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A mother whose request to relocate to California with her minor child was denied has failed in her bid for relief from the Court of Appeals of Indiana.
Nadia and Zachary Drake are the parents of L.D., born in August 2018.
In June 2021, Nadia filed for divorce. She also filed a notice of her intent to relocate to her hometown of San Diego, California.
Zachary objected because “the proposed relocation would likely result in significant damage to the relationship between Child and Husband, for the reason that Husband and [C]hild have a very close and bonded relationship, and Husband had always exercised regular care responsibilities.”
The divorce was finalized in November 2022, with the Marion Superior Court finding Nadia’s relocation was in good faith and for a legitimate reason. However, the trial court declined to allow her to take L.D. to San Diego, citing the distance between San Diego and Indianapolis and its impact on Zachary’s ability to exercise his parenting time schedule.
Nadia appealed, first raising the issue of whether the trial court’s provisional order and its order on a motion to continue filed by Zachary were void because the magistrate judge had a professional conflict with Zachary’s counsel.
Finding that argument waived, Judge Patricia Riley wrote that Nadia failed to articulate any argument or develop any analysis that would allow the appellate court to review the issue.
“Beyond this broad statement, Wife does not further elaborate on the perceived reason for the disqualification or the type of ‘professional conflict,’” Riley wrote.
Nadia also challenged the court’s ruling on the relocation issue, but the COA affirmed.
“Instead of analyzing the trial court’s findings and conclusions with respect to the relocation and focusing on the court’s perceived errors therein, Wife presents us with her own enumeration of the statutory factors of the relocation statute in light of the evidence most favorable to her,” Riley wrote. “For instance, despite extensive evidence to the contrary and the trial court’s conclusions, Wife continues to insist that Husband’s employment will pay for his travel expenses, and that Husband cannot exercise his parenting time due to his extensive employment-required travel schedule.
“To the contrary, Husband testified, and the trial court found credible, that Husband changed employment to a new position that no longer requires him to travel and that allows him to exercise his parenting time,” she continued. “In essence, Wife’s entire argument amounts to a request to reweigh the evidence and to revisit the credibility of the witnesses, which, in light of our deferential standard of review, we are not allowed to do.”
Judges Terry Crone and Paul Mathias concurred.
The case is Nadia Drake v. Zachary Drake, 22A-DC-3089.
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