A noncustodial-parent father will be allowed visits with his child, despite the "great weight" to be accorded to a child's own expressed wishes on such a matter, because a child's "expressed wishes are only one factor to be considered and do not dictate a certain result in determining the best interests of the child," a state appeals court has ruled.

An Appellate Division, First Department panel noted that contrary to an argument put forward by the child's attorney on appeal, the Manhattan Family Court did, in fact, consider "the child's position after conducting an in camera interview" of the child, before that lower court decided in April 2019 to grant the father three therapeutic, supervised child visits.

In a unanimous decision issued Thursday, the panel wrote that "while the child's wishes are some indication of what is in her best interests and 'are entitled to great weight,'" quoting Melissa C.D. v. Rene I.D., "those expressed wishes are only one factor to be considered and do not dictate a certain result in determining the best interests of the child," citing Eschbach v. Eschbach.

Shirim Nothenberg, a senior appellate attorney with Lawyers for Children Inc., said in a phone interview Friday that she and her legal advocacy group were "disappointed" with the panel's decision "because we wish that the court would have recognized the psychological damage that can be caused by forcing" her client, who she said is 14, to visit with a father whom she said has not been in her client's life and with whom her client has "no emotional bond."

She added that while the appellate panel recognized that legally "great weight should be given" to a child's wishes regarding visitation, "it is not clear that, in fact, such great weight was given" in this appeal.

Nothenberg also said it is still being "considered" whether she and her client will seek leave to appeal the panel's decision.

Sandra Spennato, a partner at Cedeno Law Group in Manhattan, represented the mother of the child in the appeal. (The mother was not named in the panel's opinion.)

Spennato said, "We are disappointed with the Family Court decision and with the appellate decision, and it is our hope that no irrevocable damage will result [to the child] from the forced parent time, with an absentee parent." Whether to seek leave to appeal was still under consideration, she added.

No attorney for the father was listed in the First Department panel's decision, and it was unclear whether he took part in the appeal of the Family Court ruling.

The panel's opinion, issued by Justices David Friedman, Barbara Kapnick, Troy Webber and Lizbeth González, affirmed the April 2019 decision of Manhattan Family Court Referee Jacob Maeroff to grant the father (whose full name was not given in the panel's decision) the three therapeutic, supervised child visits.

"There is a rebuttable presumption that visitation by a noncustodial parent is in the child's best interest and should be denied only in exceptional circumstances," the panel justices also wrote in their opinion, citing in part Matter of Granger v. Misercola.

"Here, the presumption that petitioner [father] and the child should visit with each other was not rebutted as there was no evidence in the record that visitation with petitioner would place the child in any physical danger or that it would harm her by producing serious emotional strain or disturbance," they continued, adding, "Nor are there exceptional circumstances to support a finding that petitioner forfeited his right to visitation."