Peeples v. Peeples, 2019 UT App 207 (Dec. 19, 2019)

This appeal arose from the district court’s denial of a mother’s petition to modify a stipulated divorce decree to give her sole custody of her daughters.  The mother argued that the district court erred by not accepting a lesser showing of changed circumstances, where there decree was stipulated and not adjudicated.  In affirming the district court’s ruling, the court of appeals reasoned that the stipulated/adjudicated dichotomy is not entirely binary, and that the stipulated decree in this case was more akin to an adjudicated decree than a non-adjudicated decree, because it was the result of a negotiated agreement after the parties fully and robustly participated in litigation for more than four years.