In re Marriage of Tiballi

The circuit court dissolved the Tiballi marriage in 2005, awarding joint legal custody of daughter Francesca, but placing residential custody with Sheila. In 2010, Robert sought to modify custody. The court appointed a psychologist to advise it pursuant to the Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, 750 ILCS 5/604(b), dismissed the petition, and ordered Robert to pay the fees of that psychologist. The appellate court affirmed, rejecting Robert’s argument that the psychologist’s fees were not “costs” under the Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1009(a). The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed. Requiring a party who has his custody petition dismissed without prejudice, for non-abusive reasons, to automatically bear the full cost of a section 604(b) evaluator is beyond the scope of the Code and the Marriage Act. The Marriage Act is the specific statute that controls the matter and evaluator fees are not “court costs” within the meaning of the Code or Civil Procedure. When the circuit court appointed the section 604(b) evaluator, it ordered the parties to share equally in his fees without prejudice to ultimate allocation. The court never made that ultimate allocation because of its mistaken belief that section 2-1009 mandated the fees be taxed entirely to Robert as costs.View "In re Marriage of Tiballi" on Justia Law