titled to Husband. Fair market value is $362,500.00. Mortgage amount was $183,000.00 but Husband indicated he stopped paying the mortgage so the amount of the current arrearage, if any, is unknown. Based on documents received by Wife pursuant to a subpoena to the lender, the balance as of December 11, 2024, was $194,020.11. The net value of the house is $168,479.89.
• Wife has household goods that she valued at $8,000.00. Husband furnished the house on Seaworthy, but did not declare a value or provide discovery to establish the value.
• Bank of America #5520. Joint. $0.47
• Bank of America #3224. Titled to Wife, $1,736.48
• Wells Fargo #0694. Titled to Wife. $29.05
• Paypal titled to Wife. $71.32
• Stripe Account titled to Wife. $208.12
• Capital One 360 #0528 titled to Wife. $78.82
• TSP titled to Husband $3,291.642
• FERS account belonging to Husband $2,845.15
• Music Boulevard business belonging to Wife: no value given
• Plenty Wealth Group business belonging to Husband: No value given
• 2021 Toyota Camry titled to Husband $0
• 2016 Tesla titled to Wife: value $13,187. Loan from relative to purchase the vehicle, $10,000. Net value $3,187
In addition to the above, there were rental properties titled in the name of Mainframe Ventures and Quality Services, both companies owned by Husband. Wife hired a residential appraiser, Carolyn Moberly, to value the properties. Ms. Moberly located three properties titled to Mainframe to which she attributed a combined value of $629,500.00. There was a fourth property titled to Mainframe which had been transferred to a long-time friend of Husband for $60,300.00. One of the properties located at 5506 Belle Vista Avenue in Baltimore, MD, had gone into foreclosure. This is the property that Husband claimed the $23,597.25 on his August 11, 2025 “Joint Statement” as his sole and separate property. This has significance since that property was titled in the name of Mainframe Ventures, not Husband’s individual name. This raises a question as to the true owner
of the other properties. However, since Husband did not make disclosures in discovery, the Court is unable to determine whether the properties are marital or non-marital and the net value.
From that, the court found that the marital property in Wife’s name totaled $397,002.05, while the marital property in Husband’s name totaled $198,213.93. The court also found that Husband, by way of his business entities, had additional properties with a combined value of over $629,500.00. Based on those findings, the court concluded that a monetary award to either party was unwarranted. The court also found “it equitable that each party keep the property in his or her own name and the personal property in his or her own possession.”
Court’s Opinion – Attorneys’ Fees
Finally, the court noted that both parties had requested attorneys’ fees. The court noted that each party had blamed the other “for making litigation more contentious” and that “on two prior occasions the court [had] awarded counsel fees due to Husband’s failure to make discovery.” The court stated that it had “considered the financial needs and assets of the parties, to the extent that they were disclosed” and that it did “not believe that either party was wholly unjustified in taking positions that have been taken in the litigation on the ultimate issues before the court, other than marital property as described above.” Based on those considerations, the court ordered Husband to contribute $25,000.00 to Wife’s attorneys’ fees.
This timely appeal followed. Additional facts will be supplied as needed below.
DISCUSSION
As an initial matter, we will address Wife’s Motion to Strike Husband’s reply brief. Wife points out that the reply brief exceeds the word limitation set forth in Md. Rule 8-503(d) (3) and raises issues not raised in the original brief. Husband certified that the reply brief did not exceed 9,000 words. However, the word limitation for a reply brief is 3,500. As noted, Husband’s original brief raised six issues. His reply brief raises nine issues.3
Issues I, II, III and IV of Husband’s reply brief are a reframing of issues raised in his original brief. The remaining issues, however, are new to the reply brief. We ordinarily do not consider issues raised for the first time in a reply brief. Jones v. State, 379 Md. 704, 713 (2004). We usually decline to consider issues raised for the first time in a reply brief because an appellee cannot address them in their brief. Husband’s reply brief exceeded the word count permitted by Rule 8-503(d)(3), and it raises issues not found in his main brief. Accordingly, we grant the motion to strike Husband’s reply brief.
I Parties’ Contentions
Husband first claims that the trial court “imposed and maintained an overbroad sanctions regime” that not only limited the evidence but “dictated the outcome.” Husband argues that sanctions that act as a default judgment on
contested issues “violate due process and exceed permissible discretion.” Husband also argues that “sanctions that restrict custody-related evidence are particularly suspect.”
Wife contends that the court exercised reasonable discretion in sanctioning Husband for his discovery violations. Wife argues that the court’s discovery sanctions were proportional to the violation and were properly restricted to the issues that were related to the particular information that Husband had failed to disclose.
Standard of Review
We review a court’s decision to impose discovery sanctions for abuse of discretion. Matter of City of Hagerstown, 265 Md. App. 581, 629 (2025), cert. denied sub nom., City of Hagerstown v. Johnson, 492 Md. 402 (2025). “Under this standard, an appellate court will not ‘second-guess the [trial] court’s ruling’ unless the trial court ‘exercised its discretion in a manner that was manifestly unreasonable, or [] on untenable grounds, or for untenable reasons.’” Id. (quoting Dackman v. Robinson, 464 Md. 189, 235 (2019)).
Analysis
Under Maryland’s discovery rules, if a court finds a failure of discovery, it “may enter such orders in regard to the failure as are just, including … [a]n order refusing to allow the failing party to support or oppose designated claims or defenses, or prohibiting that party from introducing designated matters in evidence[.]” Md. Rule 2-433(a)(2). A court may impose similar sanctions if, “upon motion of a party and reasonable notice to other parties and all persons affected,” the court finds that a person has failed to obey an order compelling discovery. Md. Rule 2-433(c).
“When determining whether to impose a discovery sanction, the trial court should consider: ‘(1) the reasons why the disclosure was not made; (2) the existence and amount of any prejudice to the opposing party; (3) the feasibility of curing any prejudice; and (4) any other relevant circumstances.’” City of Hagerstown, 265 Md. App. at 629 (quoting Dackman, 464 Md. at 231–32). “‘[I]n fashioning a sanction, the court should impose the least severe sanction that is consistent with the purpose of the discovery rules[.]’” Id. (quoting Watson v. Timberlake, 251 Md. App. 420, 437 (2021)). Generally, the “exclusion of evidence for a discovery violation is not a favored sanction and is one of the most drastic measures that can be imposed.” Thomas v. State, 397 Md. 557, 572 (2007). Such a sanction is “‘normally reserved for persistent and deliberate violations that actually cause some prejudice, either to a party or to the court.’” Kadish v. Kadish, 254 Md. App. 467, 495 (2022) (quoting Butler v. S&S P’ship, 435 Md. 635, 650 (2013)).
Against that backdrop, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in precluding Husband from presenting evidence on financial matters as a discovery sanction. To begin with, Husband is wrong in claiming that such sanctions violate due process and exceed permissible discretion. The discovery rules make clear that the sanction imposed here was well within the court’s discretion, and the rules provide adequate due process protections, including notice and the opportunity to cure any deficiencies, both of which were
afforded to Husband.
On the merits, the record shows that Husband persistently failed to produce discoverable financial documents and information despite repeated requests from Wife and repeated orders from the court directing Husband to turn over said documents and information. As the court remarked in its various orders, not only were Husband’s discovery responses “patently deficient,” but his “lack of response and absence of production [was] in bad faith,” and at least one of his filings contained “inappropriate content directed towards the Court and towards [Wife’s] counsel that [was] not consistent with [the court’s] expectations of professional and civil conduct.” Furthermore, Husband’s actions were clearly prejudicial, as evidenced by the court’s remarks in its memorandum opinion, in which the court noted that “the entire process has been frustrated by Husband’s failure to comply with the rules and this Court’s orders concerning discovery” and that, as a result, the court was “left in a quandary when it comes to distribution of marital property.” Given those circumstances, the court did not abuse its discretion in sanctioning Husband for his discovery violations.
To be sure, we have noted that, in child custody cases, a court’s discretion to exclude evidence as a discovery violation is “not only measured by the potential prejudice to the parties, but is constrained by a court’s ‘absolute and overriding obligation to conduct a thorough examination of all possible factors that impact the best interests of the child.’” Kadish, 254 Md. App. at 495 (quoting A.A. v. Ab.D., 246 Md. App. 418, 444 (2020)). Here, however, those constraints were not implicated because the court’s exclusion of evidence was limited to financial matters. The record shows that the court’s discovery sanctions had no impact on Husband’s ability to present evidence related to custody, nor did it have any impact on the court’s examination of the children’s best interests. To the contrary, the record makes plain that the court conducted a comprehensive and meaningful examination of all relevant factors that impacted the children’s best interests.
