Jackson, Jr. v. Davis

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE. IN THE ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION ONE In re the Matter of: PAUL JACKSON, JR., Petitioner/Appellee, v. TIFFANY DAVIS, Respondent/Appellant. No. 1 CA-CV 26-0252 FC FILED 11-13-2026 Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County No. FC2024-070971 The Honorable J. Justin McGuire, Judge Pro Tempore AFFIRMED COUNSEL Paul Jackson, Jr., Buckeye Petitioner/Appellee Colburn Hintze Maletta, PLLC, Phoenix By Henry Alzate Counsel for Respondent/Appellant  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court MEMORANDUM DECISION Judge Angela K. Paton delivered the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge Cynthia J. Bailey and Judge Michael J. Brown joined. P A T O N, Judge: ¶1 Tiffany Davis (“Mother”) appeals the superior court’s summary dismissal of her post-decree petition to enforce the joint legal decision-making provisions of the decree dissolving her marriage to Paul Jackson, Jr. (“Father”). For the following reasons, we affirm. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ¶2 Mother and Father married and had a child (“Child”) in February 2023. Father petitioned for dissolution in July 2024. During the dissolution proceedings, Child attended Creo Montessori School (“Creo”) for childcare. ¶3 Before trial, the parties agreed to joint legal decision-making without either parent having final say, but disputed parenting time and childcare. Father sought equal parenting time and proposed that during his parenting time, he would either return Child to Mother to take to Creo or arrange childcare himself. He proposed this arrangement because Creo was located in Gilbert, and he lived in Buckeye and worked in Phoenix. Mother sought to maintain the existing arrangement and identified Creo and a private caregiver as Child’s existing childcare. The parties also disputed responsibility for childcare expenses. ¶4 After trial, the superior court entered a decree dissolving the marriage in December 2025. The court found Child was “extremely well- adjusted to both parents’ homes and daycare.” Based on the parties’ “agreements,” the decree awarded them joint legal decision-making authority with neither party having final say. For major decisions, the decree required each parent to give “good faith considerations” to the other parent’s views and use “best efforts to reach a consensus decision.” The decree awarded Mother and Father equal parenting time and did not require Child to attend Creo or otherwise specify a particular childcare/daycare arrangement. In addressing child support, however, the court considered Child’s “daycare” expenses. It ordered Father to 2  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court reimburse Mother for certain past expenses but did not include ongoing expenses in the child-support calculation because both parents would incur “similar childcare costs going forward.” ¶5 Shortly after entry of the decree, Father stopped taking Child to Creo during his parenting time and enrolled him in a different daycare. Mother then moved to clarify the decree’s joint legal decision-making provisions as they related to Child’s childcare. She acknowledged the decree did not specify whether the parties had to maintain Child’s existing childcare enrollment and asked the court to clarify the parties’ obligations. The court denied the motion. And Mother did not appeal the decree. ¶6 Mother then petitioned to enforce the decree, alleging Father violated its joint legal decision-making provisions by no longer taking Child to Creo. The superior court dismissed the petition without prejudice, noting Mother had not alleged “a violation of a Court order as required by Rule 91.” It explained that disagreement between the parties or one party’s refusal to agree to the other’s preferred course of action did not by itself violate a court order. ¶7 A few weeks later, Mother filed a second petition to enforce legal decision-making—the one at issue here—under Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure (“Rule”) 91, 91.5, and 92. She alleged Father stopped taking Child to Creo during his parenting time and enrolled him in a different preschool near his home. She asserted Father acted “without conferring with Mother, without attempting to reach a consensus, and without giving a good faith consideration to Mother’s views as required by the [d]ecree.” She also alleged Father’s actions jeopardized Child’s continued enrollment at Creo, and filed a letter from Creo indicating that it was a “school.” ¶8 Mother asked the court to find Father violated the decree, return Child to Creo, and require Father to comply with the decree’s good- faith and consensus provisions. She also requested an evidentiary hearing, contempt sanctions, and attorneys’ fees and costs. ¶9 The superior court dismissed the second petition with prejudice, again concluding Mother had not alleged a violation of a court order. The court also rejected Mother’s characterization of the issue as a schooling dispute because Child was two years old and not yet of school age. ¶10 Mother timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) Section 12-2101(A)(2). 3  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court DISCUSSION ¶11 Mother argues the superior court erred by summarily dismissing her second petition to enforce. She contends Father’s decision concerning Child’s attendance at Creo violated the decree’s legal decision- making provisions governing “schooling decisions” because Father did not consider her views or attempt to reach consensus prior to not taking Child to Creo during his parenting time. ¶12 Father did not file an answering brief. In the exercise of our discretion, we decline to treat that failure to file as a confession of error because Child’s best interests are implicated. See Savord v. Morton, 235 Ariz. 256, 259, ¶ 9 (App. 2014). ¶13 We review the superior court’s ruling on a post-decree petition to enforce for an abuse of discretion, but we review the court’s interpretation of an existing decree de novo. In re Marriage of Rojas, 255 Ariz. 277, 282, ¶ 10 (App. 2023); Cohen v. Frey, 215 Ariz. 62, 66, ¶ 10 (App. 2007). We determine a decree’s meaning from its language, construing that language according to its “natural and legal import” and in relation to the decree as a whole. Cohen, 215 Ariz. at 66, ¶¶ 10-12. ¶14 An alleged error in a final decree that could have been corrected on direct appeal generally cannot later provide a basis to attack the decree. Porter v. Est. of