Title: Ex Parte Roberts
Citation: 796 So. 2d 349
Docket Number: 1990565
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: February 16, 2001

796 So. 2d 349 (2001)
Ex parte William Tyrone ROBERTS.
(Re Aldrena Dennett Roberts v. William Tyrone Roberts).
1990565.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
February 16, 2001.
George K. Elbrecht, Monroeville, for petitioner.
*350 Sandra H. Lewis, Montgomery, for respondent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
William Tyrone Roberts and Aldrena Dennett Roberts were divorced in 1997, when their son was three years old. The trial court approved and incorporated the Robertses' divorce agreement, which granted the mother custody of the child and the father visitation with the child, as part of its judgment of divorce. In August 1998, the mother moved, without the child, from Monroeville to a dormitory on the campus of Alabama State University in Montgomery. The child remained in the home of his elderly, disabled maternal grandmother. In October 1998, the father petitioned for custody of the child. In December 1998, the mother rented an apartment and moved the child to Montgomery to live with her in the apartment.
The evidence at trial was presented ore tenus. Finding "that the evidence in this cause is more than sufficient to overcome the presumptions and/or standards set forth in the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court in Ex parte McLendon, [455 So. 2d 863 (Ala.1984)]," the trial court changed custody from the mother to the father. The mother appealed. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court and stated:
Roberts v. Roberts, 796 So. 2d 346, 348 (Ala.Civ.App.1999). The Court of Civil Appeals overruled the father's application for rehearing and denied his Rule 39(k), Ala. R.App. P., motion. The father petitioned for certiorari review, which this Court granted to determine whether the Court of Civil Appeals substituted its judgment for the judgment of the trial court. Ex parte Jones, 620 So. 2d 4 (Ala.1992).
The father contends that he satisfied the burden imposed by Ex parte McLendon, supra, by proving that "the change of custody `materially promotes' the child's best interest and welfare," 455 So. 2d  at 866, and that "[t]he positive good brought about by the modification ... more than offset[s] the inherently disruptive effect caused by uprooting the child." 455 So. 2d  at 865 (quoting Wood v. Wood, 333 So. 2d 826, 828 (Ala.Civ.App.1976)). The father contends further that the Court of Civil Appeals erred by reweighing the evidence, Ex parte Jones, supra, and by not according the trial court's custody order the proper presumption of correctness, Alexander v. Alexander, 625 So. 2d 433 (Ala.Civ.App.1993). According to the father, he presented sufficient evidence to *351 establish that the mother left the child with her disabled mother in an unhealthy environment; that two of the child's maternal uncles, who are convicted felons, stayed with the maternal grandmother while the child lived with her; and that the mother and one of the maternal uncles had a violent confrontation in the presence of the child at the maternal grandmother's home.
Although the trial court did not make specific findings of fact, the record reveals that the court heard testimony from the mother, the father, the maternal grandmother, the operator of the child's daycare center, and character witnesses. The trial court heard disputed testimony concerning the mother's lifestyle; the mother's leaving the child with the maternal grandmother for approximately six months before moving the child to Montgomery; the impediments of the maternal grandmother's age, physical disability, and health on her ability to care for the child; frequent visits by at least one of the maternal uncles, a convicted felon, with the maternal grandmother while the child was living with the maternal grandmother; and the maternal grandmother's allowing other relatives to care for the child while the child was living with her. After hearing arguments of counsel, the trial judge made the following statement:
This Court stated in Ex parte Bryowsky, 676 So. 2d 1322, 1324-26 (Ala. 1996):
The opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, read in the context of the entire record, which we have examined, reveals that that appellate court reweighed the evidence in this case and substituted its judgment for that of the trial court. The testimony of the parties and other witnesses, and the inferences the trial judge was authorized to draw from his observation of the witnesses and from the substance of their testimony, sufficiently support the trial court's finding that the change in custody would materially promote the best interests of the child and that the benefits of the change would more than offset the inherently disruptive effect caused by uprooting the child. Ex parte Bryowsky and Ex parte McLendon, supra. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals and remand the case to the Court of Civil Appeals for entry of a judgment consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
MOORE, C.J., and HOUSTON, SEE, LYONS, BROWN, HARWOOD, WOODALL, and STUART, JJ., concur.