Los Angeles (E! Online) - Just when it seemed the Britney Spears-Kevin Federline custody battle couldnt generate any more heat, the judge has put the whole thing on ice.
Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon nixed a planned custody hearing set to take place next month, at which Spears team was due to petition the court to reinstate her custody rights, after an emergency hearing Tuesday in which Federlines attorney sought sanctions against the singer as a remedy for her deposition-dodging ways.
Gordon also ordered the Gimme More singer to submit to a deposition with Mark Vincent Kaplan during the first week of January. The exact date has not yet been revealed, presumably to ward off any heightened sense of anxiety on Spears behalf.
Neither Spears nor Federline were in court for the ruling.
This is the fifth time the commissioner has told Team Spears that the songbird must provide under-oath answers to Kaplans queries. She has bailed on all four previous appointments.
Assuming the testimony-taking goes forward as planned, the next hearing in the custody dispute wont take place until Feb. 19, to allow Kaplan time to review what Spears says about her fitness as a parent under oath.
The delay in proceedings also prevents Spears from requesting changes to any of the existing terms of the custody agreement, including allowing her behind the wheel when her sons, two-year-old Sean Preston and one-year-old Jayden James, are present.
In the interim, Federline retains primary custody of the boys; Spears is allowed a handful of court-monitored visits per week.
As always, Tuesdays emergency hearing closed to the public. Before Gordon cleared the courtroom, attorneys for both sides met in chambers with the commissioner for roughly a half-hour.
Once the hearing got underway, Kaplan apparently wasted no time in seeking sanctions for Spears pathological avoidance of being deposed.
In addition to seeking a postponement of the Jan. 23 hearing, Kaplan requested that, come February, Spears only be allowed to request a change to the current custody arrangement only if she has satisfactorily sat for a deposition.
Kaplan announced plans to seek the sanctions against the singer last week, after she claimed her levels of anxiety were too high to sit for the Dec. 12 session, but apparently not high enough to prohibit her from making runs to two gas stations and the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills later the same day.
To bolster his argument, on Monday Kaplan subpoenaed TMZ for footage of Spears late-night run, presumably to screen during the emergency hearing.
Following Spears no-show last week, Kaplan said he would request to the court to address some kind of remedy to what I see as a willful nonappearance.
Still, Tuesdays maneuvers wont affect the holiday custody arrangement. Federline and Spears hammered an out-of-court deal last month in which the Feder-tots will split Christmas Day between both homes.
Barring any more emergency hearings, attorneys for both sides are due back in court Feb. 19.
