COA still finds supervised visitation argument moot

After acknowledging that a father did file a reply brief arguing the issue of supervised parenting time was not moot, the Indiana Court of Appeals on rehearing still found his argument to be moot.

In the original decision, the COA found Kevin Stone’s argument that the trial court erred in ordering his visitation with his daughter supervised to be moot based on the mother’s submission of a recent court-approved agreement by the parties granting unsupervised visitation to Stone.  The judges said that Stone did not file a reply brief that the issue was not moot.

In the 3-page rehearing issued Thursday in Kevin C. Stone v. Jennifer M. Stone, 49A02-1210-DR-820, after noting Stone did in fact file that reply brief, the judges remained “convinced that Father’s supervised visitation argument is moot.”

“We cannot grant Father effective relief regarding visitation because he already has obtained the relief originally sought on appeal with respect to restriction of his visitation rights,” Judge Michael Barnes wrote.

“We have remanded for the trial court to conduct a new custody hearing because of its abuse of discretion in denying Father’s continuance request. If the trial court were to reimpose supervised visitation upon Father based on evidence presented at that hearing, or any other hearing, it would present entirely new grounds for appeal based on a different evidentiary record than we are presented with at this time.”