II. Parties’ Contentions
Husband next claims that the court denied granting him shared physical custody of the children “without the required best-interest analysis” and “without articulating why shared physical custody was rejected.” Husband argues that, because custody determinations demand a thorough review of a child’s best interest, “the court’s failure to provide a reasoned explanation” constituted an abuse of discretion. Wife contends that Husband’s arguments are without merit. Wife argues that the court’s custody determination was supported by competent evidence and reflected a reasoned analysis of the children’s best interests.
Standard of Review
Appellate review of a trial court’s decision regarding child custody involves three interrelated standards. Arizona v. Suleymanov, 243 Md. App. 340, 372 (2019). First, any factual findings are reviewed for clear error. Id. Second, any legal conclusions are reviewed de novo Id. Finally, if the court’s ultimate conclusion is “founded upon sound legal
principles and based upon factual findings that are not clearly erroneous, the [court’s] decision should be disturbed only if there has been a clear abuse of discretion.” Id. (quoting In re Yve S., 373 Md. 551, 586 (2003)). Under the abuse of discretion standard, “we will not reverse a trial court unless its decision is ‘well removed from any center mark imagined by the reviewing court.’” Santo v. Santo, 448 Md. 620, 626 (2016) (quoting In re Adoption/Guardianship of Alonza D., Jr., 347 Md. 295, 313 (1997)).
Analysis
This Court has identified various factors a trial court should consider when making a custody determination. J.A.B. v. J.E.D.B., 250 Md. App. 234, 253 (2021). Those factors include but are not limited to: the parties’ fitness; the parties’ character and reputation; the parties’ desire; any agreements between the parties; the potential of maintaining natural family relations; the child’s preference; any material opportunities affecting the child’s future; the child’s age, health, and sex; the parties’ residence and the opportunity for visitation; the length of separation from the natural parents; and any prior voluntary abandonment or surrender. Id. When considering those factors, “the trial court should examine ‘the totality of the situation in the alternative environments and avoid focusing on or weighing any single factor to the exclusion of all others.’” Jose v. Jose, 237 Md. App. 588, 600 (2018) (quoting Best v. Best, 93 Md. App. 644, 656 (1992)). “The primary goal of access determinations in Maryland is to serve the best interests of the child.” Conover v. Conover, 450 Md. 51, 60 (2016). “Indeed, ‘[t]he best interest of the child is [] not considered as one of many factors, but as the objective to which virtually all other factors speak.’” E.N. v. T.R., 474 Md. 346, 397 (2021) (quoting Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290, 303 (1986)). “In this regard, trial courts are endowed with great discretion in making decisions concerning the best interest of the child.” Bussell v. Bussell, 194 Md. App. 137, 157–58 (2010) (quoting Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 469–70 (1994)).
We hold that the court did not err or abuse its discretion in deciding custody. The record makes plain that the court conducted an exhaustive analysis of the relevant factors, properly weighed those factors in light of the totality of the circumstances, and reached a reasoned decision based on the children’s best interests. In so doing, the court clearly articulated its reasons for awarding primary physical custody of the children to Wife, and the court set forth a substantial evidentiary foundation to justify that decision. In short, Husband’s claims that the court failed to engage in the appropriate analysis and failed to provide a reasonable explanation for its decision are unequivocally belied by the record.
III. Parties’ Contentions
Husband next claims that the court erred in denying DMV’s motion to intervene. Husband contends that two of the “disputed properties” were owned by DMV. Husband argues that “adjudicating ownership, classification, and disposition of property while denying the titled owner the right to
intervene and be heard violates due process and constitutes legal error.”
Wife argues that Husband does not have standing to challenge the ruling because he was not aggrieved by the decision. Wife further argues that, regardless, the court’s decision to deny intervention was legally correct and not an abuse of discretion.
Analysis
We first note that the motion to intervene was filed by DMV. The affidavit in support of the motion to intervene was signed by Andrew Osazuwa, the owner of DMV. DMV filed its motion intervene pursuant to Md. Rule 12-102, which provides the procedure for lis pendens, apparently to assert its interest in real property. DMV’s motion was denied, and it has not appealed that order. For reasons that we explain below, we need not reach the issue of standing to address the circuit court’s denial of the motion to intervene. Similarly, we need not address the substance of the motion to intervene.
We need not delve into the merits of either parties’ arguments because, assuming without deciding that DMV had some right to intervene and that Husband has a right to challenge the court’s intervention ruling, Husband has failed to establish any prejudice to either him or DMV.4 “To warrant reversal in a civil case, an appellant must show both error and prejudice.” In re J.J., 231 Md. App. 304, 337 (2016). “Prejudice means an ‘error that influenced the outcome of the case.’” Sumpter v. Sumpter, 436 Md. 74, 82 (2013) (quoting Harris v. David S. Harris, P.A., 310 Md. 310, 319 (1987)). The focus of the inquiry is whether the appellant suffered “substantial injury” as a result of the error. Flanagan v. Flanagan, 181 Md. App. 492, 516 (2008).
Here, DMV moved to intervene on the grounds that it owned two residential properties that were, according to DMV, at issue in the divorce proceedings. The record shows, however, that neither property was considered by the court in its identification and valuation of the parties’ marital property or in its decision regarding whether to grant a marital award. Furthermore, there is nothing in the record to indicate that the court made any decision or ruling that could reasonably be construed as implicating DMV’s interests in the subject properties. Thus, the court’s decision to deny DMV’s intervention motion had no impact on the outcome of the case and resulted in no injury to either Husband or DMV.
IV.
Parties’ Contentions
Husband next contends that the court erred in its treatment and disposition of the parties’ property. He argues that the court, in denying a monetary award and ordering each party to keep certain property, failed to follow the required steps or make the requisite findings. Husband also argues that the court’s “failure to adjudicate or provide a mechanism for recovery of [his] personal property constitutes a deprivation of property without due process.”
Wife argues that the court did not err or abuse its discretion in deciding issues related to the parties’ marital property. She contends that the court engaged in the requisite analysis and reasonably determined that a marital award was unwarranted.
Wife also contends that the court properly disposed of the parties’ personal property.
Standard of Review
We review a court’s identification and valuation of martial property under a clearly erroneous standard. Richards v. Richards, 166 Md. App. 263, 271–72 (2005). A court’s decision regarding a monetary award is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Id. at 272.
Analysis
The identification and distribution of marital property in Maryland is a three-step process. Hart v. Hart, 169 Md. App. 151, 158–59 (2006). First, “if there is a dispute as to whether certain property is marital property, the court shall determine which property is marital property.” Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 8-203(a). Once the court has identified which property is marital, “the court shall determine the value of all marital property.” Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 8-204(a). Finally, after identifying and valuing the marital property, “the court may transfer ownership of an interest in property described in paragraph (2) of this subsection, grant a monetary award, or both, as an adjustment of the equities and rights of the parties concerning marital property[.]” Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 8-205(a)(1). The property that a court may transfer ownership of an interest in is limited to certain retirement accounts, family use personal property, and the family home. Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 8-205(a)(2).
We hold that the court did not err or abuse its discretion. Despite Husband’s unsupported claims to the contrary, the record makes plain that the court engaged in the requisite analysis in identifying and valuing the parties’ marital property and in determining whether to grant a monetary award. The court’s decision not to grant a monetary award and to have each party retain his or her personal property was supported by the evidence and was reasonable under the circumstances. The court was not required to provide a mechanism for recovery of Husband’s personal property.
V.
Parties’ Contentions
Husband next claims that the court erred in ordering him to pay $25,000.00 in attorneys’ fees to Wife. He argues that the court failed to “explain why $25,000 was selected, how reasonableness was assessed, or how ability to pay was evaluated.” He also contends that the award was not supported by Wife’s billing affidavit, which reflected “a much larger claimed amount,” and that the court failed to take into account the parties’ “substantial joint tax liabilities.”
Wife argues that the court properly considered the requisite factors and made a reasonable award. Wife contends that the court was not required to make specific findings regarding the parties’ tax liabilities.
Standard of Review
“‘[T]he standard of review for the award of counsel fees and costs in a domestic case is that of whether the trial judge abused his discretion in making or denying the award.’” Leineweber v. Leineweber, 220 Md. App. 50, 65 (2014)
(quoting Steinhoff v. Steinhoff, 144 Md. App. 463, 487 (2002)).
“Stated differently, ‘[a]n award of attorney’s fees will not be reversed unless a court’s discretion was exercised arbitrarily or the judgment was clearly wrong.’” Id. (quoting Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 468 (1994)).
Analysis
Section 12-103 of the Family Law Article of the Maryland Code states that, in a proceeding involving the custody of a child, a court “may award to either party the costs and counsel fees that are just and proper under all the circumstances[.]”
Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 12-103(a). Before such an award can be made, however, the court must consider: “(1) the financial status of each party; (2) the needs of each party; and (3) whether there was substantial justification for bringing, maintaining, or defending the proceeding.”
Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law § 12-103(b). That said, “the court need not ‘specifically recite the statutory factors in its award of attorney[s’] fees’ provided the evidence in the record indicates that the court engaged in the requisite analysis.”
Sayed A. v. Susan A., 265 Md. App. 40, 90 (2025) (quoting Meyr v. Meyr, 195 Md. App. 524, 553 (2010)). In addition, “[w] hen a court exercises its discretion by balancing and weighing the rights, interests, and reasons of the parties, the court is not required to discuss each factor considered, … and is not required to set out in detail each and every step of his [or her] thought process.” Kadish, 254 Md. App. at 495 (citations and quotations omitted).
We hold that the court did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorneys’ fees to Wife. The record shows that
the court considered each of the requisite statutory factors before making the award. In addition, although the court found that Husband was not “wholly unjustified” in taking certain positions during the litigation, the court also found that Husband’s actions during discovery had exacerbated the parties’ problems and made the resolution of the parties’ marital property dispute more difficult. Given those circumstances, and given that Wife presented competent evidence establishing that she incurred over $100,000.00 in attorneys’ fees and costs over the course of the litigation, the court acted reasonably in ordering Husband to pay $25,000.00 in attorneys’ fees to Wife.
The court was not required to make any additional express findings, including any findings regarding the parties’ joint tax liability, before making that award.
VI.
Husband’s final contention is that the “cumulative effect” of the court’s various errors warrants reversal. We disagree. As explained in greater detail above, we perceive no error in any of the court’s rulings, let alone multiple errors that would indicate any prejudice to Husband. See Muhammad v. State, 177 Md. App. 188, 325 (2007) (“In a case involving two or more errors, the thing that may cumulate is the prejudicial effect of two or more actual findings of error, not the effect of two or more mere allegations of error.”). As such, the “cumulative effect” doctrine is inapplicable here. See id. at 326. (“There is … no such thing as a cumulative prejudicial impact of nonerror.”).
MOTION TO STRIKE REPLY BRIEF IS GRANTED.
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR HOWARD COUNTY AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.
FOOTNOTES
1 Husband filed a reply brief on March 20, 2026. Wife moved to strike the reply brief because it exceeded the word count in Md. Rule 8-503(d) and raised issues that were not addressed in Husband’s original brief. For reasons that we will explain below we will grant the motion to strike.
2 Husband phrased the questions as:
1. Whether the circuit court abused its discretion and violated due process by imposing and maintaining an overbroad discovery-sanctions regime that threated to bar Appellant from participating in trial, cross-examining witnesses, or presenting evidence, and by allowing the merits trial to proceed under that regime.
2. Whether the circuit court abused its discretion by denying Appellant’s repeated requests for equal (50-50) physical custody without a reasoned best-interest analysis consistent with Maryland custody precedent, despite granting joint legal custody and making no finding of parental unfitness.
3. Whether the circuit court committed legal error by adjudicating ownership, classification, valuation, and disposition of property while denying intervention to the titled owner of disputed real estate, in violation of Maryland Rule 2-214 and due process.
4. Whether the circuit court abused its discretion by denying a monetary award and simultaneously ordering each party to keep property in his or her possession and/or titled name, without first performing the required Family Law § 8-203 classification and valuation steps and without findings under § 8-205.
5. Whether the circuit court abused its discretion by entering a $25,000 attorneys’ fee judgment without required findings and without considering known joint IRS and Maryland Comptroller liabilities, as reflected in the Joint Statement of Property.
6. Whether the cumulative and structural effect of these interrelated errors requires vacatur, remand, and reassignment to a different judge to ensure the appearance and reality of fairness.
3 In his reply brief, Husband raises the following issues (without subparts):
I. Appellee’s attempt to recast the sanctions issue fails because the sanctions prevented appellant from presenting evidence on the very issues the trial court then decided.
II. The sanctions cannot be reconciled with Judge Porter’s September 9, 2024 order directing that sanctions be considered at the merits hearing.
III. The financial rulings cannot stand because the trial court expressly acknowledged that the evidentiary record was incomplete and nevertheless ruled.
IV. The court did not complete the mandatory three-step marital property analysis required by Family Law Title 8.
V. Appellee’s defense of the custody ruling fails because key findings rest on unsupported assumptions rather than a complete record
VI. The record demonstrates that appellant repeatedly sought communication with and access to the children, undermining the narrative that he was disengaged
VII. The opinion’s reference to appellant’s statement that he would appeal if denied equal custody was an improper consideration in the custody analysis.
VIII. The attorney’s fee award cannot stand because the financial record was incomplete and the court’s own findings undercut a punitive award
IX. Unified structural error and remedy.
4 To be sure, we are not suggesting that the trial court erred or abused its discretion in denying DMV’s motion to intervene. We have simply chosen to omit any discussion of the matter, as such a discussion is unnecessary given that the court’s decision had no discernible effect on the outcome of the case.
In the Maryland Appellate Court: Full Text Unreported Opinions
The Appellate Court affirmed the Prince George’s County Circuit Court’s denial of mother’s initial motion and renewed motion to recuse the judge in a contentious custody dispute. Mother did not make a showing that overcame the strong presumption of impartiality on the part of the judge. Nor did mother make any showing of personal bias or prejudice, as those terms are defined for purposes of recusal or disqualification of a trial judge. The judge’s statements were consistent with well-established legal principles including that a custody determination should be based on the best interests of the child and not on a preference for a parent of one gender over another.
Ed. note: This is an unreported opinion. This opinion may not be cited as precedent within the rule of stare decisis. It may be cited for its persuasive value only if the citation conforms to Rule 1-104(a)(2)(B). Headnotes are not from the courts but are added by the editors. Page numbers are from slip opinions..
repeatedly refused to comply with pendente lite and final orders establishing access schedules.
In the first appeal, we upheld the circuit court’s custody rulings but vacated the child support award and an award of attorney’s fees to Father, remanding for further proceedings on those issues. On May 30, 2025, at a motions hearing, the court addressed most of what was raised in our mandate.
The parties’ case has been specially assigned to one trial judge to handle. Mother repeatedly has filed motions to disqualify that judge, and did so again three days after the May 30, 2025 hearing.4 By order entered on June 18, 2025 (“June 18 Order”), the court denied that motion. The following day, Mother filed a “Notice of Objection and Clarification of Procedural Record,” in which she asked the court to reconsider its denial of her renewed motion to disqualify and to correct certain alleged inaccuracies in the June 18 Order. On June 30, 2025, Mother filed a motion for reconsideration seeking the same relief. By order dated July 2, 2025, but not entered on the docket until July 16, 2025 (“July 16 Order”), the court denied with prejudice Mother’s request for reconsideration of the motion to recuse.
This case concerns A.B., the son of Candice Dease (“Mother”), the appellant, and Derick Houser (“Father”), the appellee.1 A.B. was born in January 2022, and is now four years old. Mother and Father never were married. Father lives with children from a prior relationship and with his wife, who is not the mother of those children. Mother does not have other children.
In his short life, A.B.’s parents have been in almost constant litigation about him in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. This appeal is the second before this Court, and a third appeal was noted earlier this year and is pending.2 If the parties would act reasonably and with their son’s best interest at heart, most of the litigation and all the appeals would have been obviated. Unfortunately, instead of trying to communicate and cooperate about their son, the parties have used the courts as a forum for constant, entirely unproductive bickering.3
For many months in the beginning of A.B.’s life, Mother would not let Father see him. Father filed suit when A.B. was about eight months old, and, for nearly two years, the parties haggled over introducing A.B. into Father’s life and transitioning him from essentially a one-parent to a two-parent family situation. Mother was recalcitrant and
Meanwhile, on July 1, 2025, the court entered an order addressing matters that came before it at the May 30, 2025 hearing (“July 1 Order”). One week later, on July 8, 2025, Mother filed written “objections” to the July 1 Order, asserting, among other things, that she had not received a copy of it. On the same date, Mother filed a motion to vacate the portion of the July 1 Order granting Father the authority to enroll A.B. in preschool; and a motion to stay enforcement of the July 1 Order pending an appeal Mother intended to file. On July 13, 2025, before the court ruled on either motion, Mother filed her notice of appeal.
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
Mother presents four questions for our consideration, which we have rephrased slightly as follows:
I. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion and commit reversible error by (1) not properly serving Mother with the July 1 Order, (2) not complying with this Court’s mandate from the first appeal, and (3) modifying custody without sworn testimony, verified evidence, or adequate factual findings, thereby violating Mother’s due process rights?
II. Did procedural defects at a contempt hearing held on June 7, 2024, including lack of service, lack of notice, and a show-cause order, constitute reversible error and contribute to the appearance of judicial partiality?
III. Did the circuit court judge (1) abuse her discretion by refusing to recuse herself despite statements and conduct that would cause a reasonable person to question her impartiality, and (2) prejudice Mother by failing to docket a timely order during a contempt hearing held on October 18, 2024?
IV. Did the circuit court abuse its discretion by denying Mother’s renewed motion to recuse filed on June 2, 2025, when the record demonstrates ongoing procedural irregularities, a campaign interview that undermined confidence in the court’s neutrality, and factual misstatements in the procedural record.
Mother makes arguments about alleged partiality of the trial judge throughout her brief. For clarity, we shall consider all such arguments and Questions III. and IV. together. For the reasons set forth below, we shall affirm the court’s judgments with instructions.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
First Appeal
This case began on September 14, 2022, when Father filed a petition, and later amended petitions, seeking sole legal and physical custody of A.B. and attorney’s fees and costs. Mother filed a counter-complaint for primary physical custody, sole legal custody, and child support. Ultimately, the court entered a custody and child support order that, among other things, split legal and physical custody equally (without granting tiebreaking authority to either parent), directed Father to pay child support, and awarded Father attorney’s fees. The court decided that Father would receive a credit of $1,400 toward his attorney’s fee award, “which shall translate in that same amount less toward Child Support payments in total. As such, [Father] shall not begin his Child Support payments for three (3) months[.]” After Mother filed a motion for new trial and a motion to alter or amend, both of which were denied, she noted an appeal.
In our opinion, we determined, inter alia, that the court had abused its discretion by giving Father a credit of three months against his child support obligation to account for his $1,400 award of attorney’s fees. We remanded the case for the court to consider “the issues of attorney’s fees, child support, and child support arrears arising from the three months A.B. was deprived of child support.” We noted that no evidence had been presented to show the details and cost of either parent’s medical or dental insurance benefits, which are to be taken into account in determining child support under the Guidelines. We directed that, “[o]n remand, in determining child support, the court shall consider the medical and dental insurance coverages available for A.B.[,]” and the “court may also consider the cost of transportation between the parties’ homes.” Lastly, we held that, “[a]s allocation of a tax dependency exemption is part of the child support calculus, on remand, the circuit court, in considering child support, may revisit the allocation issue.” As noted, we did not disturb the court’s custody determination.
May 30, 2025 Hearing
On May 30, 2025, the circuit court held a motions hearing to address pending motions and contempt petitions. From
the docket entries, court orders, and hearing transcript, we surmise that the hearing was set in for the court to consider Mother’s petition for contempt filed on February 26, 2025, for which no proof of mediation was included;5 Mother’s April 1, 2025 motion to correct the record to reflect her attendance at a hearing on October 18, 2024; Mother’s April 14, 2025 amended motion to modify custody; and, Father’s petition for contempt filed on April 30, 2025, for which no proof of mediation was included.
To give context to the issues presented, we shall review in some detail what occurred at the May 30, 2025 hearing. At the outset, the judge addressed our prior decision as follows: All right. So we’re here on a bunch of motions. So the first one is about your[6] petition for contempt regarding the child support. I have to deny it. [Mother] filed an appeal to the case, and everything was affirmed, except that – and they were right, except that I’m not permitted to give you credit on the child support, because the child support is really about the child. So I will have to reverse myself on that. And based on the history of the income, I don’t believe that she can pay it back, and so I have to deny your motion. All right.
Second, is your amended petition to modify custody. I think I should skip that and go to the clerical error.
Later during the hearing, the judge said that, although this Court had reversed “when it came to money[,]” we “did not reverse on any of [the trial court’s] decisions” regarding “custody, and access[.]”
After denying Mother’s petition for contempt with respect to Father’s failure to pay child support, the court agreed to correct a clerical error in the record that indicated that Mother was not present at a hearing on October 18, 2024, when, in fact, she had been in attendance. Mother advised the court that no written order had been issued with respect to the rulings made at the October 18, 2024 hearing, and the court said it would look into whether an order had been entered.
Mother asserted that, unlike Father, she had been complying with the court’s oral rulings from the October 18, 2024 hearing. The judge asked why Father had not been complying, and the parties proceeded to argue back and forth about numerous issues including: why they failed to go to mediation, Father’s assertion that he did not get a chance to speak about certain issues at a prior hearing, Father’s claim that Mother withheld A.B.’s medical information from him, Father’s assertion that A.B. was “constantly coming over with hives, bruises, and bad skin conditions[,]” Father’s difficulties rearranging his work schedule “to keep meeting the schedule changes,” Father’s refusal to permit a thirdparty, such as A.B.’s maternal grandmother, to pick A.B. up, Father’s assertion that Mother was lying about her home address, and a complaint by Mother that A.B. had said that Father’s wife taught him to wash or wipe a certain way after using the toilet.
Thereafter, the following colloquy occurred: THE COURT: I really have had it with you two. I don’t know what else to do.
[MOTHER]: Well, Your Honor –
THE COURT: I really don’t. Because this has just gone on too long. I made that decision – let me see when I made this decision about custody – at the beginning of last year. Was it last year or the year before? I mean, you just won’t stop.
[MOTHER]: Your Honor, I really think that – I don’t know if I can testify, or present this evidence, because a lot of the things that he’s saying is actually like – not only is it not true, but it’s extremely misleading. Extremely misleading. For him to say that our child keeps coming to him with bug bites, and so on. He came to him with a mosquito bite. There was another time when you came up, like, I [am] pretty sure it was a mosquito bite, or some bite.
It’s not consistently coming over there with any type of bites, number one. Number two, he was told at our status hearing, he said, well, do I have to be following the verbal order if I have the written order? Because he said what he just said, “Because that’s within my right to follow the written order”. And that judge said, well, sometimes a –
THE COURT: No, that’s not true. And I think you know that, because she played that card and –
[MOTHER]: And Your Honor –
THE COURT: She played that same card. So why would you think you don’t have to follow my verbal order, when I said the same thing to her when she played that card?
[FATHER]: That’s not what I said.
THE COURT: You all are a danger to this child together. [MOTHER]: Your Honor, if I –
THE COURT: I’m telling you now, if this keeps up, I’m going to call CPS, because you are both just being ridiculous, and not good to that child. And I don’t want that child to suffer anymore. Which he’s suffering because you won’t accept the order, and you’re tired of it, so you do things because she does things.
[FATHER]: I just –
THE COURT: I need this to stop.
Father proceeded to make additional arguments that he had not been “retaliatory” and had “been completely trying to work with” Mother. After asking the court to allow her to rebut Father’s assertions, Mother complained that Father was “misleading” and that “[e]verything that he” was saying was “not true at all[,]” except that “some of it is, like, on the surface, true,” but “if you actually look at what’s going on, it’s not true at all.” Mother claimed she had a lot of evidence to counter Father’s arguments and that she had not seen A.B. in eighteen days. The court permitted Father to present a long list of complaints about the difficulties he had experienced attempting to work with Mother. This exchange followed:
THE COURT: I filed this order of custody on September 21st, 2023. You all came back in October of ’23, November of ’23, December of ’23. [MOTHER]: Your Honor, I think we only came in –THE COURT: You skipped January. How about that? But then you were back in February of ’24,
March of ’24, May of ’24. So you were kind enough to rest in April. In July, I guess you were busy writing your appeal, so nothing happened. But August of ’24, you were back. September of ’24, you were back. You came back in October of ’24.
November of ’24, there were motions filed, but I guess we couldn’t put you in the schedule, so you were back when? December of ’24. And then you were back in March. And now it’s May, and we’re here again.
So basically, you have been in court more than you have dealt with any situation on your own. You literally have been here since September of ’23. Two years, back-to-back. Because if I take out the five months, it’s two years. And neither one of you thinks that you’re being ridiculous.
[MOTHER]: Your Honor, if I can speak back to a few of the things that he said, because –THE COURT: I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to hear it from him.
[MOTHER]: Your Honor, I think that it’s very important to put it on the record.
THE COURT: It’s not, because I’m not even taking any of this into consideration, because I don’t know what else – I’m past, what do I do? In a minute –
[MOTHER]: Your Honor –THE COURT: – you’re going to end up with no time –
Apparently unmoved by the judge’s exasperation, Mother7 interjected, [w]hat I would like to do is, I would like to address those issues, because what you’re just saying is he just talked for about – I let him talk for ten minutes the first time, and now even more. And I haven’t even been able to say back from what he’s talking about right now.
