A Texas Supreme Court ruling issued Friday constitutes a victory for parents everywhere, and especially for this father in Texas.

“We are beyond excited!” the father told us in a Facebook message on Monday. “It’s our 2020 bright spot.”

The case is In re C.J.C., Relator, and it’s one in which the Parental Rights Foundation submitted an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief last December. The legal question was whether a judge could substitute his/her own version of what’s in “the best interest of the child” for the parent’s decision if the parent has not first been found unfit.

That sounds like a no-brainer, and to us it was. But the details of the case are the sort that many could find confusing.
The Back Story

Abigail’s mother and father had split up, and had a custom mediated parenting agreement. The result was an agreement where each had custody for about 50 percent of the time. Dad had 1st, 3rd, 5th weekends with a few days during the week and mom had 2nd and 4th weekends with a few days during the week. It was a pretty standard arrangement.

In 2017, mom and daughter moved in with Jason. In the spring of 2018 mom and Jason got engaged. Over the course of roughly 10 or so months, Abigail lived with her mother and Jason approximately half the time. Then, tragically, her mother was killed in a car accident in July of 2018.

So here’s where it got complicated.