UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, A LINCOLN HEARING WILL PROVIDE INFORMATION PERTINENT TO FATHER’S PETITION FOR A MODIFICATION OF THE CUSTODY ORDER, MATTER REMITTED (THIRD DEPT).
The Third Department, reversing Family Court, remitted the matter to determine whether a change in circumstance warranted a modification of the child custody order. The order did not address where the child should attend school after eighth grade and father sought an modified order allowing the child to attend a public high school and expanding his parenting time. Family Court refused to use information learned in a Lincoln hearing in connection with the father’s burden to show a change in circumstances. The Third Department remitted the matter noting that a Lincoln hearing, under the circumstances, would provide the court with pertinent information:
… [T]he father established a change in circumstances requiring a thorough best interests analysis. To that end, it is undisputed that there is no current order governing where the child is to attend school. Also, the father’s uncontested testimony established that the father and the mother cannot reach an agreement as to where the child should attend school, thus requiring judicial intervention … . …
Family Court erred in denying the father’s motion requesting a Lincoln hearing to aid in the court’s determination of whether a change in circumstances had occurred. “Although a child’s wishes can support the finding of a change in circumstances, they are but one factor and are not determinative” … . Although “[t]he decision whether to conduct such a hearing is discretionary, . . . it is ‘often the preferable course’ to conduct one” … . Here, given that the child was 14 years old at the time of the fact-finding hearing and had expressed a preference to attend public school, that this preference was one of the changed circumstances alleged by the father and that the attorney for the child joined in the father’s request for the Lincoln hearing, a Lincoln hearing “would have provided the court with significant pieces of information it needed to make the soundest possible decision” … . Matter of Edwin Z. v Courtney AA., 2020 NY Slip Op 05987, Third Dept 10-22-20