Brad Pitt challenges ruling in custody battle with Angelina Jolie
By ANI
WASHINGTON: As the back-and-forth continues in Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s heated custody case, legal professionals of the ‘Fury’ actor have requested a evaluation, after an appeals court docket successfully revoked his joint custody in July.
According to E! News, Pitt scored a win in May when he was tentatively granted joint custody of their 5 minor youngsters. The order, nonetheless, got here from Judge John Ouderkirk, who officiated the couple’s marriage ceremony seven years in the past.
This led Jolie to attempt to low cost the choose’s ruling; her workforce mentioned the choose “exhibited bias.” A California appeals court docket in July authorized her request to disqualify the choose.
Ouderkirk didn’t “disclose multiple professional, business and financial relationships, ongoing during the course of the matter, with Pitt’s counsel and their law firms,” in response to Jolie’s authorized workforce.
As a end result, Jolie retained full-time custody of their children, whereas Pitt maintained solely visitation rights.
So, the ‘Moneyball’ actor has now responded in court docket, submitting a petition with the California Supreme Court to evaluation the case, which E! News obtained on September 1.
The petition learn, “The Court of Appeal effectively upended the constitutionally authorized temporary judging system in California and generated widespread confusion, uncertainty, and instability for judges, litigants, and the California judicial system as a whole.”
Regarding the Oscar winners’ custody case, the petition said, “After more than four years of contentious litigation, every day of which has harmed the children and their father, an important and considered custody decision will be entirely undone as a result of an administrative error that is wholly unrelated to the merits of the custody dispute itself.”
Pitt’s camp has accused Jolie of ready three and a half years to hunt disqualification of Judge Ouderkirk, despite the fact that she was allegedly “made aware of Judge Ouderkirk’s significant professional history with Pitt’s counsel from the very start.”
Pitt’s workforce has put forth the argument that the choose was “improperly disqualified after providing a detailed, fact-based custodial decision,” mentioned his lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., in a press release to E! News.
The legal professional mentioned this kind of “strategic” disqualification can “cause irreparable harm” to the kids and households concerned “by unnecessarily prolonging” the authorized battle. Boutrous said, “Allowing this kind of crafty litigation strategy will deprive parents of irreplaceable time with their children.”
However, Jolie’s lawyer praised the appeals court docket for disqualifying the choose and giving the Maleficent actress full custody. In a press release to E! News, her lawyer Robert A. Olson mentioned, “The Court of Appeal unanimously refused to tolerate the ethical violations of the private judge.”
