This was an action for dissolution of marriage in which a default was taken against the Father. He sought to have the judgment set aside, but the trial court denied his request. The Parenting Plan entered gave the parties joint legal and physical custody with the cornerstone physical custody of the Father being every other weekend. However, he had to work on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in alternating months. During the pendency of the case, his work schedule had been accommodated. He was led to believe a Parenting Plan would be set in similar fashion. The Parenting Plan of the default judgment effectively eliminated his weekend time for six months of the year unless the Mother acceded a variance therefrom.
Soon after the entry of the default the Mother refused to work around the Father’s work schedule. The trail court noted that the Father could always seek a modification of the judgment if this persisted. The Father’s request for the judgment to be set aside was denied. Father’s appeal followed.
Held: Reversed. “A work schedule that does not allow for meaningful parental contact six months of the year constitutes a meritorious defense.”
Moreover, the parties had a previous agreement under which they were working, thereby causing the Father to assume the judgment would be consistent with it. “If the (trial) court’s assessment of the situation indicated that, as a matter of law, agreements between the parties was not a valid reason to default in dissolution, then we disagree. In this case, where the parties had voluntarily maintained a custody schedule and a child support schedule, where Father was not served with a different Parenting Plan that would have put him on notice that the parties did not have an agreement, where Mother knew that Father received his mail at a post office box and not the address where he was physically served, where the motion to set aside the default judgment was entered, and where the entered judgment differed significantly from the status quo, Father’s behavior in failing to file an answer was not intentionally or recklessly designed to impede the judicial process.
Courtesy of The Missouri Bar.