The back-and-forth continues in Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt‘s heated custody case.
Pitt scored a win in May when he was tentatively granted joint custody of their five minor children. However, the order came from Judge John Ouderkirk, who officiated the couple’s wedding seven years ago.
That led Jolie to try to discount the judge’s ruling. In July, a California appeals court approved her request to disqualify the judge. According to her legal team, Ouderkirk failed to “disclose multiple professional, business and financial relationships, ongoing during the course of the matter, with Pitt’s counsel and their law firms.”
As such, Jolie retained full-time custody of their kids, while Pitt maintained visitation rights.
So, the Moneyball actor is now responding in court, filing a petition with the California Supreme Court to review the case, which E! News obtained on Sept. 1.
“The Court of Appeal effectively upended the constitutionally authorized temporary judging system in California and generated widespread confusion, uncertainty, and instability for judges, litigants, and the California judicial system as a whole,” it reads.
When it comes to the Oscar winners’ custody case, the petition states, “After more than four years of contentious litigation, every day of which has harmed the children and their father, an important and considered custody decision will be entirely undone as a result of an administrative error that is wholly unrelated to the merits of the custody dispute itself.”
Pitt’s team argues the judge was “improperly disqualified after providing a detailed, fact-based custodial decision,” said his lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., in a statement to E! News.
The attorney said this type of “strategic” disqualification can “cause irreparable harm” to the children and families involved “by unnecessarily prolonging” the legal battle. “Allowing this kind of crafty litigation strategy will deprive parents of irreplaceable time with their children,” Boutrous stated.
However, Jolie’s lawyer praised the appeals court for disqualifying the judge and giving the Maleficent actress full custody.
“The Court of Appeal unanimously refused to tolerate the ethical violations of the private judge,” said her lawyer, Robert A. Olson, in a statement to E! News.
