Georgia: Supreme Court Held that the Trial Court didn’t error in the Decision to Deny Father’s Motion to Modify Visitation Rights. BY: CYNDEE J.

Link for opinion: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-supreme-court/1624792.html The Georgia Supreme Court held in Vines v. Vines, 292 Ga. 550 (2013) that the Trial Court did not abuse its discretion when denying the father’s motion to modify visitation rights. Thomas and Anita Vines were divorced in 2005 and Anita was awarded the primary physical custody of the children and Thomas was granted secondary physical custody. Thomas had visitation with the children every other week from Thursday afternoon through Monday morning. In 2007 Anita presented the court with evidence that Thomas was using pornography in his home when his children were under his supervision. Thomas and his wife were also using inappropriate language about Anita in front of the children trying to alienate the children from their mother. The court found that Thomas was suffering from a histrionic personality disorder and was not receiving proper treatment for his disorder. The Trial Court decided to modify the final divorce decree based off of the evidence provided. Thomas’s visitation with the children was reduced to 1.5 hour visits supervised by Compassion House and only occurred every other week. Thomas’s wife was not allowed to participate in the visitations with the children. In the 2007 order Thomas was no longer allowed to have visitation with his children until he underwent professional treatment from a qualified therapist and the therapist confirmed that Thomas had improved recognizing his condition, its causes and symptoms, the results from his conditions, and the effect that it has on his children. In November of 2011 Anita filed a petition to suspend Thomas’s visitation and to modify child support. Thomas then filed a counterclaim wanting to modify the visitation stating that he wanted more unsupervised visitation with the children. Thomas had failed to abide by the court orders from 2007; he did not seek out professional help with his personality disorder, and he failed clean up his inappropriate language used against Anita. The Georgia Supreme Court agreed with the Trial Court in regard to denying the father’s motion to modify visitation rights based off of the actions of the father. The Trial Court also did not abuse its discretion because the judge based his decision on the information presented to him along with the actions and comments that the father had made in front of the children with his wife.