The divorce battle that provided the first oral arguments in the new Nathan Deal Judicial Center Tuesday has been going on for longer than the construction of the six-story, $131 million home for the Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

The job of telling that long story before a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals fell to William V. "Bill" Custer of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. He represents Debra Gray King, founder of the Atlanta Center for Cosmetic Dentistry in Sandy Springs. She filed in October 2016 for a divorce from Sandy Springs lawyer Daniel Rosson King. They had been married for 25 years and have three adult children.

Custer kept the story concise and focused on the key legal question: Was Fulton County Superior Court Judge Belinda Edwards wrong to throw out an arbitration award by Senior Judge Melvin Westmoreland?

"They wisely chose to arbitrate," Custer said of his client and her husband. "They wisely chose Judge Westmoreland."

Custer's brief noted that the retired Atlanta judge has presided over thousands of divorces and is certified as a mediator and arbitrator. But he's had enough of this one.

"The parties thereby received precisely what they bargained for in this case—a speedy, fair resolution of their property dispute by a skilled arbitrator with years of experience deciding divorce cases," Custer said in his brief for the wife. But the husband "was dissatisfied with the result—despite being awarded over $6,000,000—an amount derived almost entirely from his wife's successful cosmetic dental practice. Having voluntarily participated in the arbitration, and then being sorely disappointed with its outcome, appellee thereafter engaged in an effort to sabotage the arbitration process and undo the Award. Appellee denigrated the performance and smeared the reputation of Judge Westmoreland, attacked and disparaged opposing counsel, and claimed his wife, Dr. King, had engaged in fraud. So vitriolic was the attack that Judge Westmoreland ultimately recused himself from further participation in the proceedings."

The husband's attorney, R. Scott Berryman of Berryman Family Law, told the judges that Westmoreland was biased and admitted it when he recused. Berryman asked the panel to send the case back to the trial court for assignment to a new arbitrator.

"What we have here is a very complicated divorce case," Berryman said. "We have valuation issues regarding very valuable property."

Neither lawyer mentioned numbers in front of the judges, but the husband's brief raised issues about $1.4 million in working capital, valuations of $1.3 million worth of real estate and $800,000 in bank accounts.

At the time the divorce was filed, the old, empty, sinking state archives building occupied the site at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Memorial Drive where Custer stood to tell the tale. It wasn't until five months later, on a cold morning in March 2017, that the archives building suddenly disappeared in a spectacular implosion broadcast live.

The couple met for mediation in August 2017, the same month judges and justices put on hard hats and picked up shovels to break ground for their new building on a rainy late summer day. The groundbreaking went smoother than the mediation. The couple spent the entire day with the judge. "But the mediation ended with no resolution on any issues," the wife's lawyers said in their brief. They met again the next day, with the same result. On the third day, they agreed to binding arbitration, which they concluded on June 1, 2018. The judge issued a final arbitration award in August 2018—three months before the new building was topped out.

The appellate courts generally issue rulings before their next term ends—which means by the time the current appeal is resolved, the new judicial building will be about six months old.

The case is King v. King, No. A20A0034.