Kines v. McBride, 2017 Ark. App. 40

Casey Kines and Jared McBride divorced in December 2013; PSA awarded joint legal custody with Kines as primary physical custodian and detailed visitation. The PSA required notice for moves over 60 miles and permitted court petition if parties disagreed.
The PSA provided no child support because the parties had near-equal income and time with the children.
Kines filed to relocate to Memphis in January 2015, citing remarriage and business opportunities; McBride opposed and filed a counterclaim seeking primary custody.
The circuit court preliminarily ruled the parties shared joint custody, applied the Singletary standard for relocation, and placed the burden on Kines to show the move was in the children’s best interests.
After a November 2015 hearing, the court denied Kines’s motion to relocate in a March 11, 2016 order but expressly declined to rule on McBride’s custody counterclaim.
The Court of Appeals dismissed Kines’s appeal without prejudice for lack of a final, appealable order because the custody claim remained unresolved.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the denial of Kines’s relocation motion was a final, appealable order	Kines argued the court erred in finding joint custody and in applying the Singletary relocation standard instead of Hollandsworth	McBride argued against relocation and sought primary custody via counterclaim	Appeal dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the order did not resolve the custody counterclaim and thus was not final

Singletary v. Singletary, 431 S.W.3d 234 (Ark. 2013) (relocation standard applied when parties share joint custody)
Hollandsworth v. Knyzewski, 109 S.W.3d 653 (Ark. 2003) (different relocation standard when one parent has primary custody)