The Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated a district court's ruling awarding sole custody to one parent Thursday, clarifying the procedural route a party must object to a magistrate's allegedly insufficient factfinding, as well as the options that lower courts have when such an objection is made.

Jennifer M. McCoy appealed Biddeford District Judge Lea-Anne Sutton's judgment adopting the final order of Family Law Magistrate Lindsay Cadwallader that ordered McCoy's divorce from William Daniel and awarded him the sole parental rights of their 4-year-old daughter.