## Facts

- Jeffery A. Fulk (father) and Rhonda Fulk (mother) married in 1999, separated around September 2000, and had one child born in January 2001.
- In February 2001, the father filed for divorce and sought custody; the parties later proceeded on irreconcilable differences.
- Evidence included the father’s prior domestic-violence guilty plea against the mother and a history of alcohol and drug abuse.
- The mother was unemployed and living with her parents; the chancery court focused heavily on her past same-sex relationship as bearing on “moral fitness.”
- The chancellor granted the father sole legal and physical custody and limited the mother to one hour of supervised visitation weekly at a public restaurant.

## Issues

1. Whether the custody award was reversible error because the chancellor failed to make sufficient, on-the-record findings under the Albright best-interests factors and misapplied the moral-fitness factor.
2. Whether the order imposing highly restricted supervised visitation was supported by evidence and findings showing such restrictions were necessary for the child’s welfare.

## Decision

- Reversed and remanded.
- The court held the chancellor did not properly consider and detail findings on the Albright factors, preventing meaningful appellate review.
- The court directed the chancery court to make explicit Albright findings and then reevaluate custody and visitation.
- The court indicated that, if the father again received custody, the mother should receive overnight and substantially less restricted visitation unless evidence shows such visitation would harm the child.

## Legal Principles

- In child-custody disputes, the chancellor must consider and weigh the Albright best-interests factors and explain how the evidence supports the custody determination.
- Moral fitness is only one Albright factor; a parent’s sexual conduct cannot be treated as dispositive absent evidence connecting it to an adverse impact on the child.
- Severe visitation restrictions (such as minimal, supervised, public-place visitation) require record support and findings that the limits are necessary to protect the child’s safety or emotional well-being.
- Appellate courts defer to chancellors’ custody determinations unless manifestly wrong, clearly erroneous, or based on an erroneous legal standard; failure to make required findings or misapplication of the governing factors warrants reversal.

## Conclusion

The appellate court reversed the custody and visitation awards because the chancellor failed to make adequate Albright findings and appeared to give controlling weight to the mother’s same-sex relationship while imposing extreme visitation limits without evidence that such restrictions were needed to prevent harm to the child.


Fulk v. Fulk, 827 So. 2d 736 (Miss. Ct. App. 2002)