Washington Supreme Court Asked to Weigh in on Disability, Parental Rights, and the First Amendment
An 11-year legal battle over a child’s custody arrangement is currently pending before the Washington Supreme Court, asking justices to answer a procedural question with profound implications for family law.
The case centers on a mother’s request to revisit a 2019 parenting plan after her child’s autism-related needs allegedly evolved and worsened.
But the dispute extends far beyond one family. It raises complex questions about the threshold required to access the courts, the constitutional right to petition the government, and whether public school services can serve as a substitute for parental and judicial oversight.
The Origins of the Legal Battle
The conflict, detailed in a petition for review currently before the state’s highest court, stems from King County litigation dating back to 2015.
The parties, David Parsons and Tanya Goodman, are the parents of A.P., a minor child whose custody and care have been the subject of extensive court proceedings.
Court records show an initial 2016 trial established joint decision-making, with the mother retaining primary placement. However, following heavily litigated proceedings, a subsequent 2019 trial awarded the father sole decision-making authority over the child’s education and non-emergency medical care, as well as primary placement.
The petition notes that the court’s 2019 decision was heavily influenced by a finding that Goodman had engaged in an “abusive use of conflict” under state law.
At the recent adequate cause hearing, Parsons’s trial attorney, Philip Tsai, described this prior finding as the “500-pound gorilla in the room,” arguing that the mother’s current filings were simply an attempt to relitigate the same issues she lost on years ago.
At the time of that 2019 trial, the petition states, the five-year-old child’s early autism diagnosis was disputed by the father.
A court-appointed evaluator testified that the diagnosis was unreliable due to the child’s young age, and the trial court found that the child was meeting developmental targets and “not in need of special services.” The judge ultimately treated the diagnosis with skepticism, deferring the issue and ordering a post-trial reevaluation.
Following the entry of the 2019 parenting plan, an independent, court-ordered evaluation confirmed the child’s diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder alongside an Anxiety Disorder, with serious co-occurring needs.
Despite the confirmed diagnosis, court filings from the mother allege that Parsons, armed with sole educational decision-making power, unilaterally withdrew the child from his existing Individualized Education Program in the fall of 2020.
While Parsons’s attorneys maintained before the Court of Appeals that the school team decided unanimously to exit the child from special education services, the mother’s petition asserts that Parsons rejected the child’s worsening autism and failed to implement any of the recommended autism-specific clinical interventions outside the school system.
The petition contends that for nearly three years, the child went without IEP support.
The School Records
Years later, in 2024, Goodman filed a petition to modify the parenting plan, alleging that the child’s circumstances had materially changed and deteriorated since the 2019 ruling. According to court filings, the child—now 10 years old—began exhibiting escalating behaviors.
Goodman’s trial attorney, Alan Funk, emphasized at the hearing that these were not just the mother’s subjective observations. “The claim that nobody else sees these is just not true,” Funk argued to the court. “It’s the school that reported that Andrew was interacting with other children in an inappropriate manner.”
School records from 2022 and 2023, cited extensively in the petition, paint a picture of a child in distress. Baseline data from a school functional behavior assessment reportedly noted “physical aggression,” “threats of self-harm,” “threats to others,” and “risk-taking behavior.”
Filings indicate that the school intervened, convening a Guidance Team meeting, implementing a safety plan for the child, and ultimately reinstating an IEP for social and emotional support in 2023.
The petition further alleges that Parsons routinely diminished these behaviors. According to emails submitted to the court, when informed of the child’s self-harm expressions, Parsons reportedly told the school that the behavior was a form of manipulation or protest over having to do homework, allegedly instructing the child simply not to say things like wanting to harm himself.
The Adequate Cause Hurdle
Citing this documented deterioration, Goodman sought a full evidentiary hearing to revisit the custody arrangement. However, her request was dismissed at the adequate cause stage by King County Superior Court Commissioner Lindsey Goheen—a decision later affirmed by Division I of the Court of Appeals.
Under RCW 26.09.260, “adequate cause” is a threshold test. Before a court will hold a full evidentiary hearing to modify a parenting plan, the requesting parent must submit affidavits showing facts that, if true, would justify a change.
Commissioner Goheen ruled there was insufficient evidence of a substantial change in circumstances to warrant a full hearing.
In her oral ruling, Goheen noted that the father was currently engaged with the school and that under the reinstated IEP, a progress report showed the child was making “at least some progress” on most of his goals.
Regarding allegations of medical neglect, such as a multi-year gap in dental care, the commissioner noted that many families fell behind during the pandemic and that the child was now “on track.”
Goodman’s petition to the Supreme Court, authored by appellate attorney Rasham Nassar, argues that this approach dangerously elevates the adequate cause standard. The petition asserts that the threshold is intended only as a gatekeeping mechanism to screen out frivolous lawsuits, not as a final determination on the merits of a case.
The petition contends the lower courts improperly placed a “merits burden” on the mother, requiring her to prove before an evidentiary hearing that specific autism services would have ameliorated the symptoms.
Furthermore, the petition points to a statutory flaw in the appellate court’s reasoning. The Court of Appeals distinguished this case from prior precedents favoring a hearing because Goodman sought a “minor” nonresidential modification under RCW 26.09.260(10), rather than a major residential change.
The petition argues this actually means Goodman’s burden to secure a hearing should have been lower, not higher, as subsection 10 expressly authorizes modifications without considering the heavier factors required for residential changes.
