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Date: 09-19-2024
Case Style:
In re the Marriage of: Teahanna Estelle Olsonv. Charles Curtis Olson
Case Number: 2021-FA-272
Judge: Patricia A. Barrett
Court: Circuit Court, Sauk County, Wisconsin
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney:
Description:
Baraboo, Wisconsin divorce lawyers represented the Petitioner and Respondent in a marriage dissolution case.
¶4 Teahanna and Charles were married in October 2014. They have one minor child ("the child"), who was born in October 2015.
¶5 In 2013, prior to their marriage, Charles purchased a house. Teahanna and her two children from a prior marriage moved into this house with Charles. The family, with the addition of the marital child after his birth in 2015, resided in this house until Teahanna moved out with the three children in July 2021 prior to the commencement of this action. Charles's grandmother gifted him $2,600 for the purchase of the house. As to payment of the monthly mortgage on the house, Teahanna testified at the divorce trial that she regularly gave money to Charles to help pay for the monthly mortgage, and Charles testified that he made the monthly mortgage payments exclusively using money gifted from his grandmother.
¶6 Teahanna filed this divorce action in September 2021. After fourteen unsuccessful attempts by several different process servers to personally serve Charles with the divorce action, Teahanna eventually served Charles by publication. Charles later admitted that he learned about the filing of the divorce action when he looked it up on the circuit court's website "a few days after" it was filed.
¶7 In November 2021, Teahanna filed a petition for a domestic abuse injunction against Charles. Teahanna's petition alleged that, around the time that she filed the divorce action in September 2021, a police officer accompanied her to pick up some property at the house she had shared with Charles. Teahanna alleged that Charles expressed anger during this visit and put one hand around her throat in an attempt to "choke" her. According to the injunction petition, the officer told Charles to stop, but Charles refused and said that Teahanna "likes being choked." The officer again commanded that Charles stop, and Charles complied. Teahanna's petition also alleged that, on multiple occasions in September and October 2021, Charles "engaged in a serious and threatening pattern of stalking," which included showing up uninvited at her residence and workplace and leaving in her vehicle handwritten notes that included threats to commit suicide.
¶8 Charles was served with the injunction petition by publication after multiple unsuccessful attempts at personal service. Charles did not appear at the hearing on the petition or otherwise respond to the petition. The court commissioner granted the petition and prohibited Charles from contacting Teahanna, appearing at Teahanna's residence or workplace, or committing acts of domestic abuse against Teahanna. The injunction remains in effect until December 2025.
¶9 In April 2022, Teahanna moved for default judgment against Charles in the divorce action, alleging that Charles had not responded or otherwise participated. In May 2022, Charles retained counsel and began participating in the divorce action. A guardian ad litem was appointed for the child, and the circuit court scheduled a trial for May 2023.
¶10 At no point during the pendency of the divorce action did the circuit court enter any temporary orders pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 767.225(1) (2021-22) regarding legal custody, physical placement, or child support.[2] Teahanna moved for a temporary order to address legal custody, physical placement, child support and other temporary issues when she filed the divorce action in September 2021, and again in October, November, and December, 2021. Each hearing on her
motions was adjourned because of lack of service of the divorce action on Charles. For his part, Charles never requested a temporary order.
¶11 At trial, Teahanna requested sole legal custody and primary physical placement of the child with periods of supervised placement for Charles, while Charles requested joint legal custody and shared physical placement. Teahanna also requested that Charles be ordered to pay future and past child support, retroactive to the date on which Teahanna filed the petition for divorce. Teahanna also requested that the equity in the house be divided between the parties, with Teahanna receiving 52% of the equity and Charles receiving 48% of the equity, because of Charles's admitted destruction of Teahanna's personal property that remained at the house. Charles opposed both requests, asserting that no past child support was warranted because Teahanna allegedly withheld the child from him and that the house was his individual property. The guardian ad litem recommended that the court award joint legal custody to the parties, with primary physical placement to Teahanna and periods of physical placement with Charles on an every-other-week basis.
¶12 In the circuit court's oral decision a few weeks later, the court ordered joint legal custody of the child, with equal periods of physical placement to each parent. The court also determined that the house the parties shared during their marriage is not subject to division, concluding that the house was purchased as Charles's individual property and never became marital property. In a later order, after further briefing, the court denied Teahanna's request for child support for the period in which the divorce action was pending. The court took the position that the domestic abuse injunction that Teahanna obtained against Charles was designed to deprive Charles of legal custody and physical placement of the parties' child during the period that Teahanna attempted to collect child support from him. Teahanna appeals.
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In re Olson, 2023AP1565 (Wis. App. Sep 19, 2024)
Outcome: Reversed and remanded with instructions.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: