law-family-law-international | family law cases |
PETITIONS DENIED BY THE TEXAS SUPREME COURT
07-0303 ELIZABETH GOODSON v. ADELINA CASTELLANOS; from Williamson County; 3rd
district
(03-04-00335-CV, 214 SW3d 741, 01-19-07, pet. denied Feb 2008)(family law, international
adoption)
Elizabeth Goodson traveled to Kazakstan to adopt K.G. After returning from Kazakstan,
Goodson and her girlfriend, Adelina Castellanos, filed a joint petition to adopt K.G. in Bexar
County, and a district court granted the adoption. Subsequent to the adoption, the
relationship between Goodson and Castellanos ended, and Castellanos filed a suit affecting
the parent-child relationship. After a trial, the district court entered an order appointing
Castellanos as the sole managing conservator of K.G. and ordered Goodson to pay attorney’s
fees and child support. Goodson appeals the judgment of the district court. We will affirm the
judgment of the district court in part and reverse and remand in part.
Because we have concluded that (1) the adoption decree is not void, (2) the time to attack the
decree has passed, (3) Goodson was not entitled to a parental presumption over Castellanos,
(4) the district court did not improperly violate Goodson’s right to the care of her child by
appointing a nonparent as the sole managing conservator of K.G., (5) the district court did not
abuse its discretion by excluding evidence concerning Castellanos’s brother or by ordering
Goodson to pay child support, (6) the district court did not err in the amount of child support
ordered, and (7) Goodson failed to preserve her complaint concerning the manner in which
the attorney’s fees were ordered or the amount of postjudgment interest ordered, we affirm the
portion of the district court’s judgment appointing Castellanos as sole managing conservator
and Goodson as possessory conservator and requiring Goodson to pay child support and
attorney’s fees to Castellanos. However, because we concluded that the amount of attorney’s
fees ordered to be paid to the amicus attorney was not supported by sufficient evidence, we
reverse and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion