Dr. Rachel Birnbaum

This is an appeal of an arbitration award that changed the children's school from a private institution to a public one due to financial considerations.

The appellant mother alleged errors of law, fact, mixed fact and law, and procedural unfairness by the arbitrator, including failure to give due weight to the children's views, prioritizing finances over best interests, insufficient reasons, judicial notice errors, misapprehension of evidence, and procedural unfairness regarding financial disclosure.

The court dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding errors or errors of law, and upheld the arbitrator's decision, emphasizing deference to arbitral awards in family matters and the holistic consideration of the children's best interests within practical and financial constraints.

The Office of the Children's Lawyer brought a motion to quash a summons served by the respondent mother on a former OCL investigator.

The investigator had prepared a custody and access report over ten years ago regarding the applicant father and his children from a previous relationship.

The OCL argued the evidence was irrelevant and raised confidentiality concerns.

The court declined to quash the summons entirely because the applicant father refused to admit the authenticity of the prior reports.

However, the court significantly limited the scope of the summons, requiring the investigator to testify only regarding the authenticity of the reports and any independent recollection of the father's parenting abilities at that time, without breaching the confidentiality of the other parties involved.