Title: Mullin v. Phelps

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

MULLIN_V_PHELPS.93-143; 162 Vt. 250; 647 A.2d 714

[Opinion Filed June 24, 1994]


 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. 93-143


 Stephen Mullin                               Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      Chittenden Family Court

 Rita (Mullin) Phelps                         September Term, 1993


 Amy M. Davenport, J.

 Cortland Corsones and Therese M. Corsones of Corsones & Corsones, Rutland,
   for plaintiff-appellant

 Alan Rosenfeld, Montpelier, for defendant-appellee


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


      Johnson, J.    In this appeal, we review a family court order that
 transfers custody of the parties' two children from plaintiff father to
 defendant mother and that completely cuts off all contact between the father
 and his sons unless he acknowledges abusing them.  The basis of the order is
 the court's conclusion that a preponderance of the hotly disputed evidence
 presented by the warring parties indicated that the father sexually abused
 the younger boy.  We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in
 transferring custody of the children to the mother, but that due process
 precluded the court from effectively terminating parent-child contact
 between the father and his sons based on a finding of sexual abuse by a mere
 preponderance of the evidence.  We hold that, as a matter of due process,
 the family court may terminate parental rights only if the evidence

 

 supporting the decision is clear and convincing, a standard that was not
 remotely satisfied in this case.  We also conclude that the part of the
 court's order conditioning future parent-child contact on the father
 acknowledging that he sexually abused his son must be stricken because it
 violates the father's privilege against self-incrimination.  Accordingly, we
 remand the matter for the family court to fashion a visitation order that
 comports with due process and that is consistent with the principles
 discussed in this opinion.
                                     I.
      We detail the events surrounding the various proceedings in this
 protracted, acrimonious custody battle in order to place the family court's
 most recent decision in the proper perspective.(FN1)  The parties separated in
 1986 after a tumultuous eight-year marriage that produced two children.  At
 that time, the children, Jeremy and Kyle, were six years old and one year
 old, respectively.   Following the separation, the children lived primarily
 with the father.  In November 1987, in response to a court-ordered
 evaluation in the divorce proceeding, the Vermont Children's Aid Society
 recommended that the children remain in the custody of the father and his
 new wife, based on its conclusion that joint custody was not feasible
 because neither party was able to place the children's welfare above the
 resentment and anger they felt towards each other.  Nevertheless, based on
 the parties' stipulation, the court ordered joint custody, with the father
 and his wife having primary physical custody.

 

      In 1989, the father sought full legal and physical responsibility for
 the children.  The mother responded by alleging that the father had
 physically abused them.  Based on numerous interviews with the parties and
 the children, the Champlain Valley Psychiatric Services found no evidence of
 physical abuse; indeed, it concluded that physical discipline occurred more
 often in the mother's home.  As had previous evaluators, the two clinical
 psychologists and social worker noted that the children were integrated into
 the father's home, but that the older child, Jeremy, appeared to be highly
 stressed as the result of the continuing conflict over custody.  The team
 recommended that the father be awarded sole custody.  In May 1990, the court
 granted the father's motion to modify, and awarded him sole custody of the
 children.  The mother appealed, and we affirmed the decision.
      In August 1990, shortly after the trial court's decision, the mother
 filed a petition for relief from abuse, alleging for the first time that the
 father had sexually abused the children.  According to the mother, during
 visits in the spring and summer of 1990, Kyle, then age 5, requested on
 three separate occasions that she put a stop to the "bug game."  Allegedly,
 this "game" consisted of the father inserting his finger in Kyle's rectum or
 placing his penis in the child's mouth.  Jeremy, then age 10, stated that
 his father had sexually assaulted him five years before, and that Kyle had
 been similarly assaulted during the summer of 1989.  An investigation by the
 Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), which included a
 medical examination of Kyle and a psychological evaluation of the family,
 revealed no evidence of abuse.  An SRS investigator concluded that there was
 insufficient evidence to substantiate the mother's allegations, and
 expressed concern that the allegations of abuse seemed to be made during

 

 times of change in custody or when the boys' visitation with the mother was
 about to end.
      In a lengthy opinion, the court found that the mother had failed to
 produce sufficient evidence to prove the alleged abuse by a preponderance of
 the evidence, and denied the motion for relief from abuse.  Further, the
 court concluded that the protracted custody proceedings and the mother's
 prior, unsuccessful abuse petitions reflected "the natural mother's
 continuing efforts to gain child custody, wherein she has been unsuccessful
 in all of the other various procedures before the courts."  According to the
 court, the mother's custodial crises formed "the genesis of the abuse
 claims," which were not found to be credible.
      In September 1990, approximately a week after the court denied the
 petition, the father filed a request for consent to relocate with the
 children to Utah, where he had a job opportunity.  The mother responded by
 filing another petition for relief from abuse and a motion to modify
 custody.  The petition was denied, but another court-ordered psychological
 family evaluation followed, in which Jeremy described incidents of sexual
 abuse.  The examining psychologist, Dr. Jonathan Rightmyer, concluded that
 Jeremy's report of abuse was not credible because it was inconsistent and
 provided no contextual detail, that the father posed no risk of harm to the
 safety and welfare of the children, and that the boys' anxious and
 depressive behavior patterns were the result of the protracted and
 contentious custody battle, not sexual abuse.  Warning that the deep
 hostilities between the father and the mother threatened the boys with grave
 psychological distress, the examiner recommended that it would be in the
 best interests of the children to relocate with the father and his wife.

