Saved From Contempt by Pandemic

The difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic led to reversal of a contempt finding in a family-law dispute about how to pass a child from one divorced parent to another:

“Here, the requirement that Hilburn surrender the child ‘at the school in which the child is enrolled’ became reasonably susceptible to more than one meaning when the child’s physical school closed, and the child moved to a virtual learning environment at his grandfather’s house. Although the child was enrolled at a public elementary school, he did not attend the physical school building nor was he enrolled in classes held at the school itself. Hilburn’s view that the physical location where the child is engaging in school constitutes the place of enrollment is, thus, one reasonable interpretation of the terms of the 2012 Order as applied to a virtual learning environment.”

In re Hilburn, No. 05-20-01068-CV (March 21, 2022) (mem. op.) (emphasis added).