Supreme Court of Delaware, 2022

Hunt-Walker v. Murphy

Supreme Court of Delaware · Decided September 27, 2022 · Seitz C.J.

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE DAKOTA HUNT-WALKER,1 § § No. 88, 2022 Petitioner/Respondent Below, § Appellant, § Court Below—Family Court § of the State of Delaware v. § § File No. CK17-03959 SCOTT MURPHY, § Petition Nos. 21-19764 § 21-19772 Petitioner/Respondent Below, § Appellee. § Submitted: August 26, 2022 Decided: September 27, 2022 Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and TRAYNOR, Justices.

ORDER After careful consideration of the parties’ briefs and the record on appeal, we conclude that the judgment below should be affirmed on the basis of the Family Court’s order dated February 18, 2022, deciding the parties’ cross-petitions seeking to modify the residential arrangements for the parties’ child. To the extent that the appellant argues that the residential arrangements established in the February 18, 2022 order should be modified based on events that have occurred since the Family Court entered that order, that claim must be presented to the Family Court in the first instance.2 NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Family Court is AFFIRMED.

BY THE COURT: /s/ Collins J. Seitz, Jr. Chief Justice

1 The Court previously assigned pseudonyms to the parties pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 7(d). 2 See Price v. Boulden, 2014 WL 3566030, at *2 (Del. July 14, 2014) (“[T]his evidence was not available to the Family Court in the first instance, is outside of the record on appeal, and cannot properly be considered by this Court.”); Del. Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Duphily, 703 A.2d 1202, 1206 (Del. 1997) (“It is a basic tenet of appellate practice that an appellate court reviews only matters considered in the first instance by a trial court.”).

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