Wymer v. Hiott is an unpublished February 2023 opinion from the Court of Appeals. I represented a custodial mother who sought to change her son’s last name to a hyphenated name that would include her last name. The family court denied her request and ordered her to pay a portion of father’s attorney’s fees.
On appeal, we argued that the child sharing a last name with his custodial parent was in his best interests and that father did not articulate a good reason to oppose the name change. The Court of Appeals did not agree, holding “she failed to meet her burden of proving the name change was in Child’s best interest.”
Because the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the name change it affirmed the attorney fee award.
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