Mother then asserted that Father did, in fact, pick up A.B.’s medical records and had information about his primary care provider; and that she had not disclosed her home address to Father because he had shown up at her former residence and had gone to her rental office, which somehow resulted in the landlord prohibiting her from renewing her family’s lease. The judge told Mother that Father needed to know her address because “he needs to know where the child is[,]” and that Mother “wouldn’t like it if [Father] did that.” Mother disagreed, stating that she “would understand it if” she did to Father what he has done to her. She explained that she had lived at her former address for six years and that the landlord had “noted every time [Father] goes to – like, the police have to come. So that interrupted us from living where we lived for all of that time.” Mother said she “would love to give [Father] [her] address” but:
it’s perfectly fine, because I already told [Father] I did it for safety and privacy reasons. You cannot continue to mess up me and [A.B.’s] stability. I don’t care how you feel about certain stuff, you can’t just affect – you got to think about how that would affect our child.
I’m tired of dealing with you as a co-parent and then affecting our child. And I don’t like to be put in front of people and be told, like you just said, oh, well, you guys are putting your child in a certain condition, and you guys are causing an issue for your child. I don’t want to be that parent. I’ve been consistently telling him that.
Just, my thing has been to be transparent, and be open. That’s what I’ve been trying to do since day one. It’s consistently been an issue, time after time.
Mother complained about a time when Father picked up A.B. and then “stayed in the area,” walked around her neighborhood, and entered her apartment building and her sister’s building, before returning twenty-seven minutes later to ask if A.B. could use her bathroom. Father told her that he had taken A.B. to the playground, but Mother claimed she had “watched him” and that was not true. Mother said,
And this is the thing, you – and the thing about it is, like I said, I don’t have a problem with giving him my address, but I know for a fact that he’s going to continue to call the police. And I don’t know if he’ll call the rental office again, making things complicated for me.
Mother also addressed a disagreement the parties were having with respect to the type of skin product Father was using on A.B. Mother stated that A.B.’s “reactions to skin eczema isn’t because of me[,]” and that in Father’s household “they are consistently using something that I told them that is not appropriate.” Mother said: They use it on their other kids, so they think it’s appropriate for [A.B.] Then, when he comes to me, his skin is broken out. I can’t get it together. He goes back to him, and he’s like, oh, you’re the reason. I’m like, I’m not the reason. I’m not.
Mother continued to assert that Father was attempting to mislead the court and that she had “been transparent” and tried “to put our child first[,]” and that Father wanted “to cause conflict with” her. Mother acknowledged that her relationship with Father has “gotten worse” and that “it has affected” A.B. She explained that when A.B. was returned to her after an eleven-day separation Father had imposed, he was “very, very emotional” and if she stepped away “for a second,” he would try to figure out where she was. Mother described the attachment between her and A.B. as “secure.”
Mother argued that, although in October 2024 the court had changed the time for exchanging A.B. on Mondays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Father was continuing to show up at 7 a.m. She complained that, in the summer, because of vacation days, Father would have A.B. for eighteen days in May, twentyone days in June, and fourteen days in July. Mother asked the court to award her makeup time beginning immediately because she had not seen A.B. for eighteen days.
At that point, Father insisted on addressing the court because he was “the one that brought up all the contempts,” and he was aware that they had “a time frame to work with[.]” He denied that he had “snoop[ed] around” Mother’s neighborhood and said that he had obtained A.B.’s birth records but did not have a correct address for his doctor’s
office and did not have access to the online medical portal. He claimed that one of A.B.’s doctors told him that the skin products he was using were acceptable, just not to use shea butter. Father questioned the quality of care provided by the doctor’s office selected by Mother. He claimed that “all I’m doing is following the order[,]” but added that, when he does that, he feels “penalized.” He advised the court that he had “so much evidence, so many correspondence[.]” The judge told both parties to mark whatever they had, that she would look at that, and then “write a long order.” The parties again raised issues about Mother’s makeup time for not seeing A.B. for eighteen days and the pickup and drop-off times and Father’s opinion that they should be changed.
At that point, Father raised the issue of his desire to enroll A.B. in school, meaning “a preschool daycare setting with him learning.” Mother had told him that, at three years old, A.B. was not ready for that, and she did not approve of any of the schools he had selected. The judge asked if the parties were going “to send up [their] stuff” because it was 11:00 and “[p]eople [were] waiting.” The judge stated that she was “going to write an order based on everything I’ve heard in the last 24 hearings I’ve had since February of 2023.”
Father inquired about a prior request for attorney’s fees, and the court said it would take that into consideration in preparing the order. Mother questioned the court about attorney’s fees and health insurance for A.B. The judge said she would recalculate the award of attorney’s fees. The judge asked Father whether he had health insurance coverage for A.B. and he responded that he did not; he said “we had health insurance through [his] wife[,]” but she “lost her job due to some situations going on[,]” and he would have to wait until the next open enrollment to add A.B. to his coverage. Mother advised the court that Father never told her he did not have health insurance for A.B. The judge responded: “Okay. Well, he didn’t. And now you know why he doesn’t, because whatever you did caused her problems at work, and now he has to get new insurance. Thank you. Parties are excused. Thank you.”
The June 30 Order
On June 30, 2025, an order, signed October 18, 2024, was entered (“June 30 Order”). The order addressed a petition for contempt Father had filed on August 6, 2024, which had been heard by the court on October 18, 2024. In the June 30 Order, the court found that Mother had not willfully withheld A.B. from Father. It further found that Mother had provided Father with contact information for A.B.’s primary care doctor and agreed to give Father access to his medical records, and that Mother had missed six overnight visits with A.B. due to a lack of clarity in the access schedule. Among other things, the court ordered that Father must allow Mother to pick up A.B. at the designated time regardless of Father’s work schedule, that neither party was permitted to change A.B.’s primary care provider without first participating in mediation with the other parent, that Mother was to give Father access to A.B.’s primary care provider, medical records, and immunization history, that the parties must attend mediation for all medical decisions, and that Mother was entitled to make-up time for six overnight visits. The court specifically noted that at the
October 18, 2024 hearing, “both parties voluntarily withdrew all previously filed contempt motions and agreed to attend mediation prior to filing any further contempt motions.” The court ordered that “no contempt hearing shall be scheduled absent the filing of proof that the parties have attended mediation regarding the subject matter of the dispute.”
The July 1 Order
On July 1, 2025, the court entered an order addressing matters raised at the May 30, 2025 hearing. The court denied Mother’s petition for contempt, corrected the record to reflect that Mother had attended the October 18, 2024 hearing, denied Mother’s amended motion to modify custody, and denied Father’s petition for contempt. The court ordered that “the Defendant will continue to pay the Plaintiff $262.00 per month in child support[,]” and that Mother was “not required to pay” Father’s “attorney fees previously awarded by the [c] ourt[.]” The court awarded Mother “make-up” time with A.B. for four overnight visits.
The court set forth a detailed access schedule. Part of the schedule provided that, on the weekends when A.B. was with Mother, she was to return him to Father on Sunday at 7 p.m., unless Monday was a holiday, when the return time would be 7 p.m. on Monday. In addition, the court ordered that Father was “permitted to enroll the minor child in school[.]” The court again ordered both parties to participate in mediation prior to filing any future contempt motions, and that “no contempt hearing shall be scheduled absent the filing of proof that the parties have attended mediation regarding the subject matter of the dispute[.]”
Mother’s July 8, 2025 Motions
One week later, on July 8, 2025, Mother filed what she called a notice of objection to the court’s July 1 Order. One of her complaints was that she had not been “served” with the July 1 Order and only had become aware of it by reviewing the court docket. Also on July 8, Mother filed a motion to vacate the portion of the July 1 Order allowing Father to enroll A.B. in school, and a motion to stay enforcement of the July 1 Order pending an appeal Mother intended to file. Among other things, Mother argued that the July 1 Order effectively modified legal custody by granting Father decision-making authority over A.B.’s education. Mother asserted that that issue “was not properly before the [c]ourt” and “was made without a properly noticed motion filed or scheduled on the matter regarding educational decision-making[,]” and that she was not given an opportunity to “respond to any written or oral motion, submit evidence, or be meaningfully heard before this ruling was made.”
On July 13, 2025, before the court ruled on the motions filed on July 8, Mother filed her notice of appeal.
Events After Mother Filed Her Notice of Appeal
On July 16, 2025, the court entered an order addressing the “Notice of Objection and Clarification of Procedural Record” Mother filed on June 19, 2025. The court acknowledged Mother’s objection to a timeline set forth in an order entered on June 23, 2025, and stated that “[t]o the extent any corrections to the procedural history or timeline are
warranted, such clarifications will be made on the record.”
The court rejected an argument by Mother that the May 30, 2025 hearing had been scheduled for two hours, noting that hearings on Fridays are set in for one hour, and denied Mother’s renewed motion to recuse. (The hearing lasted one hour and eleven minutes.)