Pigg, 175 Ariz. 194, 196-97 (App. 1993), opinion approved by 175 Ariz. 303 (1993). We therefore interpret and apply the decree as entered. ¶15 The decree awarded Mother and Father joint legal decision- making authority, with no party having final say. “Legal decision-making” means “the legal right and responsibility to make all nonemergency legal decisions for a child,” including those concerning “education” and “personal care.” A.R.S. § 25-401(3). With joint legal decision-making, both parents share that authority, and “neither parent’s rights nor responsibilities are superior,” except as otherwise specified in the final judgment or order. See A.R.S. § 25-401(2). Consistent with that arrangement, the decree provides: Parental decisions shall be required for major issues in raising the children and in meeting on-going needs. When they arise, each parent shall give good faith considerations to the views of the other and put forth best efforts to reach a consensus decision. If the decision involves medical or schooling issues, the parties may further elect to seek input from treating 4  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court physicians or educators. Both parents shall be provided with such input. The decree does not require Child to attend Creo. Instead, it merely identifies Creo as Child’s daycare at the time the decree was entered. ¶16 That distinction matters to Mother’s enforcement theory. Shortly after entry of the decree, Mother moved to clarify the parties’ obligations concerning Child’s continued enrollment at Creo. She asserted the decree “does not specify the parties’ obligation to maintain the Child’s enrollment in childcare beyond the terms of joint legal decision-making authority” and “lacks guidance as to maintaining enrollment of the child in his current daycare or childcare.” Mother sought clarification that would “ensure a clear basis for enforcement in the event of noncompliance.” The superior court denied her motion and Mother did not appeal the decree. ¶17 In her petition to enforce, Mother characterized Creo as Child’s “preschool,” characterized the dispute as one involving “schooling,” and alleged Father violated the decree’s joint legal decision- making requirements for “schooling decisions.” Among other relief, Mother asked the court to order Father to return Child to the “established school placement at Creo.” ¶18 The superior court rejected Mother’s characterization of the dispute as one involving schooling. The decree supports that conclusion for purposes of the enforcement theory Mother pled. The decree identifies Creo as Child’s daycare, not as Child’s school. It also separately provides, in addressing parenting-time exchanges, that the “parent whose parenting time is beginning will be responsible for picking up the child at the other parent’s residence or the child’s school when the children are attending school.” (Emphasis added.) Read together, those provisions distinguish Child’s then-existing daycare arrangement at Creo from the school attendance the decree contemplated. See Cohen, 215 Ariz. at 66, ¶ 11 (decree language should be construed “with reference to related provisions in the decree”) (citation omitted). ¶19 Further, the parties disputed Child’s continued attendance at Creo before entry of the decree and presented that dispute to the superior court in their joint pretrial statement for resolution at trial. See A.R.S. § 25- 403.02(D) (“If the parents are unable to agree on any element to be included in a parenting plan, the court shall determine that element.”). Yet the resulting decree imposed no Creo-specific requirement. See Kubaska v. Kubaska, 1 CA-CV 19-0569, 2020 WL 2731076, at *2, ¶ 8 (Ariz. App. May 26, 5  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court 2020) (mem. decision) (a petition seeking relief not encompassed by a decree’s language is one to “modify, not enforce”). If Mother believed the decree should have expressly required Child’s continued attendance at Creo or otherwise resolved the dispute differently, she could have appealed the decree, which she did not do. See Porter, 175 Ariz. at 196-97; see generally United Farm Workers Nat’l Union v. Heggblade-Marguleas-Tenneco, Inc., 21 Ariz. App. 514, 516 (1974) (“The time to appeal from an order or judgment is when it is made, not when its enforcement is sought.”). And because Mother did not include the dissolution hearing transcript on appeal, we cannot determine whether or how the court addressed the dispute at trial. Mother’s post-decree enforcement actions appear to be a moving target that ultimately turns on her wanting the court to require Father to continue to take Child to Creo during his parenting time. But she cannot use a later enforcement proceeding to obtain a Creo-specific requirement the decree did not impose. ¶20 And Mother’s alternative argument on appeal does not require a different result. She contends that even if Creo is daycare or childcare rather than preschool, Father’s decision still implicated the decree’s joint legal decision-making provisions because childcare concerns Child’s “personal care and ongoing needs.” See A.R.S. § 25-403.02(C)(2) (distinguishing a parent’s responsibilities for a child’s “personal care” from “decisions in areas such as education”). ¶21 But Mother did not present that alternative rationale to the superior court. Her petition to enforce characterized Creo as preschool, characterized the dispute as one involving schooling, and sought enforcement on that basis. Although Rule 24 permits alternative pleading, Mother did not allege Father’s decision concerning Creo also implicated the decree’s “personal care and ongoing needs” language. See Ariz. R. Fam. Law P. 24(a)(3), (c). We therefore do not consider that rationale for the first time on appeal. See Henderson v. Henderson, 241 Ariz. 580, 586, ¶ 13 (App. 2017) (arguments made for the first time on appeal are ordinarily waived). ¶22 Accordingly, the superior court did not abuse its discretion by denying enforcement on the theory Mother presented. Because we can affirm the court’s ruling for any reason supported by the record, we need not address Mother’s remaining challenges to the superior court’s dismissal of her petition. See Pettit v. Pettit, 218 Ariz. 529, 531, ¶ 4 (App. 2008). ¶23 Mother requests her attorneys’ fees and costs under Section 25-324 and Arizona Rule of Civil Appellate Procedure 21, which we decline to award. 6  JACKSON, JR. v. DAVIS Decision of the Court CONCLUSION ¶24 We affirm. MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court FILED: JR 7