Question about home evaluator not showing...

[Cookiemomma4]

We have a court ordered home evaluation to be done.  We paid the cost of the evaluation within 2 days of being contacted by the county Children and Youth office mailing us the letter explaining how to pay it and waiting to hear something.  The evaluator called us a week later to set up an appt to come to our home for the evaluation.
The first appt time that she gave us was excepted although some visitation issues needed to be cleared up before it was set in stone.  She was made aware of the time restrictions and that people had to rearrange work schedules and visitation schedules to make the time possible.  We contacted her numerous times as the plans were layed and set.
The day of the evaluation came.  Everyone was here (although one child missed a class, another child missed a half day of school and my significant other took the day off of work to be here of course)  The child involved in the custody issue was picked up at noon which was outside of normal parenting time (normal parenting time begins at 4pm).  
The evaluator never showed.  We tried calling her numerous times throughout the afternoon and were finally able to reach her at 6pm.  She stated that she forgot that it was that day and thought it was the following day.  She had the court order stating that normal parenting time is only one day a week and EOW.  She was involved in numerous discussions regarding needing to pick up the child earlier and primary custodial parent not wanting an earlier time.
It is now rescheduled for next week and we are hoping that she shows this time.  Also, primary custodial parents appt is now before ours (and everything that we have read states that you have an advantage if you get your story out first, but we have never done this so we could be all wrong).  School and work alterations are being made again but deposits on classes and things are lost.

1)  Do we have any recourse in this situation as work time is missed so only base salery will be paid for a 2nd day and classes that were previously paid for will not be refunded?

2)  Should we be concerned that this woman who appears to be terribly irresponsible is the one determining the "fate" of our case as we understand that her opinion will weigh heavily on the outcome of the case?

3)  We understand that if we have a concern we need to bring it up early on and not after the evaluation is complete, so would it be wise to do this?    The thought is that she would almost have to be given "points" for being willing to comply with this womans whims and mistakes...but I don't know.

I guess the major question is, should we be concerned and is it worth it to try to do something about it???

Thanks for your time and consideration in this matter.  

[socrateaser]

>1)  Do we have any recourse in this situation as work time is
>missed so only base salery will be paid for a 2nd day and
>classes that were previously paid for will not be refunded?

You could sue the evaluator in small claims for negligence, but the best you will get is your money back for a portion of what you paid for the eval. I wouldn't do this until the eval was complete, for obvious reasons.

>2)  Should we be concerned that this woman who appears to be
>terribly irresponsible is the one determining the "fate" of
>our case as we understand that her opinion will weigh heavily
>on the outcome of the case?

Probably, but your only option is to move the court to order a different evaluator based on her apparent cavalier attitude, and if you lose that motion, then you'll be stuck with a very unhappy evaluator.

I think you need to pretend that the evaluator is a victim and that you empathize with her difficult schedule because it must be so difficult to deal with the many custody battles that she oversees. (blah,blah, puke...).

>3)  We understand that if we have a concern we need to bring
>it up early on and not after the evaluation is complete, so
>would it be wise to do this?    The thought is that she would
>almost have to be given "points" for being willing to comply
>with this womans whims and mistakes...but I don't know.

See above.


>I guess the major question is, should we be concerned and is
>it worth it to try to do something about it???

See above.

[Cookiemomma4]

>
>I think you need to pretend that the evaluator is a victim and
>that you empathize with her difficult schedule because it must
>be so difficult to deal with the many custody battles that she
>oversees. (blah,blah, puke...).
>

Thank you so much for your prompt reply.  This (above) is what we were assuming the best route was.  This is just one nightmare after another!
Thanks again!