In re Marriage of Kreid

- Case citation and parties
In re Marriage of Kreid, 2025 IL App (5th) 250187-U (Ill. App. Ct., 5th Dist. Oct. 8, 2025). Petitioner-Appellee: Zelpha Kreid. Respondent-Appellant: Kaleb Kreid.

- Key legal issues
1. Whether the trial court’s contempt order for violating a parenting-plan provision (failing to mediate before changing the child’s school placement) was civil or criminal in nature.
2. Whether the trial court denied respondent the procedural due-process protections required for criminal contempt by entering the order without providing criminal-contempt procedural safeguards.

- Holding / outcome
The Fifth District reversed. The appellate court concluded the trial court’s order, though labeled civil contempt and containing a “purge” condition, was in substance an order for indirect criminal contempt. Because respondent was not afforded the procedural protections required for criminal contempt, the circuit court abused its discretion and the contempt order was reversed.

- Significant legal reasoning (concise)
The court reviewed the established distinction: civil contempt seeks to coerce future compliance and must provide an attainable purge mechanism; criminal contempt punishes past conduct and is retrospective. Civil contempt must (1) allow the contemnor to take the action sought to be coerced and (2) terminate sanctions upon compliance. If a purported purge provision exceeds those limits (e.g., imposes punitive, non-purgable obligations or conditions beyond contemnor’s control), it effectively transforms into criminal contempt. Here, the trial court found respondent violated the parenting plan by changing the child’s school without mediation and ordered him to pay the private mediator’s full costs and, if mediation failed, the guardian ad litem retainer within 14 days to “purge” contempt. The appellate court determined those conditions functioned punitively and were not the sort of immediate, within-contemnor-control remedial acts that characterize civil contempt. Because the contempt was indirect and criminal in effect, respondent was entitled to criminal-contempt procedural protections, which were not provided.

- Practice implications for family law practitioners
- Draft and litigate contempt remedies carefully: ensure purge conditions are strictly coercive, within the contemnor’s control, and capable of terminating sanctions on compliance.
- Avoid imposing monetary or third-party payment conditions as purported “purges” when those conditions function as punishment or are impracticable to undo.
- If the court seeks to punish past noncompliance, counsel should demand appropriate criminal-contempt procedures (notice of charges, opportunity to defend, and other due-process protections).
- When seeking enforcement of parenting-plan provisions (e.g., school placement changes), consider mediation, declaratory relief, or modified parenting-plan petitions rather than contempt that risks being recharacterized on appeal.