In an order entered on September 2, 2025 (“September 2 Order”), the court corrected the July 1 Order, which mistakenly had directed Mother was to pay child support when in fact the court had found that Father was required to pay child support. The court vacated the July 1 Order as to child support and ordered Father to continue to pay child support of $262 per month “nunc pro tunc to July 1, 2025[.]” The court found that the change was not substantive and merely was the correction of a clerical error. The court also denied the motions Mother had filed on July 8, 2025 (to vacate, for a stay, and making a notice of objection).
Not surprisingly, the contentiousness between the parties did not cease during the pendency of this appeal. On September 10, 2025, Father filed a petition for contempt asserting that Mother was not complying with the July 1 Order. On December 22, 2025, he filed a motion and supporting affidavit seeking an emergency hearing because Mother was withholding parenting time and refusing to abide by the July 1 Order. The contempt petition and motion were heard by the court on January 9, 2026.
Importantly for this appeal, that hearing resulted in a new custody order, dated January 9, 2026 and entered on January 14, 2026 (“the January 14 Order”) that, with the exception of the holiday schedule, “supersede[d] and overr[ode]” all prior custody orders. Also on January 9, 2026, Father filed a “Motion to Amend and Clarify Order Regarding Exchange Logistics.” That was not heard by the court before Father filed a notice of appeal on February 10, 2026.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We apply different standards when reviewing different aspects of a child custody decision:
The appellate court will not set aside the trial court’s factual findings unless those findings are clearly erroneous. To the extent that a custody decision involves a legal question, such as the interpretation of a statute, the appellate court must determine whether the trial court’s conclusions are legally correct, and, if not, whether the error was harmless. The trial court’s ultimate decision will not be disturbed unless the trial court abused its discretion.
“On the ultimate issue of which party gets custody[,] we will set aside a judgment only on a clear showing that the trial court abused its discretion.” Id. at 201 (cleaned up) (quoting Viamonte v. Viamonte, 131 Md. App. 151, 157 (2000)). An abuse of discretion “may occur when no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court, or when the court acts without reference to any guiding rules or principles, or when the ruling is clearly against the logic and effect of facts and inferences before the court.” Id. “The light that
guides the trial court in its determination, and in our review, is ‘the best interest of the child standard,’ which ‘is always determinative in child custody disputes.’” Santo v. Santo, 448 Md. 620, 626 (2016) (quoting Ross v. Hoffman, 280 Md. 172, 178 (1977)).
As with custody determinations, visitation orders generally are “‘within the sound discretion of the trial court, not to be disturbed unless there has been a clear abuse of discretion.’” Brandenburg v. LaBarre, 193 Md. App. 178, 186 (2010) (quoting Barrett v. Ayres, 186 Md. App. 1, 10 (2009)).
DISCUSSION
I.
Mother contends the circuit court erred by not serving her with the July 1 Order; failing to comply with the mandate in our opinion in the first appeal; and modifying custody without “sworn testimony, verified evidence, or adequate factual findings” in violation of her due process rights.
The July 1 Order has been superseded by the January 14 Order, rendering almost all of Mother’s arguments moot. Nevertheless, we shall address them in an effort to stave off unnecessary filings on the part of the parties.
Service of the July 1 Order
Mother maintains that, although she is an MDEC user (as is Father), she was not electronically served with the July 1 Order. Pursuant to Maryland Rule 20-205, the proper means of service of a court order on a party who is a registered MDEC user is by posting it on MDEC. The July 1 Order, like all the filings in this case, is posted on MDEC. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the clerk’s office experienced any glitch or problem with posting the July 1 Order on MDEC. There is only Mother’s representation that she was not served with that order.
Despite what Mother says, and assuming the July 1 Order somehow was not posted to MDEC notwithstanding that the record discloses it on MDEC, it is clear that Mother had actual knowledge of the July 1 Order and its contents. Within one week of the entry of that order, she filed objections to it. Indeed, in her objections, she recounted that she became aware of the July 1 Order by reviewing docket entries. Her assertion that she was limited in her ability to object to the July 1 Order because “the summary on the case search reflected only a portion of the trial court[’]s order,” is not convincing. Mother does not identify any part of the July 1 Order that she was unable to address in her objections and multiple additional filings. Moreover, if she felt she did not have access to the full July 1 Order, Mother was free to contact the clerk’s office to obtain a hard copy of it. For those reasons, even assuming the July 1 Order was not accessible to Mother on MDEC, even though she was an MDEC user, Mother’s argument lacks merit.
We note, because it was instrumental in unnecessarily continuing the conflict between the parties, that Mother attempted to use the alleged lack of service of the July 1 Order to her advantage by refusing to follow the changes to the access schedule that that order implemented. She took the position that, because she was not served with the July 1 Order, she was entitled to follow the access schedule in place
before that order was entered, even though she had actual knowledge of the contents of the July 1 Order and, therefore, knew the schedule she was insisting A.B. keep was no longer in force. Indeed, at the hearing during the pendency of this appeal, on January 9, 2026, when the court worked with the parties to develop the new access schedule embodied in the January 14 Order, Mother repeatedly expressed concern that she not forfeit her appellate argument that the court had erred by not serving her with the July 1 Order. The issue was never one that she was going to achieve anything by raising, however, because she knew the contents of that order. This case is not a game. The parties need to understand that when the court has ordered a change to the access schedule for A.B., they must abide by the new schedule and technical deficiencies in adopting the order will not relieve them of that duty. Doing otherwise is not in A.B.’s best interests and only disrupts and creates confusion in the litigation process.
This Court’s Mandate in the First Appeal
Mother contends the circuit court failed to comply with the mandate in our opinion in the first appeal. She argues that, although this Court vacated the prior awards of child support and attorney’s fees, the circuit court did not include the cost of health and dental insurance for A.B. in recalculating child support and did not correct the “deprivation” of three months of child support caused by the court’s having allowed Father to skip those payments as a credit toward his attorney’s fees. The transcript of the May 30, 2025 hearing reveals that neither party had health or dental insurance coverage for A.B. at the time. A.B. had been insured through Father’s wife. Father stated that she had lost her job, and therefore the insurance was not available at that time. Father represented that he would take steps to obtain health insurance coverage for A.B. through his own employment but could not do so until open enrollment. Thus, the court could not have recalculated child support to include the cost of health and dental insurance for A.B. because there was no such expense at the time.8
The July 1 Order, as corrected by the September 2 Order, continued Father’s child support obligation of $262 per month. The court vacated its prior attorney’s fees award of $1,400 to Father upon a finding that Mother lacked the ability to pay. Although the record is not clear, it seems that Father did skip a certain amount of child support payments as a credit toward attorney’s fees and that the court did not take any action on remand to make up for that amount of unpaid child support.
As stated, the July 1 Order has been superseded by the January 14 Order. We will not take any action regarding the July 1 Order for that reason. On remand, however, the court should calculate the amount of child support that Father would have paid had child support not been suspended to credit him for his (subsequently vacated) attorney’s fees award. The amount the court calculates to be “deprived” child support should be treated as an arrearage on Father’s part and factored into the present child support award.
Modification of Custody
Father had not filed a motion to modify custody prior to the May 30, 2025 hearing. (Mother had.) At the hearing, Father orally
stated his desire to enroll A.B. in a preschool. Mother objected. In its July 1 Order, the court granted Father permission to make the decision whether to enroll A.B. “in school[.]”
Mother contends the court modified legal custody by making Father the sole decision-maker about preschool for A.B. and did so without “sworn testimony, verified evidence, or adequate factual findings,” in violation of her due process rights. Mother challenges the court’s decisions to grant Father authority to enroll A.B. in school, to reduce Mother’s parenting time from Friday at 10 a.m. through Monday at 7 p.m. to Friday at 10 a.m. through Sunday at 7 p.m., to reduce Mother’s parenting time in the summer, and to issue make-up time to Mother during her vacation time with A.B.
A party moving to modify an existing custody order must “‘show that there has been a material change in circumstances since the entry of the [previous] custody order and that it is now in the best interest of the child for custody to be changed.’” Gillespie v. Gillespie, 206 Md. App. 146, 171-72 (2012) (quoting Sigurdsson v. Nodeen, 180 Md. App. 326, 344 (2008)). “‘A material change in circumstances is a change of circumstances that affects the welfare of the child.’” Kadish v. Kadish, 254 Md. App. 467, 503 (2022) (quoting Gillespie, 206 Md. App. at 171). Once a trial court finds a material change in circumstances, the court then proceeds to decide “what custody arrangement is in the best interests of the child[.]” Santo, 448 Md. at 639. In determining the child’s best interests, the trial court must consider the factors delineated in Montgomery County Department of Social Services v. Sanders, 38 Md. App. 406 (1978), and Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290 (1986).
