Opinion ID: 2605279
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: what was the issue?

Text: The pleaded issue was simply that the 1980 Nebraska order was entitled to full faith and credit. No contention was made that the Arizona decree was entitled to full faith and credit, or that there was any final decree which had been entered by a Nebraska court. Rather and to the contrary there is an intimation that the parties had submitted to the jurisdiction of the Nebraska court. The contention advanced was only that the 1980 Nebraska order was entitled to full faith and credit. The resolution of the issue thus presented would appear to be a question of law, i.e., the finality of the Nebraska order entitling it to recognition by an Idaho court under the provision of the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution, art. 4, § 1. We recently had before us such an issue in Mitchell v. Pincock, 99 Idaho 56, 577 P.2d 343 (1978). In that case a final decree of guardianship was entered in California and the enforcement of the decree sought in Idaho. The district court of Ada County reversed a decision of a magistrate of that court extending full faith and credit to the California decree. We in turn agreed with the magistrate and reversed the district court. Although the district court had approached the question as an issue of fact, i.e., the best interests of the child, we were obliged to and did as a matter of law give credence to the United States Constitution, once we ascertained the finality of the California decree under California law. Here, in order to resolve the issue before us, it is not necessary to pass upon the finality of the Nebraska order of 1980. That issue is not before us, and will not be. It is required, however, that we isolate the issue so that we can pass upon the validity of Judge Vehlow's order holding Ellen Marks in contempt of court, and thereafter incarcerating Marks in jail, and thereafter fining her a substantial amount of money. If the questions to which the judge demanded answers were not relevant to the issue before the judge, then the contempt order was invalid, and the fines collected should be returned. The answer is, of course, self-evident and hardly needful of saying. The answers sought were not by any stretch of the imagination germane to the sole issue of law presented. The jail incarceration and fines, undoubtedly aimed at punishing a violation of a direct order by the court to testify, cannot be said to be legally justified where the answers requested were not pertinent to the main issue raised by the petition for the writ. Hence, the order was in error. Had the habeas gone to judgment in favor of Alysia's father, and had Judge Vehlow found the Nebraska order entitled to full faith and credit, and had Judge Vehlow ordered Alysia's surrender by her mother, then there might have been some validity to an order directing Ellen Marks to answer the questions if propounded by the court in furtherance of supplemental proceedings enforcing its order  a question which need not be answered. A procedure is available which would appear to be far more appropriate, referring to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, which had not been enacted at the time of Mitchell v. Pincock , and referring also to I.C. §§ 18-4501(2) and 18-205. III. The majority, while expressing its approval of the language which it quotes from Zerilli v. Smith, 656 F.2d 705 (D.C. Cir.1981), nevertheless concocts the sanctity-safety exception  predicated upon the safety of a child not alleged nor shown to be in any way endangered and the sanctity of a writ which is being inappropriately utilized. Were the Court today required to decide the issue on wholly constitutional issues  which it clearly is not  while inclined to adopt the Zerilli language, I would not look so far afield for persuasive authority. Our neighboring sister state of Washington has considered the issue just this very year in Clampitt v. Thurston County, 98 Wash.2d 638, 658 P.2d 641 (1983), wherein the issue before the Washington Supreme Court was that of a reporter's privilege raised where the reporter, as here, refused to answer questions propounded to him. The case thus bears similarity to both our Sierra case and the case before us. In Clampitt, a nine-member court dealt in depth with the issue. Its opinion is available and one would think should be persuasive with today's majority, where the Clampitt court relies on the same Zerilli opinion which today's majority approves. It is readily ascertainable that the Washington court is of the view that in civil cases, at least, reporters will be accorded a common law privilege against compelled disclosure. The privilege is not absolute and the Washington court holds that The party seeking discovery may defeat the privilege by showing that (1) his or her claim is meritorious; (2) the information sought is critical to that claim; and (3) he or she has made a reasonable effort to obtain the information by other means. 658 P.2d at 644. This holding, especially as to (1) and (2), bears a striking similarity to our holding in Sierra Life. As Clampitt makes evident, and as petitioners here claim, trial courts cannot simply declare, as did respondent in this case, that no such claimed privilege existed. This would seem especially true where, as petitioner correctly claims here, that issue had not been joined between the parties to the litigation, and hence there was nothing before the court. But, even if there was something before the court, petitioner was entitled to a proper hearing  which here was not accorded to her.