 

      On October 21, 1990, the mother filed another relief from abuse
 complaint against the father.  Two days later, the case was designated a
 complex action pursuant to V.R.C.P. 16.1, and Judge Amy M. Davenport sat as
 presiding judge in the pending request for the father to relocate, the
 mother's relief from abuse petition, and in all subsequent proceedings.  In
 December 1990, the court granted the father's request to relocate with the
 children.  The court required the father to obtain counselling for Jeremy
 with a child psychologist or licensed therapist who had a background in
 counseling children of divorce and some expertise in child sexual abuse.
 The court noted that the therapy was needed not because Jeremy's reports
 were substantiated, but rather to remedy the trauma resulting from his
 reports of abuse.
      In motions filed in August 1991 and January 1992, the mother again
 requested a custody modification, based on allegations of sexual abuse and
 on separate incidents involving each child.  The first incident occurred at
 the end of the children's five-week stay with the mother in August 1991.
 Jeremy became extremely anxious and refused to return to his father's home
 in Utah.  On the day of his scheduled return flight, Jeremy burned his
 airline ticket and ran away from home for several hours.  The court ordered
 an evaluation by Dr. Rightmyer to assess any changes in Jeremy since the
 testing conducted in the fall of 1990.  Dr. Rightmyer again found the
 allegations of sexual abuse incredible, and advised that the need for
 continuity in Jeremy's life weighed in favor of his returning to Utah,
 despite tensions between the father and son.  Dr. Rightmyer also recommended
 intensive family therapy involving Jeremy, his father, and his stepmother.

 

      The incident involving Kyle occurred at the end of Christmas vacation,
 on January 3, 1992.  The mother and her husband took the boys to the airport
 for their return flight to Utah.  Kyle refused to board the plane, became
 hysterical, and clung to his mother.  Eventually, Jeremy also began crying
 and refused to board the plane.  The mother made arrangements with the
 father's parents to put the children on a flight the next morning, and left
 them in the care of local police.  When the boys' paternal grandmother saw
 them off, they boarded the plane without incident.
      In a March 1992 order, the family court found insufficient evidence of
 a material and unanticipated change in circumstances to merit a transfer in
 custody, but modified certain provisions of the December 1990 order relating
 to parent-child contact and therapy for the children.  Based on Dr.
 Rightmyer's testimony and the absence of corroborating evidence, the court
 again concluded that Jeremy's allegations of sexual abuse were not credible.
 Although the court acknowledged that, in a telephone call with Dr.
 Rightmyer, Jeremy had retracted his claim that his father had sexually and
 physically abused him, it did not find that the mother had coached Jeremy or
 that she had otherwise attempted to set him against his father.  On balance,
 the court found that the benefit of continuity in Jeremy's life in Utah
 outweighed any difficulties arising from his relationship with his father
 and his expressed desire to remain in Vermont with his mother.  However, the
 court expressed grave concerns about the father's ability or willingness to
 provide and participate in appropriate therapy for the children.
      The order regarding individual and family therapy was amended to
 require the father to report to the guardian ad litem in Vermont on a
 monthly basis.  Henceforth, in addition to the children receiving individual

 

 therapy in Vermont during the summer, the father was to arrange individual
 counselling for Jeremy and to participate with the children in family
 counselling sessions.  Moreover, the father was to provide any therapist
 seeing the children with copies of the order and other relevant court
 documents.  The court warned that the father's failure to abide by the
 orders with respect to therapy, coupled with a lack of improvement in his
 relationship with Jeremy, "could constitute a substantial change in
 circumstances sufficient to consider whether it is in Jeremy's and even
 Kyle's best interests to return to Utah."
      In August 1992, during visitation the following summer, the mother
 filed yet another motion to modify custody, this time alleging the father
 had sexually abused Kyle and that the father had failed to comply with the
 therapy requirements of the March 1992 order.  This is the case now before
 us on appeal.
      Kyle was admitted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital for a physical
 examination, which revealed a slight cleft in his anal opening that could
 have resulted from old trauma.  Dr. Patricia Cone, a psychologist at
 Dartmouth Hitchcock, interviewed Kyle.  She recommended a full psychological
 evaluation of the family, including psychological testing of both children
 and a psychosexual examination of their father.  The court ordered the
 evaluation, which was performed by Dr. Cone and Dr. Amy Wallace, a
 psychiatrist at Dartmouth Hitchcock, and also ordered a psychosexual
 evaluation of the father, which was performed by Dr. Robert Card, a Utah
 psychiatrist recommended by Dr. Cone.
      In preparing their report, the Dartmouth team conducted interviews and
 observations of the boys and the mother, and to a lesser extent, the father

