Case Name: Brenda L. PHILBRICK v. Stephen CUMMINGS
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1987-12-24
Citations: 534 A.2d 1307
Docket Number: 
Parties: Brenda L. PHILBRICK v. Stephen CUMMINGS.
Judges: Before McKUSICK, C.J., and NICHOLS, GLASSMAN, SCOLNIK and CLIFFORD, JJ.
Reporter: West's Atlantic Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 534
Pages: 1307–1310

Head Matter:
Brenda L. PHILBRICK v. Stephen CUMMINGS.
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.
Argued Sept. 4, 1987.
Decided Dec. 24, 1987.
Lester F. Wilkinson, Jr. (orally), Sanborn, Moreshead, Schade & Gifford, Augusta, for plaintiff.
Joseph M. O’Donnell (orally), Goodspeed & O’Donnell, Augusta, for defendant.
Before McKUSICK, C.J., and NICHOLS, GLASSMAN, SCOLNIK and CLIFFORD, JJ.

Opinion:
McKUSICK, Chief Justice.
On June 9, 1986, the District Court (Augusta) denied the motion of Stephen Cummings to amend a 1980 divorce judgment to shift the primary custody of his two daughters (then aged 9 and 10) to him from their mother, Brenda L. Philbrick. The Superior Court (Kennebec County) affirmed the District Court denial. On further appeal, we also affirm.
Once the divorce court has made a determination of child custody arrangements, it may on motion alter those arrangements "as circumstances require." 19 M.R.S.A. § 752(12) (Supp.1986). We have made clear in the past, however, that "[o]nly a substantial change in circumstances since the prior custody decree can justify modifying that decree; and at all times the overriding consideration must be the best interests of the children." Boutin v. Dionne, 458 A.2d 426, 426 (Me.1983). Thus the District Court correctly noted that for Mr. Cummings to prevail he had to sustain the burden of establishing that "since the divorce on July 8, 1980, there has been a substantial change in circumstances affecting the interests] of the two minor children of the parties." The court determined that "[njothing in evidence relative to [the mother's] several moves reflects substantially changed circumstances affecting the interests of the children." On appeal we will disturb the court's determination only for clear error in the court's finding of the historical facts of change, see Harmon v. Emerson, 425 A.2d 978, 982 (Me.1981), or for abuse of discretion in its evaluation of the substantiality of the effect upon the children's interests of any factual change, see Ziehm v. Ziehm, 433 A.2d 725, 730 (Me.1981). We find no reversible error in the court's conclusion.
The evidence did show that the circumstances for both the mother and the father of the Cummings children had changed to some extent in the six years since the divorce. The question before the motion judge, however, was whether the father had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that those changes were of sufficient substantiality in their effect upon the interests of the Cummings children to warrant changing their primary custody from the mother to the father. Exercising the broad discretion vested in him to find the facts and to make the required judgment call, the motion judge found such proof absent. We cannot say that the evidence compelled him to reach a contrary conclusion.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
GLASSMAN and CLIFFORD, JJ., concur.