Normalizing Disability Deterioration
The petition also raises profound public policy concerns regarding how the legal system views disabled children.
It argues that the lower court’s approach essentially treats a disabled child’s post-parenting-plan deterioration as “legally insignificant” once the child is identified as disabled.
Under the lower courts’ reasoning, the petition warns, worsening and untreated disability-related behaviors—such as suicidal ideation, severe emotional dysregulation, and aggressive acts—are “normalized as expected expressions of autism, rather than recognized as legally meaningful changes requiring judicial evaluation.”
Prior Restraint vs. Chilling Effect
The case also forces profound constitutional concerns to the forefront, asking the Washington Supreme Court to weigh in on whether a prior label of “high-conflict” can unconstitutionally strip a parent of their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress.
At the hearing where the modification request was dismissed, the father’s attorney, Philip Tsai, forcefully argued that the mother should be sanctioned for attorney fees under the bad faith provisions of family law, requesting $5,076.25.
Tsai argued that Goodman’s filings were driven by a “distorted view” of the father and that she was merely attempting to re-litigate issues from 2019. “Mr. Parsons should not have to incur fees as a result of her decision to bring this action,” Tsai argued, characterizing the petition as bad faith and citing previous CR 11 sanctions against her in separate matters.
Goodman’s attorney, Alan Funk, countered that penalizing a mother for acting on school-generated records of her child’s distress would set a dangerous precedent.
“So the question then is when a mother finds out from the school that the child is suicidal and the child is aggressive to the mother... What can she do?” Funk asked the court. “She has very few options... If the Court sanctions the mother for that, it’s sending the wrong message.”
Funk argued the court had to evaluate the motion based on its own merits, “without treating the prior finding of abusive use of conflict as if it’s a burden shifting mechanism or if there’s a presumption that the Court should make.”
Ultimately, Commissioner Goheen declined to find that the mother had acted in “bad faith.” Drawing on the 2019 trial findings, the commissioner noted that the mother genuinely believed the symptoms existed and was not being deceptive. However, the commissioner issued a stark warning from the bench:
“I’m reluctant, or hesitant, in not making that finding of bad faith here. And I hope that the Respondent, sort of, can consider herself on notice that this is an issue that will be increasingly hard to give her the benefit of the doubt on if the same pattern repeats again in the future... And it’s certainly entirely possible that things would get to the point where the Court would not find it credible that she doesn’t actually understand that the case is not supported by the evidence.”
On appeal, Goodman argued this warning unconstitutionally infringed on her First Amendment rights.
Division I of the Court of Appeals dismissed the claim, framing the legal question strictly around the concept of a prior restraint. Citing the precedent set in In re Marriage of Suggs, the appellate panel ruled that a prior restraint is strictly an “administrative or judicial order forbidding certain communications in advance.”
Because Commissioner Goheen’s comments did not technically result in a formal order barring Goodman from filing future motions, the Court of Appeals concluded her rights were not restricted.
However, the Supreme Court petition challenges this narrow interpretation, arguing that the Court of Appeals focused on the wrong constitutional doctrine. The petition asserts the issue is not a formal prior restraint, but an unconstitutional “chilling effect.”
Citing cases like Walker v. Munro and In re Marriage of Meredith, the petition argues that a constitutional injury does not require a literal padlock on the courtroom door.
Rather, “judicial rulings that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from seeking relief may constitute an impermissible chill on the right to petition.”
The petition contends that the commissioner’s warning functions as a “scarlet letter,” essentially transforming the mother’s statutory right to seek modification under family law into a presumptively suspect act that carries the risk of sanctions.
By tying the warning explicitly to the mother’s past litigation history, the petition argues the courts are signaling that any future petitions concerning her disabled child will be viewed through a presumption of “bad faith.”
“Parents do not forfeit the constitutional right to seek judicial redress absent the procedural safeguards required for vexatious-litigant or abusive-litigation,” the petition concludes, arguing that the threat of sanctions for presenting third-party evidence of a child’s suffering creates an impermissible barrier to the courts.
Amicus Warning
A central and controversial theme in the appellate battle is the weight the courts gave to the child’s school-based services.
The trial court’s decision to deny a hearing relied heavily on the fact that the school was managing the child’s needs through an IEP and a safety plan, noting that he was making “some progress” under their care.
This reliance prompted the nonprofit Informed Choice Washington to file an amicus curiae brief supporting the petition for review. The organization warns of a deep structural problem in the lower courts’ reasoning.
While acknowledging that public schools play a critical role, ICWA and Goodman’s attorneys argue that deferring to a school system allows administrative actors to occupy a role that legally belongs to parents and judges.
Furthermore, they argue that autism treatment does not end at the classroom door. Relying solely on the school’s intervention excuses the lack of specialized, outpatient clinical support that the father, as the sole medical decision-maker, allegedly failed to implement.
The petition for review warns that making school services a reason to block an evidentiary hearing effectively transfers parental decision-making from a parent to the State without a trial.
It argues this displaces the mother’s constitutional rights and allows the father to evade judicial review of whether he is fulfilling his court-ordered responsibilities.
What’s Next
The Washington Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will accept the petition for review.
If the justices take up the case, their ruling could establish vital precedents for how Washington courts evaluate post-order changes in children with disabilities.
They will have to balance two profound competing interests: the desire to protect children and courts from the exhausting toll of relentless litigation, and the imperative to ensure that vulnerable children do not become trapped in outdated legal frameworks as their conditions deteriorate.