The January 14 Order superseding and overriding the July 1 Order does not include a provision giving either parent tie-breaking authority generally or the authority to decide which preschool, school, or daycare A.B. will attend. During the time the July 1 Order was in effect, until the January 14 Order was entered, Father did not enroll A.B. in a school. So whatever tie-breaking or other authority Father was granted respecting enrolling A.B. in school was not exercised by him. It is correct that, if the court were to grant such authority to either parent, that should be done upon a finding of a material change in circumstances making it in A.B.’s best interests for such a change to be made. The change that was made in the July 1 Order is moot, however, as are the correlative access changes, which, as we have recited, Mother by and large did not abide by.
II.
Mother contends the circuit court erred in holding a hearing on June 7, 2024, with respect to Father’s contempt petition filed on June 3, 2024, because the petition was never served on her, no show-cause order was issued, and she was deprived of reasonable notice and an opportunity to prepare. According to Mother, the June 7, 2024 hearing initially was set to consider petitions for contempt filed by both Mother and Father in March 2024. The record shows that, after the hearing, the court reserved its ruling on Father’s June 3, 2024 contempt petition. The court made other rulings, ordering Mother to turn A.B. over to Father by a particular date and to provide his “shot records” by a particular date, but Mother
has not directed us to any place in the record to show that the court granted the petition for contempt filed by Father on June 3, 2024. Moreover, as we already have noted, at a hearing on October 18, 2024, the parties voluntarily agreed to withdraw all of their previously filed contempt motions. Therefore, the issue is moot.
III. & IV.
Mother contends the trial judge abused her discretion by not recusing herself. Mother filed a motion and later a renewed motion to recuse or disqualify the trial judge. In her first such motion, filed on October 9, 2024, Mother argued that “the impartiality of [the judge] has been called into question due to apparent bias, and violations of [Mother’s] due process rights as demonstrated during the recent hearing held on June 7, 2024, as well as an ongoing appeal regarding similar issues.” Mother asserted that, at a show cause hearing on June 7, 2024, at which the court heard petitions for contempt filed by both parties, the trial judge demonstrated “apparent bias” against her by failing to address her petition for contempt; “focusing solely on” Father’s petition for contempt filed on June 3, 2024, for which no show cause order had been served; finding Mother in contempt before either party presented their case and before any evidence had been introduced; denying her motion to stay pending the outcome of Mother’s first appeal; and granting “a significant change in custody[.]” Mother argued that these actions “all indicate[d] prejudice against” her. She asserted that “[a]ny reasonable observer would question the impartiality of these actions.” The court denied the motion to recuse from the bench at a hearing on October 18, 2024, but our review of the docket entries does not reveal any written order denying the motion.9
Thereafter, on June 2, 2025, Mother filed a renewed motion to recuse or disqualify the trial judge based on “new developments” that she argued “further strengthened” her “original concerns” as well as “cumulative procedural issues [that] undermined confidence in the fairness of [the] proceedings.” In support of her request that the trial judge be recused, Mother made several arguments pertaining to the manner in which the trial judge conducted hearings. Mother asserted that, at “multiple hearings,” including the hearing on May 30, 2025, “neither party was required or permitted to ‘formally’ submit exhibits prior to the court considering them for review”; that, at the hearing on May 30, 2025, she was not given a fair opportunity to object to Father’s “alleged statements” or “exhibits” before the judge considered them; that the court told Mother she “could not object to what the other party was saying, despite this being testimony on a material matter”; and that evidence was “taken under review outside the structure of formal admission, cross-examination, or objection” in violation of “standard court procedure” and her “right to due process.” Mother also asserted that the trial court “made repeated statements and rulings that appear to favor [Father] while giving significantly less consideration to [her] arguments.” As an example, but without any citation to the transcript, Mother said the trial court “dismissed or ignored” her “efforts to introduce evidence” to discredit Father, but allowed Father “to present hearsay statements” without giving her an opportunity to object.
Mother also made the following assertions about certain campaign statements made by the trial judge:
5. [Mother] recently reviewed a publicly available video recording in which the presiding judge, before her appointment, stated:
“I think this is very important, men keep being satisfied with just getting or being pushed to believe that’s it okay to just get visitation on the weekends … if you have a child you should have custody too …”
6. While the judge did later state that custody should start from a presumption of equality, her initial framing emphasized advocating for men and correcting perceived systemic favor toward mothers.
7. The interview appears to have taken place during the judge’s candidacy, during which the judge made a public statement that commits, or appears to commit, to a particular result or rule in a particular way in a proceeding. Under Maryland Rule 18102.11(a)(4), a judge shall disqualify themselves in any proceeding where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including where the judge has made public statements committing to a particular result, as in this instance.
8. [Mother] submits a screenshot and timestamp reference from a publicly available YouTube video of the Honorable Judge Gladys Weatherspoon during a judicial candidacy interview held on March 17, 2020. In the video, the Judge makes statements that reasonably call into question their impartiality in this matter. The specified comment appears between the timestamps 22:25 and 23:15.
A copy of the screenshot is attached as Exhibit B.
According to Mother, the trial judge’s failure to conduct “the required legal analysis” and apply “the appropriate standard” on remand after her first appeal, dismissal of her arguments, failure to follow a procedure that was fair, biased judicial behavior, and public statements combined to create a reasonable perception that the judge was “unconsciously partial” to Father’s position. In addition, Mother argued that the court’s delay in reducing oral rulings to written orders resulted “in significant confusion between the parties, inconsistent enforcement, and repeated disputes” as well as “uncertainty about their legal responsibilities.” As noted, Mother’s renewed motion to recuse or disqualify the trial judge was denied in a written order entered on June 18, 2025.
Maryland Rule 18-102.11(a)(1) provides that a judge “shall recuse in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” including where the “judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party[.]” There is, however, a strong presumption of impartiality on the part of judges, and “[t]he person seeking recusal bears a ‘heavy burden to overcome’” that presumption. Karanikas v. Cartwright, 209 Md. App. 571, 579 (2013) (quoting Att’y Grievance Comm’n v. Blum, 373 Md. 275, 297 (2003)). See also Conner v. State, 472 Md. 722, 738 (2021) (“[T]here is a strong presumption that judges are impartial participants in the legal process[.]” (cleaned up)); Boyd v. State, 321 Md. 69,
80-81 (1990) (stating that the party requesting recusal has the burden of proof to rebut the presumption of impartiality). A judge’s duty to preside when qualified is equally as strong as the duty not to preside when not qualified. In re Turney, 311 Md. 246, 253 (1987). This strong presumption that judges are impartial participants in the legal process, “carries with it the presumption that a judge will discard from his or her mind personal biases, inadmissible evidence, and other irrelevant matters in deciding a case.” Conner, 472 Md. at 749.
Ordinarily, motions for recusal are decided by the judge whose recusal is sought. Surratt v. Prince George’s Cnty., Md., 320 Md. 439, 464 (1990). When bias, prejudice, or lack of impartiality is alleged, a judge’s decision not to recuse usually is a discretionary call, meaning it will be overturned only if an abuse of discretion is shown. Id. at 465. See also S. Easton Neighborhood Ass’n, Inc. v. Town of Easton, Md., 387 Md. 468, 499 (2005) (“Unless grounds for mandatory recusal are met, a judge’s decision not to recuse himself or herself will be overturned only upon a showing of an abuse of discretion.”). Under the objective standard of abuse of discretion, recusal is warranted “when a reasonable person with knowledge and understanding of all the relevant facts would question the judge’s impartiality.” In re Russell, 464 Md. 390, 402 (2019); see also S. Easton Neighborhood, 387 Md. at 499 (“An abuse of discretion standard is objective – whether a reasonable member of the public knowing all the circumstances would be led to the conclusion that the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” (quotation marks and citation omitted)). “Recognized grounds implicating possible partiality include a significant financial interest in a party or outcome, a pre-judicial relationship as an attorney with a party or counsel for a party, or a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.” S. Easton Neighborhood, 387 Md. at 499. Motions to recuse must set forth the necessary facts in reasonable detail sufficient to show the purported personal misconduct, as mere conclusions stating a lack of impartiality will not suffice. Surratt, 320 Md. at 467. “A trial judge is not required to recuse when the party moving to disqualify alleges bias arising from a source within the ‘four corners of the courtroom’” Conner, 472 Md. at 744 (cleaned up). Rather, “‘the alleged prejudice must result from an extrajudicial source and parties cannot attack a judge’s impartiality on the basis of information and beliefs acquired while acting in his or her judicial capacity.’” Id. (quoting Boyd, 321 Md. at 77). Maryland’s Supreme Court made this clear in Jefferson-El v. State:
To overcome the presumption of impartiality, the party requesting recusal must prove that the trial judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning him [or her] or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceedings. Only bias, prejudice, or knowledge derived from an extrajudicial source is “personal.” Where knowledge is acquired in a judicial setting, or an opinion arguably expressing bias is formed on the basis of information acquired from evidence presented in the course of judicial proceedings before him [or her], neither that knowledge nor that opinion qualifies as “personal.”
