BROOKFIELD FAMILY Parents' dispute over name is settled

A probate court ruling was overturned because of a hearing notice problem.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A divorced couple's four-year battle over their children's last name has ended in a compromise after four years of litigation.
Former Brookfield resident Frank Randolph of Scottsdale, Ariz., and his ex-wife, Maureen O'Brien of Brookfield, have waged a legal battle since O'Brien won a case in Trumbull County Probate Court having her daughter's and son's names changed to O'Brien in 2001.
The couple, divorced in 2000, are the parents of Reganne, 8, and Hayden, 6, who live with their mother.
Randolph's lawyer, Troy Barnett of East Liverpool, tried to get the order reversed in 2002, but when that failed, he appealed the case to the 11th District Court of Appeals, which reversed Judge Thomas A. Swift's Probate Court decision and sent the case back to the court.
Didn't know of change
The appeals court said the lower-court ruling was reversed because reasonable attempts were not made to locate Randolph before the probate case was heard. Randolph did not attend the proceedings. In fact, he said, he didn't learn of the name change until later, when he saw his children's first and last names printed in a school yearbook while visiting them at their mother's house.
In August, the case was heard in probate court again. This time Judge Swift ruled that the children would share their parents' last names and be called Randolph-O'Brien.
"I think it's a just resolution to a very difficult case," Barnett said last week, noting that he knows of maybe just one other case where divorced parents resolved their differences by hyphenating the children's last name.
In testimony last month, Betty Chess, principal of Notre Dame School in Hermitage, testified that the children were enrolled at the school with the last name O'Brien in 2001, one of them in kindergarten, the other in preschool.
School sought advice
When the appeals court ruled the name change to O'Brien had been reversed, the school had a lot of questions about what to do and sought legal advice, she said. That advice was to leave the kids' name O'Brien until after the case was decided again in probate court, she testified.
That didn't sit well with Randolph, who thought the school should have followed the ruling of the appeals court and used the last name Randolph for all school-related paperwork.
"This situation is crazy," Randolph said. "I win and I think the names should be Randolph," he said, referring to the appeals court ruling.
Randolph said he also was unsatisfied with the outcome of the case the second time in probate court. A ruling in the case was announced Sept. 2. Randolph said he didn't think he could afford to appeal a second time.
"The only thing you can do is spend thousands of dollars" to keep fighting the case, he said, adding that he has spent around $10,000 so far -- money that could be going to pay his child support of $250 per month, per child.
Atty. James O'Brien of Brookfield, who represented Maureen O'Brien, did not return phone messages seeking comment.