Davalos v. Davalos

FERGUSON, Judge.

A rather novel issue is presented: Whether a successor judge, hearing a motion for rehearing in a dissolution proceeding on the single issue of the wife’s right to relocate with the minor children, may conduct a de novo hearing and reverse on the relocation issue where the judge who entered the original judgment also granted the motion for rehearing and, because he would be unavailable to rehear the case, assigned it to the successor judge.

In December 1989, the appellee wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage; the case was assigned to Judge Wetherington. During the…