Title: Hoover v. Hoover

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Hoover v. Hoover (99-084); 171 Vt. 256; 764 A.2d 1192 

[Filed 20-Oct-2000]

       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. 99-084

Karen Hoover (Letourneau)	                 Supreme Court

                                                 On Appeal from
     v.	R                                        Rutland Family Court

Wade Hoover	                                 January Term, 2000

Mary Miles Teachout, J.

Karen Ann Letourneau, Pro Se, South Windsor, Connecticut, Plaintiff-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Amestoy, C.J., Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ.

       MORSE, J.  In this custody dispute, mother appeals from the Rutland
  Family Court's modification  order awarding sole custody of two of the
  parties' three children to father.  The decision modified the  parties'
  shared legal and physical parental rights and responsibilities. (FN1) 
  Mother challenges the factual  findings that served as the basis for the
  court's modification.  We affirm.

       The court concluded that both parents were actively involved in their
  children's daily lives  following their divorce.  Until August 1998, both
  parties resided in Rutland.  Their divorce in 1996 did  not result in any
  changes of schools or significant changes in routine for the children, with
  the exception  of their sleeping slightly more often at mother's townhouse.

 

       After the divorce became final, mother entered into a relationship
  with a man living in  Connecticut.  In April 1998, mother informed father
  that she intended to move with the children to  Connecticut to live with
  him.  Father objected to the move and, in July 1998, filed a motion to
  modify  custody so that the children could remain with him in Rutland. 
  Shortly after father filed his motion,  mother moved to Connecticut.  Soon
  thereafter, without father's agreement, she moved the two youngest 
  children to Connecticut and enrolled them in school there.

       In a decision dated December 18, 1998, after a hearing on the matter,
  the court concluded under  15 V.S.A. § 668 that mother's move to
  Connecticut constituted a real, substantial and unanticipated  change of
  circumstances necessitating reconsideration and modification of the
  parties' legal and physical  parental rights and responsibilities. (FN2) 
  The court then considered the best interests of the children by  weighing
  and balancing various factors under 15 V.S.A. § 665(b).  It concluded that
  it was in the best  interests of the children to return to Rutland and live
  primarily with father.  Accordingly, the court ordered  the children
  returned to father, granting him sole legal and physical custody.  This
  appeal followed.

       Mother challenges several of the court's conclusions as being clearly
  erroneous.  She offers her  own interpretation of the court's findings of
  fact and provides additional facts that were not in the trial  court record
  in support of her arguments that the court's findings were erroneous.  Our
  standard of review,  however, is limited.  A trial court's findings of fact
  must stand unless, viewing the record in the light most  favorable to the
  prevailing party and excluding the effect of modifying evidence, there is
  no credible  evidence to support the findings.  See Highgate Assocs., Ltd.
  v. Merryfield, 157 Vt. 313, 315,  597 A.2d 1280, 1281 (1991). 
  Furthermore, our review is confined

 

  to the record and evidence adduced at trial.  On appeal, we cannot consider
  facts not in the record. (FN3) 

       As an initial matter, the custodial underpinning of this case should
  not be equated with that of  Lane v. Schenck, 158 Vt. 489, 614 A.2d 786
  (1992).  Lane involved a judgment granting sole physical  and legal
  parental rights and responsibilities to one parent, and neither party in
  that case disputed the fact  that the mother had continued to be the sole
  custodian following the divorce.   We noted that when a non-custodial
  parent seeks a change in custody based solely on the custodial parent's
  decision to relocate, the  moving party faces a high hurdle in justifying
  the "violent dislocation" of a change in custody from one  parent to the
  other.  See id. at 499, 614 A.2d  at 792 (quoting Kilduff v. Willey, 150 Vt.
  552, 555,