A California trial court denied a woman’s motion for access in their divorce case to her police officer-husband’s non-financial personnel records.
The woman had alleged that she was a victim of domestic violence and needed the records at least in part for their bearing on custody and visitation determinations in their case.
The family trial court, in effect, held that the husband’s privacy rights outweighed the mother’s and children’s rights to be protected.
The California Court of Appeal reversed, however, finding that the mother demonstrated good cause for her records request, in that the personnel records could provide additional evidence of the husband’s history of domestic and other violence and that that was relevant to custody and visitation determinations in the case.
