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Sydney Bowlin
v.
William Cody Swim
Appellee
Sydney Bowlin
Appellant
William Cody Swim
Attorney for the Appellee
Eric Borseth
Attorney for the Appellant
Benjamin Folladori
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Warren County, Randy V. Hefner, Judge. AFFIRMED. Considered by Bower, C.J., and Doyle and Schumacher, JJ. Opinion by Doyle, J. (20 pages)
William Cody Swim (Cody) appeals the district court’s custody ruling placing his and Sydney Bowlin’s child in Bowlin’s sole legal custody, among other things. OPINION HOLDS: Upon our de novo review of the entire record and considering the relevant law, we conclude the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in admitting the custody evaluator’s report into evidence. In any event, because our review is de novo and consideration of the report is unnecessary to reach the issues present here, we do not consider the report in our decision. On the issues over sole legal custody, we reject Cody’s challenge to the sole custody award for lack of adequate notice, and we agree with the court that Cody’s actions show joint legal custody was not a viable option here. Additionally, upon our review, we cannot say the district court abused its discretion in finding Cody willfully and wantonly disregarded its prior ruling that ordered Cody to pay an amount of Sydney’s attorney fees by a certain date. Finally, we cannot find the district court abused its discretion in awarding Sydney trial attorney fees. For all of these reasons, we affirm the district court’s custody ruling in all respects. We decline to award appeallate attorney fees. Any costs on appeal are assessed equally to the parties.
