## Facts

- Adam L. Blevins (father) and Dawn Elizabeth Bardwell (mother) met while serving in the United States Air Force and had a daughter, Darby Colleen Blevins; the parents were never married.
- Bardwell left the Air Force while pregnant but reenlisted after Darby’s birth.
- Because the Air Force did not allow a single parent with custody to reenlist, the parties agreed to obtain a court order placing custody of Darby with Blevins so Bardwell could reenlist.
- The parties understood the “Order Approving Custody of Child” as a temporary arrangement tied to Bardwell’s reenlistment and training, not a permanent custody determination.
- After Bardwell left for training, Blevins served as Darby’s primary caregiver for several months.
- The parents’ relationship later ended, and Bardwell sought custody of Darby in the Chancery Court of the Second Judicial District of Harrison County, Mississippi.
- Before trial, Blevins moved with Darby to Kentucky to help care for his father, who was seriously ill with AIDS and cancer.
- At trial, Blevins introduced evidence of Bardwell’s mental-health history, including evaluations indicating an adjustment disorder with depressed mood and a provisional schizoid personality disorder.
- Bardwell introduced evidence about cigarette smoke in Blevins’s household, including testimony that Blevins smoked and that Blevins’s father smoked three or four packs of cigarettes per day.
- After a multi-day hearing, the chancellor awarded the parties joint legal custody, awarded Bardwell primary physical custody (described as “permanent paramount care, custody and control”), granted Blevins visitation, and ordered Blevins to pay child support.
- Blevins appealed, arguing that the earlier custody order was a final decree requiring a material-change showing and that the chancellor misapplied the best-interest analysis.

## Issues

1. Whether the “Order Approving Custody of Child” granting custody to Blevins was a temporary order (allowing an initial best-interests custody decision) or a final custody judgment requiring proof of a material change in circumstances adversely affecting the child.
2. Whether the chancellor’s award of primary physical custody to Bardwell was supported by substantial evidence under the *Albright* best-interests factors, including consideration of Bardwell’s mental health and the parties’ home environments.

## Decision

- Affirmed.
- The Supreme Court agreed that the “Order Approving Custody of Child” was intended as a temporary arrangement created to satisfy Air Force reenlistment requirements, not as a final custody adjudication.
- Because the earlier order was temporary, the chancellor properly treated the case as an initial custody determination and decided custody based on Darby’s best interests under *Albright* rather than applying the modification standard.
- The Court held that the chancellor considered the relevant *Albright* factors, addressed the evidence about Bardwell’s mental health and Blevins’s home environment, and did not commit manifest error or abuse discretion in awarding Bardwell primary physical custody.

## Legal Principles

- A custody order entered for a limited practical purpose may be treated as temporary when the record shows the parties intended a short-term arrangement rather than a final custody decision.
- When a prior custody order is temporary, a later custody award is decided as an initial custody determination under the child’s best interests; the moving party is not required to prove a material change in circumstances adversely affecting the child.
- In Mississippi, initial custody determinations are guided by the *Albright v. Albright* best-interests factors, including the child’s age and health, each parent’s physical and mental health, parenting skills, willingness and capacity to provide care, employment obligations, home environment, and stability.
- Evidence bearing on a parent’s mental health and the child’s physical environment (including exposure to heavy cigarette smoke) may be weighed under the best-interests analysis.
- On appeal, a chancellor’s custody findings receive substantial deference and will be reversed only if manifestly wrong, clearly erroneous, or based on an erroneous legal standard.

## Conclusion

The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the chancery court’s award of joint legal custody with primary physical custody to Bardwell, holding that the earlier custody order made to allow Bardwell’s Air Force reenlistment was temporary and that the chancellor’s *Albright* best-interests findings—addressing Bardwell’s mental-health evidence and conditions in Blevins’s household—were supported by substantial evidence and showed no abuse of discretion.


Blevins v. Bardwell, 784 So. 2d 166 (2001)