M. B. v. S. A.

Citations

• 194 Conn. App. 727

Syllabus

The plaintiff, who previously had filed an application for joint custody of his minor child with the defendant, to whom he was never married, appealed to this court from orders of the trial court granting certain postjudgment motions for contempt filed by the defendant and awarding her attorney's fees. After the trial court awarded sole legal and primary physical custody of the parties' minor child to the defendant and ordered the plaintiff to pay child support to the defendant, the plaintiff filed a separate appeal from that judgment. While that appeal was pending, the trial court granted multiple postjudgment motions for contempt filed by the defendant for the plaintiff's failure to make, inter alia, child support payments, and ordered the plaintiff to pay attorney's fees incurred by the defendant in litigating her motions for contempt. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court erred in finding him in contempt for nonpayment of support orders while those orders were on appeal, prioritizing the resolution of motions for contempt over a pending motion pertaining to visitation, failing to consider his financial affidavits, awarding attorney's fees to the defendant and accepting the defendant's affidavits of fees with incorrect docket numbers. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the defendant's postjudgment motions for contempt against the plaintiff for his failure to make timely support payments; the plaintiff having failed to file a motion for a stay of the support orders during the pendency of the appeal, his weekly support payments were still due as scheduled. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in scheduling and adjudicating the defendant's postjudgment motions for contempt before resolving the defendant's motion for modification of visitation; that court had broad discretion to manage its docket and resolve cases as it saw fit, and the record did not reveal, nor did the plaintiff point to, any evidence establ