 

 and his wife.  Based on these interviews, they concluded that Kyle was
 suffering severe emotional and psychological stress as the result of sexual
 abuse by his father.  The team found Kyle's claims of abuse to be credible,
 despite their similarity to Jeremy's previous unsubstantiated and retracted
 claims.  The report concluded that past evaluations, which found the claims
 of abuse incredible, were unreliable due to Dr. Rightmyer's lack of
 expertise in assessing child victims of sexual abuse.  The team discounted
 Jeremy's claims that the mother had coached him and his brother regarding
 the abuse and had staged incidents to make it appear that the boys were
 afraid of their father.
      The Dartmouth Hitchcock report recommended that parental rights and
 responsibilities be transferred to the mother, and that she immediately seek
 individual and family counselling for Kyle and Jeremy.  It also recommended
 that the father have no contact with the boys until he admitted his sexual
 abuse and successfully completed a treatment program for sexual offenders
 with an emphasis on treating perpetrators of incest.  Contact would then be
 recommended only if the children wished it and both the children's
 therapists and the father's therapist agreed the contact should take place.
      The Dartmouth Hitchcock team reached its conclusions without reviewing
 the report from Dr. Robert D. Card, the Utah psychologist whom Dr. Cone had
 recommended to evaluate the father.  Apparently, Dr. Card neither obtained a
 copy of the Dartmouth report nor sent his report to the Dartmouth team
 because of the father's failure to provide him with a copy of the court
 order requiring the evaluation.  In any event, Dr. Card concluded that it
 was "highly unlikely" that the father had sexually abused his children.

 

      Dr. Cone provided extensive testimony at the modification hearing,
 where she reiterated the report's conclusions and recommendations.  In the
 end, the court accepted Dr. Cone's conclusions and recommendations regarding
 the credibility of the parties and the children, the existence of sexual
 abuse, and the conditions for contact between the father and his sons.  The
 court found that "it is more probable than not that Kyle Mullin has been
 sexually abused by his father."  Based on this finding, as well as the
 father's continuing denial of having abused his children and his failure to
 participate in family therapy and obtain individual counselling for the
 boys, the court concluded that the father "is unable to provide either of
 the children with a safe environment."  Accordingly, the court transferred
 custody, which had been with the father and his wife for the previous six
 years, to the mother.
      Further, the court conditioned any contact between the father and the
 boys -- whether by phone, mail or in person -- on the father's
 acknowledgment of the sexual abuse.  The court recognized that the lack of
 contact with the father would be a "significant loss" for the children,
 particularly Jeremy, and that the loss of the children's relationship with
 their stepmother, who had "played a significant parental role in the
 children's lives," would also be lost.  Nonetheless, the court concluded
 that the condition was necessary to "ensure the safety of the children from
 further abuse and emotional trauma."  Finally, the court ordered the father
 to pay all of the children's, and part of the mother's, attorney's fees, as
 well as the uninsured cost of the Dartmouth evaluation and all costs
 associated with Dr. Cone's testimony.

 

      On appeal, the father argues (1) that the mother did not meet the
 threshold burden of proof for a modification of physical custody; (2) that
 several of the court's findings were not supported by the evidence; (3) that
 conditioning any contact between the father and his sons on his admitting he
 sexually abused them is not in the children's best interest; and (4) that
 ordering the father to pay certain attorney's fees and other costs was an
 abuse of discretion.
                                     II.
      We first consider whether there was sufficient evidence to transfer
 custody of the children to the mother.  The father argues that neither the
 one instance of sexual abuse that had allegedly taken place since the
 mother's last previous claim of abuse was rejected by the court, nor his
 failure to follow every aspect of the court's March 1992 order regarding
 therapy for him and the children, satisfied the mother's "heavy burden" of
 making a threshold showing of a substantial and unanticipated change of
 circumstances.  See 15 V.S.A. { 668 (upon moving party's "showing of real,
 substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances," court may modify
 custody order if it is in best interests of child); see also Pill v. Pill,
 154 Vt. 455, 459, 578 A.2d 642, 644 (1990) (moving party has heavy burden to
 prove changed circumstances); Kilduff v. Willey, 150 Vt. 552, 553,