A Reminder of How the Albright Factors Count
April 16, 2018 § Leave a comment
In too many appeals, I read that the appellant challenges how the chancellor analyzed and applied some or all of the Albright factors.
The case of In re N.B., 135 So.3d 220, 227 (Miss. App. 2014), the court stated the rule:
An Albright analysis is not premised solely on a scoring system to determine which parent “wins[,]” … [a]nd our review for manifest error is not a mechanical check on the chancellor’s score card to see if she “tallied” each parent’s score correctly. Instead, we ask whether the chancellor considered all relevant facts, giving deference to the weight she assigns each factor. [quoting May v. May, 107 So.3d 1052, 1054 (¶ 8) (Miss. App. 2013)].
To put it another way, the appellate courts are not going to check the final scorecard for errors of judgment as to runs, hits, and errors; rather, the court looks at whether the chancellor considered all of the relevant facts and analyzed them in light of the factors, and the court will give deference to he judge’s decision on the weight to be assigned to each factor.
If the judge did consider all of the relevant facts and addressed the applicable Albright factors, the chancellor will be affirmed, and that includes the chancellor’s decision as to which factors to assign greater weight.
N.B. was quoted in the COA’s decision in In the Matter of Adoption of a minor Child: J.A.G. and S.G. v. C.T. and B.T., decided November 14, 2017.
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