Case Title: Cabot v. Cabot

Citation: 166 Vt. 485, 697 A.2d 644

Docket Number: 96-087

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1997-05-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Cabot v. Cabot  (96-087); 166 Vt. 485; 697 A.2d 644

[Filed 23-May-1997]

[Motion for Reargument Denied 2-Jul-1997]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.

                            No. 96-087

Ellen Adams Cabot                            Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
    v.                                       Chittenden Family Court

Thomas D. Cabot, III                         November Term, 1996

Alden T. Bryan, J.

       Debra R. Schoenberg, Burlington, Nicholas E. Tischler, Niskayuna, New
  York, and Robert P. Davison, Jr. (On the Brief), Stowe, for
  plaintiff-appellant

       Susan M. Murray and Peter F. Langrock of Langrock Sperry & Wool,
  Middlebury, for defendant-appellee/cross-appellant

PRESENT:  Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ., and Skoglund, D.J.,
          Specially Assigned

       JOHNSON, J.   In this decision we address a number of issues arising
  out of a lengthy and complicated divorce proceeding.  Both parties appeal
  the family court's parental rights and responsibilities order; the husband,
  Tom, claims that he should have been awarded sole parental rights, while
  the wife, Ellen, argues that the court lacked authority to award joint
  legal parental rights and responsibilities absent agreement of the parties. 
  Ellen also appeals a number of financial issues, including the court's
  valuation and division of the marital estate and its failure to award
  maintenance.  We agree that the court lacked authority to award joint legal
  parental rights and responsibilities and therefore reverse and remand the
  parental rights and responsibilities order; in all other respects, we
  affirm the decision below.

       The parties were married in 1984 and have lived in Vermont throughout
  their marriage. They have one child.  Ellen has worked as a registered
  nurse and has operated her own nutrition business, but has not worked
  outside the home since the child's birth.  Tom has his own business as
  architect and real estate developer, but has not had much financial
  success.  Although neither

 

  party earned any substantial income during the marriage, the family lived
  very well, supported by income derived from Tom's family inheritance.  The
  parties began to live apart in late 1991, and the divorce was filed in
  April 1992.  Over the next three-and-a-half years, the parties litigated
  every aspect of this divorce, culminating in the separate
  parental-rights-and-responsibilities and property-distribution orders that
  are the subject of this appeal.  As we address each of the arguments raised
  by the parties, we explain the relevant factual and procedural background
  in more detail.

                   I. Parental Rights and Responsibilities

       The parties' only child, a daughter, was born in 1988.  For the first
  three-and-a-half years of the child's life, the family lived together in
  the marital home in Shelburne, Vermont. In the fall of 1991, however, the
  marriage began to disintegrate.  Ellen asked Tom first to spend four nights
  a week at a nearby house owned by Tom and his sister; two months later, she
  asked him to move out of the house altogether.  For several months, the
  parties remained in couples therapy and Tom continued to see the child.  In
  March of 1992, Ellen insisted that Tom reduce his time with the child from
  daily contact to three visits per week.  Ellen also stopped attending
  couples therapy.  In April 1992, Ellen filed for divorce.  On the same day
  that she began the divorce proceedings, she took her daughter to her
  parents' house in Maine without telling Tom.

       Shortly thereafter, the parties entered into a stipulation giving
  Ellen temporary, primary physical rights and responsibilities subject to
  Tom's right to certain parent-child contact.  The trial court incorporated
  that agreement into a temporary order.  In June 1992, less than two months
  after the court issued its order, Ellen refused to allow Tom to see the
  child.  Ellen testified that she believed Tom was removing items of
  personal property from the marital home during the visits, and claimed that
  her then-attorney advised her to stop the visits.  The court noted that
  Ellen's explanation "seem[ed] questionable" and found it more likely that
  Ellen's conduct was a deliberate attempt to reduce or sever Tom's contact
  with the child.  As a result of Ellen's actions, Tom had no contact with
  his child for nearly four months.  In October 1992,

 

  the court ordered Ellen to allow contact between Tom and the child, but on
  the advice of the child's psychiatrist, that contact was limited at first
  to a few hours twice a week in the presence of a third-party observer.

       In July of 1993, Ellen told Tom that she had accepted a nursing job in
  Charlottesville, Virginia, and had placed a deposit on a house and enrolled
  the child in school there.  Ellen planned to move in September of that
  year.  Tom requested that the trial court enjoin Ellen from taking the
  child with her to Virginia.  The court granted the motion, and Ellen
  decided not to move to Virginia.  Ellen testified, however, that she
  planned to move to Virginia after the divorce was final.

       In October of the same year, Ellen filed a motion asking the trial
  court to reduce Tom's contact with the child.  After a discussion between
  the attorneys and the court, the hearing on Ellen's motion was transformed
  into a final hearing on parental rights and responsibilities.  The court
  decided to adjudicate that issue before considering the property and
  maintenance issues, in part because of Ellen's plan to move to Virginia
  with the child.

       After making extensive findings,(FN1) and evaluating each of the factors
  listed in 15 V.S.A. § 665(b), the court awarded sole physical parental
  rights and responsibilities to Ellen, but ordered joint legal parental
  rights and responsibilities.  The court also granted Tom substantial
  parent-child contact, including every other weekend, shared or alternated
  school vacations, and forty-five days during the summer.  The court drew up
  an alternate visitation schedule, should Ellen move to Virginia or another
  distant state; under that plan, the child would be with Tom for every
  school vacation and almost all of the summer.(FN2)  Each parent challenges
  some part of

 

  the court's parental-rights-and-responsibilities order.  Tom argues that he
  should have been awarded sole parental rights and responsibilities, while
  Ellen maintains that the court erred by ordering joint legal parental
  rights and responsibilities.

                               A.  Tom's Claim

       We first address Tom's claim that the trial court abused its
  discretion by failing to award him sole legal and physical parental rights
  and responsibilities.  Tom does not challenge any of the court's findings,
  but instead argues that those findings do not support its decision to award
  physical rights and responsibilities to Ellen.  Specifically, Tom points to
  several findings regarding Ellen's attempts to limit or eliminate Tom's
  contact with the child and to interfere with the father-child relationship. 
  Based on these findings, the court concluded that, if awarded primary legal
  rights and responsibilities, Tom would be much more likely to support and
  foster the child's relationship with Ellen than Ellen would be to encourage
  the child's relationship with Tom.  See 15 V.S.A. § 665(b)(5) (one factor
  court must examine is "ability and disposition of each parent to foster a
  positive relationship and frequent and continuing contact with the other
  parent").  The court also concluded that Tom is able and willing to provide
  the child with love, affection, and guidance; to ensure that her basic
  physical needs are met; and to meet her present and future developmental
  needs.  See 15 V.S.A. § 665(b)(1)-(3) (court must consider these factors in
  making custody determination).  In Tom's view, these findings and
  conclusions by the court mandated an award of sole parental rights and
  responsibilities to him.

       The court based its decision to award physical parental rights and
  responsibilities to Ellen on its conclusion that Ellen has been the child's
  primary care provider, "clearly fulfill[ing] this role more than Tom," both
  before and after the separation.  See 15 V.S.A. § 665(b)(6) (court shall
  consider quality of child's relationship with primary care provider, if
  appropriate, given child's age and development); Johnson v. Johnson, 163
  Vt. 491, 494,