Thomas Everly v. Ella Everly
CourtSupreme Court of Delaware
Date FiledJuly 30, 2026
Docket443, 2025
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
THOMAS EVERLY,1 §
§ No. 443, 2025
Petitioner Below, §
Appellant, § Court Below–Family Court
§ of the State of Delaware
v. §
§ File No. CN19-05309
ELLA EVERLY, § Petition No. 23-15661
§
Respondent Below, §
Appellee. §
Submitted: June 5, 2026
Decided: July 30, 2026
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; LEGROW and GRIFFITHS, Justices.
ORDER
After consideration of the appellant’s opening brief and the Family Court
record—including the transcript of the two-day trial as well as the evidence admitted
at trial—we find it evident that the Family Court’s August 29, 2025 order resolving
the parties’ cross-petitions for custody modification and the Family Court’s October
10, 2025 order denying the appellant’s motion for reargument should be affirmed.
The Family Court’s factual findings are supported by the record, and we can discern
no error in the court’s application of the law to the facts.
1
The Court previously assigned pseudonyms to the parties under Supreme Court Rule 7(d).
To the extent that the appellant alleges on appeal that the appellee has not
complied with the Family Court’s orders, his recourse is to petition for a rule to show
cause in the Family Court. And we review the appellant’s argument that the Family
Court “improperly delegated [his] constitutional parental rights to a private
therapist”2 for plain error because the appellant did not raise it below.3 There is no
error, plain or otherwise, here. As the appellant expressly acknowledged at trial, his
reunification with his estranged daughter should not occur without “somebody that’s
going to be really overseeing it with a really extensive professional background in,
like, a high conflict type of scenario which [his daughter’s reunification therapist]
is,”4 and that he “would be absolutely willing to cooperate and work with [the
therapeutic recommendations made by his daughter’s personal therapist].”5
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Family
Court is affirmed.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ N. Christopher Griffiths
Justice
2
Opening Br. at 2.
3
Del. Supr. Ct. R. 8.
4
July 28, 2025 Hr’g Tr. 13:7–10.
5
Id. 88:16–17.
2