Is it legal for a judge to make a ruling on a custody case without having a hearing or any mediation?

We had a court date set and the night before the judge decided to rule without hearing anything from either party. The decision put the child in a very bad place. We are to start some supervised visits and on to having the other party have the child for several hours by themselves. There are many issues that needed to be discussed with the judge for the child's best interest. We also foundout the day after the ourt date was supposed to happen that there were not other cases seen that day and the judge was now out of town. Does it seem like there was a hasty decision? What action do we need to take?