Opinion highlights for the week of April 12, 2026

 

The Arkansas Court of Appeals handed down ten signed opinions on April 15, 2026.  The next day, the Arkansas Supreme Court handed down five opinions.  There are a couple of items outside of those lists that are worth noting this week, in addition to one of the opinions.

In Hughes v. Bright, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal because review was improvidently granted.  Three justices dissented in an opinion found at 2026 Ark. 69.  The dissent notes errors in the Court of Appeals' decision previously under review, including error in affirming a trial court conclusion and misapplication of a particular doctrine.  The opinion claims that "[t]he court of appeals has a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between factual allegations and legal conclusions." Id. at 3.  To the dissenters, "this all ties into a broader problem that has plagued circuit courts and the court of appeals for years: an unwillingness to effectuate the statutory preference for joint custody." Id.

The Court of Appeals' per curiam opinion in Ballegeer v. Ballegeer, 2026 Ark. App. 240, addresses a trial court's authority to enforce its orders while an appeal is pending.  The "mere filing of a notice of appeal" does not deprive a circuit court of that authority, nor does the lodging of the record.  "The purpose of a supersedeas bond is to preserve the status quo during the pendency of an appeal; absent such a bond or a properly granted stay, there is nothing preventing the circuit court from proceeding to enforce its judgment." Id. at 1.  In this case, the appellant did not request a stay or file a supersedeas bond, so "the circuit court retains full authority to enforce its order notwithstanding the pending appeal." Id. at 1-2.

In Mata v. Reyes, 2026 Ark. App. 229, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a case for specific written findings.  This was a child custody matter; joint custody was not ordered by the trial court.  The statutory presumption favoring joint custody could be rebutted, but the trial court had to enter findings in support of a decision that the presumption was rebutted.  Those findings were not in the trial court's order.

Without the required written findings, we have no way to reliably determine whether the court properly analyzed the facts under the statute.  Due to the statute’s requirement for specific written findings, we cannot presume that the circuit court made such findings as were necessary to support its decision.  Accordingly, we reverse and remand for the circuit court to make the necessary findings concerning whether the joint custody presumption has been rebutted.

Id. at 3 (citations omitted).

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