IN RE: Paul Brian Aponte (2026)

Submitted—June 17, 2026

DECISION & ORDER

In a proceeding pursuant to Family Court Act article 6, the mother appeals from an order of the Family Court, Nassau County (Ellen R. Greenberg, J.), dated November 22, 2024.  The order, insofar as appealed from, denied the mother's motion to vacate an order of the same court dated March 9, 2021, which, after a hearing, in effect, granted the father's petition to modify a prior order of custody and parental access of the same court dated December 7, 2017, and a prior order of custody and parental access of the same court (Ayesha K. Brantley, J.) dated June 12, 2019, so as to limit the mother's parental access with the parties' child to supervised parental access, and directed the mother to stay away from the child, except for supervised parental access.

ORDERED that the order dated November 22, 2024, is affirmed insofar as appealed from, without costs or disbursements.

The parties are the unmarried parents of a child born in 2015.  In two prior orders issued in 2017 and 2019, the father was awarded sole legal and residential custody of the child, and the mother was awarded certain unsupervised parental access.  The father filed a petition to modify the prior orders of custody and parental access so as to limit the mother's parental access with the child to supervised parental access.  By order dated March 9, 2021, the Family Court, among other things, in effect, granted the father's petition.  The mother appealed from the March 9, 2021 order, and this Court affirmed that order insofar as appealed from (see Matter of Aponte v. Jagnarain, 205 AD3d 803).  The mother then moved in the Family Court to vacate the March 9, 2021 order.  By order dated November 22, 2024, the court, inter alia, denied the mother's motion.  The mother appeals.

“An appellate court's resolution of an issue on a prior appeal constitutes the law of the case and is binding on the [Family] Court, as well as on the appellate court” (Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Archibald, 211 AD3d 1081, 1082;  see Matter of Chadee v. Pena, 236 AD3d 648;  Pascual v Rustic Woods Homeowners Assn., Inc., 173 AD3d 756, 756–757).  The doctrine of the law of the case operates to foreclose re-examination of the issue absent a showing of subsequent evidence or a change of law (see Pascual v Rustic Woods Homeowners Assn., Inc., 173 AD3d at 757).  Here, resolution of the mother's prior appeal constitutes the law of the case and forecloses this Court's reconsideration of the contentions the mother raised or could have raised in the prior appeal (see Hudson City Sav. Bank v. Berry, 178 AD3d 686, 687;  York v. York, 98 AD3d 1042).  The mother failed to otherwise demonstrate any valid grounds for vacatur of the March 9, 2021 order (see CPLR 5015[a];  Matter of Francis v. Francis, 80 AD3d 610).

We decline the attorney for the child's request to impose sanctions against the mother for bringing an allegedly frivolous appeal (see 22 NYCRR 130–1.1).

IANNACCI, J.P., DOWLING, WAN and LOVE, JJ., concur.

ENTER:

Darrell M. Joseph

Clerk of the Court