Opinion ID: 1957359
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standards for Custody Determination

Text: When considering the application of the best interests of the child standard it is essential to frame the different situations in which it is attempted to be applied. First, and certainly the most important application of the standard, is in disputes between fit natural parents, each of whom has equal constitutional rights to parent. In those cases the dispute can be resolved best if not solely, by an application of the best interests of the child standard. This situation most often arises in marriage dissolution issues between natural parents and it is necessary to resolve the matters of custody and visitation between two constitutionally equally qualified parents. Although the Court is unaware of any compilation of numbers, it can reasonably be supposed that the vast majority of cases throughout the country in which the best interest of the child standard is applied, or sought to be applied, are of this nature. When these cases are subtracted from the total universe of custody and visitation cases, there remains a much smaller number of cases. The second most frequent situation in which that standard has been applied is, we believe, in the various types of state proceedings in which the states are injecting themselves into the parenting situation in the exercise of their generally recognized power to protect the child. In various jurisdictions, and sometimes in different cases within the same jurisdiction, the standard applied, after recognizing the power of the state to intervene in the case by reason of unfitness or circumstance, is an avoidance of harm to the child or a best interest standard, and often both standards. Most often the best interest standard becomes applicable after a finding that it is necessary to protect the child who is being exposed to harm by the parental unit. When these numerous cases are subtracted from the total number of custody and visitation dispute cases, the remainder of the cases fit into an even smaller category. This category is generically referred to as third-party custody disputes, i.e., persons other than natural parents or the State attempting, directly or indirectly, to gain or maintain custody or visitation in respect to the children of natural parents. In some states, third-party issues arise in actions involving those states' use of guardianship, i.e., custody actions appear to be titled sometimes as guardianship actions although they are in essence custody actions. In some states the actions are titled as habeas corpus actions, in some states the third party seeks custody through intervention in a domestic action between the natural parents (as in the present case), and in some states the third party initiates a separate action titled in some other manner. Even within the third-party subset of custody actions there are further differences. Some states have conceptualized the idea of physiological parents, third parties who have, in effect, become parents and thus, the case is considered according to the standards that apply between natural parents. This further reduces the number of pure third-party cases. The pure third-party cases are further narrowed in some jurisdictions by failure of adoption cases, in which, upon the failure of adoption, a best interest standard may be applied. In still other pure third-party cases, in respect to the standard to be used, all parties seeking custody of children are designated as third parties. In that situation there are no constitutional rights involved (although in some cases constitutional claims are made using terms such as psychological parent and the like) and the best interest standard is generally applied. There are also those cases which we would otherwise call pure third-party cases, except that the natural parents did not raise the issue of their fundamental constitutional right to parent in that particular case and the courts accordingly did not address it. These cases further reduce the body of cases that we shall discuss. Indeed, other types of situations may further reduce the number of pure third-party cases. In any event, in comparison with the total number of cases in which attempts are made to utilize the best interest standard, or it is used, the number of pure third-party cases, such as the present case, is relatively small. It is on these remaining cases throughout the country, that we primarily focus our attention. [15] We have been able to separate the cases (and the states) into three categories. First, those that utilize, as the ultimate determining factor, the best interest standard (which appears to be the minority view). Second, those cases (and the states) that appear to use some type of hybrid standard or have utilized language in the opinions that support both the best interest standard and the unfit parent and/or extraordinary circumstances standard. We shall refer to these cases as the hybrid view. The third category of cases, which appear to be the majority of the cases and the states, hold that, in this limited class of pure third-party custody cases (the category of the present case), that the best interest standard is inappropriate unless the finder of fact first finds that the natural parents are unfit, the natural parents by their conduct have waived or lost their constitutional protections, or there is a finding of extraordinary, exceptional, or compelling circumstances that require the court to remove the child from the natural parents in order to protect the child from harm. It is only if the parents are unfit, or if there is some exceptional circumstance exposing the child to harm, that the child may be removed from the custody of the parents. If a preliminary finding of parental unfitness or extraordinary circumstances is made, the court is then faced with what to do with the child. In only that context, then, after such preliminary findings are proved, may the custody of the child be based on a best interest standard. This last standard appears to be the majority view in the United States and, until very recently, likely was the Maryland position, albeit the language of our cases over the years has not been altogether clear. To the extent we may not have explicitly previously adopted the majority view in third-party custody cases in this state, we do so now. We shall discuss, for the most part, only the pure third-party cases since the early 1970'sthe era when the Supreme Court, in various types of cases, re-emphasized the constitutional rights of parents.