330 Md. 99, 107 (1993) (some quotations marks and citations omitted). Critically, “[i]t is settled law that a motion for recusal may not ordinarily be predicated upon the judge’s rulings in the case at hand or a related case.” Reed v. Baltimore Life Ins. Co., 127 Md. App. 536, 552 (1999). For trial rulings, [u]nless there is palpable and demonstrable indicia of judicial bias, evidentiary calls and actions taken by the trial judge in the conduct of a trial are more appropriately reviewed in the context of whether the judge’s rulings comport with applicable law, rather than by divining a motive speculatively attributed to the trial judge by counsel.
Id.
In the case at bar, Mother did not make a showing that overcame the strong presumption of impartiality on the part of the circuit court judge. Our review of the record does not show “palpable and demonstrable indicia of judicial bias[.]” Id. Nor does it show that the judge demonstrated “repeated and egregious behavior of partiality, reflective of bias.” Diggs v. State, 409 Md. 260, 294 (2009). Mother’s arguments are based on numerous actions taken by the trial judge in the conduct of the underlying proceedings. In support of her third question presented in this appeal, Mother points to the judge’s actions during hearings on June 7, 202410 and October 18, 2024. As for the June 7, 2024 hearing, Mother argues that the court engaged in “rushed scheduling, procedural deviations, and one-sided assumptions[.]” As for the hearing on October 18, 2024, Mother arrived late. She complains that the court proceeded with the hearing, took sworn testimony, and was prepared to take action regarding access to A.B. in her absence. Mother acknowledges, however, that after her late arrival, she was permitted to participate in the hearing, and the court made a minor modification in the access schedule in her favor. She asserts that the court’s view of the parties at that hearing “had already been shaped by earlier, irregular proceedings[.]” Mother mentions her participation in an off-the-record discussion with the judge and Father, but acknowledges that, subsequently, she was permitted to address her concerns on the record.
Mother did not make any showing of personal bias or prejudice, as those terms are defined for purposes of recusal or disqualification of a trial judge, with respect to either hearing. All of Mother’s arguments arise from a source within the “four corners of the courtroom.” As Mother’s motion for recusal was predicated on the judge’s rulings below, and not from an extrajudicial source, we conclude that Mother did not overcome the strong presumption of impartiality accorded the circuit court judge.
For similar reasons, we reject Mother’s contention that the circuit court abused its discretion in denying her renewed motion to recuse. Mother’s arguments center around the parties’ motions, the conduct of hearings, and the lack of accuracy in some of the court’s rulings on motions. As we have explained, such contentions are more appropriately reviewed in the context of whether the judge’s rulings comport with applicable law, rather than by divining a motive speculatively attributed to the trial judge. They do not support a showing of personal bias or prejudice.
Mother presented evidence of one extrajudicial incident – the statement made by the trial judge during a campaign interview on March 17, 2020.11 According to Mother, in the interview, the judge’s remarks “reflected a strong viewpoint on fathers in family law cases,” and the court then issued “rulings parallel to their philosophy.” Mother complains that the interview shows that the judge was biased in her approach to the custody rulings in this case and therefore was required to recuse herself. We disagree.
Maryland Rule 18-102.11(a)(4) provides that: [a] judge shall recuse in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including … [where] [t]he judge, while a judge or a judicial candidate, has made a public statement, other than in a court proceeding, judicial decision, or opinion, that commits or appears to commit the judge to reach a particular result or rule in a particular way in the proceeding or controversy.
Having reviewed the judge’s interview in its totality, we conclude that it in no way committed or even appeared to commit the judge to reach a particular result or rule in a particular way in custody cases. The judge’s statements were consistent with well-established legal principles including that a judge’s custody determination should be based on the best interests of the child and not on a preference for a parent of one gender over another. We discern no abuse of discretion in the court’s decision to deny the renewed motion to recuse.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons we have explained, we are affirming the judgment of the circuit court. The case is remanded and at this point is a continuing one, with a third appeal already before this Court. As discussed in Question I, the circuit court should calculate whatever amount of ordered child support Father did not pay during the time that his child support obligation was being credited toward his (later vacated) attorney’s fees award and apply that amount as an arrearage against Father.
As the trial judge pointed out at one of the hearings in this case, the parties have spent far more time and effort battling each other than trying to work together as co-parents of A.B. for his benefit and well-being. In part, this has happened because, since 2024, neither party has been represented by counsel and, as a consequence, the parties are without the important professional guidance that counsel usually provides. The parties are intelligent people who have been able to educate themselves in a small measure about the court process. As the saying goes, however, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In this context, no matter how much each parent loves A.B., using their knowledge to perpetuate an ongoing court process will not help either one of them and eventually will hurt A.B. That is the opposite of what family law litigation should accomplish.
The trial judge assigned to this case has shown restraint and patience in handling it. She has tried to work with the parties. However, the parties are disruptive during hearings, speaking over one another and interrupting the judge, and after appearing to accept the process and to agree to the
court’s suggestions about scheduling changes that are then embodied in an order, decide they do not agree and file motion upon motion complaining about orders, the judge, and each other. Many of the complaints raised by Mother in her brief about process, now moot, were not preserved because she only objected to the way a hearing was conducted after the hearing had concluded and the court had rendered a decision.
The parties need to accept that they both are parents to A.B. and he will be happiest if they work together to his benefit. They need to obey each ruling of the circuit court unless and until the court changes that ruling, even if they disagree with it or think it was wrongly entered or entered by virtue
JUDGMENTS OF THE CIRCUIT
of a procedural mistake. They need to be selective in filing motions as it is counterproductive to swamp the court with them. They need to control their behavior in the courtroom so chaos does not prevail. The court might consider having the parties testify under oath, instead of offering arguments on motions, to avoid later complaints that rulings were not based on testimony (even though the parties did not complain at the time). And the court also might consider appointing a parenting coordinator if the parties still are unable to behave in an acceptable fashion and continue to communicate as litigants instead of as parents.
COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY AFFIRMED; CASE REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS AS SET FORTH IN THIS OPINION. COSTS TO BE PAID BY THE APPELLANT.
FOOTNOTES
1 Mother is proceeding on appeal, as she did below, in proper person. Father, who appeared in proper person below, did not file a brief. We refer to the child as A.B., letters unrelated to his name, to protect his privacy.
2 See Dease v. Houser, No. 306, Sept. Term, 2024 (filed February 28, 2025) (unreported) (first appeal), and Houser v. Dease, No. 2618, Sept. Term, 2025 (pending). A fourth appeal was filed but was dismissed when the circuit court struck the notice of appeal.
3 As a sampling of the ceaseless litigation between the parties, from April 12, 2024, when the first notice of appeal was filed, and July 13, 2025, when the notice of appeal in the instant appeal was filed, the parties, in proper person, filed no less than six petitions for contempt, twelve motions, “requests,” and “notices of objection and clarification,” a petition and an amended petition to modify custody, a notice of appeal that was struck, and a “renewed” motion to recuse or disqualify the presiding judge.
4 On October 9, 2024, Mother filed her initial motion for recusal. The court denied that motion verbally at a hearing on October 18, 2024, but our review of the docket entries does not reveal a written order denying the motion.
5 At a hearing on October 18, 2024, after the judge spoke with the parties off the record, “both parties voluntarily withdrew all previously filed contempt motions and agreed to attend mediation prior to filing any further contempt motions.” See discussion of circuit court’s July 1 Order infra.
6 It is unclear which party’s petition for contempt is being addressed here. Only Mother’s petition raised an issue of unpaid child support, and only Mother filed an amended petition to modify custody.
7 The transcript indicates that Father is speaking, but from the content, we ascertain that Mother is the speaker.
8 Records related to the hearing later held on January 9, 2026 show that A.B. had health insurance by then. We cannot determine from the record whether the cost of health insurance was factored into child support.
In our prior opinion, we also suggested that the court consider the cost of transportation between the parties’ homes as provided for in section 12-204(i)(2) of the Family Law Article of the Maryland Code. Apparently, the court chose not to do so. That may be because, at some point, Mother, who had been residing in Prince George’s County, moved to Virginia. We cannot tell from this record when that happened or how far the parties’ homes in Virginia are from each other.
9 The court’s order dated October 18, 2024, and entered on the docket on June 30, 2025, addressed numerous other issues, but not the denial of the motion to recuse.
10 Although Mother attached a transcript of the June 7, 2024 hearing to her first motion to recuse, no transcript of that hearing appears in the electronic record of the case. An appellant is responsible for ensuring that the original transcript is filed promptly by the court reporter with the clerk of the circuit court for inclusion in the record and for promptly serving a copy on the appellee. Md. Rule 8-411(c).
11 The full video is found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8eMecRcAU.
