Minnesota Association for Justice Divorce and Family Law Columns

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Fall 2007

Supreme Court

Discovery

In re the State of Minnesota and the Marriage of Deal and Deal

(Filed November 1, 2007)

The State of Minnesota (Appellant) sought to prevent Husband from conducting depositions in Husband’s and Wife’s marriage dissolution proceeding because there was a pending criminal case against Husband. Husband was charged with sexual misconduct with one of Wife’s children. Husband and Wife have one child over whom the parties were disputing custody. Husband’s depositions in the marriage dissolution proceeding would have provided Husband with access to information that Husband would not otherwise have, pursuant to criminal discovery rules. The district court had denied the State’s request to intervene and to stay the depositions. When the State requested a writ from the Court of Appeals, the request was denied.

The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, ruling that there is strong public policy against allowing a criminal defendant to circumvent the limited scope of discovery in criminal cases. Staying discovery in a civil proceeding may be a necessary result, if warranted in light of balancing the interests of the parties, the public, the court and other individuals. The Court also noted that in civil proceedings there often is no party to assert such public interest issues.

As a side issue, the State argued that a child whose custody is at issue should never be subjected to a deposition in the case. However, Husband was seeking to depose two of Wife’s children, but not his and Wife’s son. Consequently, the Supreme Court did not rule on the issue of subjecting a child whose custody is at issue to a deposition since it was inapplicable to the facts of this case.

Court of Appeals

Reopening Judgment

In re the Marriage of Thompson v. Thompson

(Filed October 2, 2007)

Respondent Wife sought and obtained dissolution of her marriage to Appellant Husband by default. Respondent also obtained an amended decree by default. Appellant later moved to reopen the property division and spousal maintenance provisions based on grounds of fraud and on grounds of the inequity of prospective application. The district court set the fraud issue on for evidentiary hearing, but denied the inequity issue without an evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the district court denied Appellant’s request.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding the absence of fraud. Regarding the refusal to hold and evidentiary hearing, the Court of Appeals ruled that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Appellant had not established good cause for an evidentiary hearing on that issue.

Domestic Abuse

In re the Marriage of McIntosh v. McIntosh

(Filed October 16, 2007)

Respondent Wife obtained from the district court an extension of an Order for Protection that was entered one year earlier upon Appellant Husband’s stipulation to the same without the court’s finding of domestic abuse. On appeal, Appellant argued that Respondent had not established domestic abuse on the record to support the extension of the order. The Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that the fact that the original Order for Protection was based upon stipulation, and not a finding of domestic abuse, does not render it necessary for domestic abuse to be proven in order to extend the order. The Court of Appeals was satisfied that the district court had properly found that Respondent was reasonably in fear of physical harm from Appellant.