Opinion ID: 2164184
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: brian

Text: Brian, age 9, was awarded to the mother. Testimony of a clinical psychologist established that Brian needed a strong male figure with whom he could identify. Evidence further established that the father clearly provided a strong father figure and that he took all of the children hunting and fishing. The mother is a weak figure and preoccupied with her personal pursuits. The father is a well-respected attorney in Lemmon, South Dakota, where he was born, raised, and now practices law. Under the guiding hand of his father, Brian would have a stable, predictable life and testimony reveals that the mother was most unstable. The lower court did not, in any way, hold or even suggest that the father was unfit for custody. The mother demonstrated irresponsible conduct in leaving this boy. Encharging the father with the boy's custody reveals her belief that the father could ably raise the boy. It was an abuse of discretion to award Brian unto the mother. The trial record establishes that the father provided a better moral example than the mother; he obviously provided a more stable home life. The trial court erroneously dismissed this evidence. In my specially concurring opinion in Spaulding v. Spaulding, 278 N.W.2d 642 (S.D.1979), I expressed that the father and mother must be compared as to who could provide the better educational, moral, physical, emotional, temporal, and mental benefits. Needless to say, when comparing these contending parents it is readily apparent that the father was the overwhelming jurisprudential choice in whom to repose custody of these three children. In Spaulding, supra, at 641 this Court stated: When the mother, by irresponsible conduct, indicates that her care and custody would be detrimental to the welfare of the child, custody may be awarded to the father. Hines v. Hines, 78 S.D. 464, 104 N.W.2d 375 (1960); Blow v. Lottman, 75 S.D. 127, 59 N.W.2d 825 (1953); Sweeney v. Joneson, 75 S.D. 213, 63 N.W.2d 249 (1954). The trial court has broad discretion in awarding custody of minor children, and this Court will not interfere with that discretion unless the record presents a clear case of abuse. Holforty v. Holforty, 272 N.W.2d 810 (S.D.1978); Pochop v. Pochop, 89 S.D. 466, 233 N.W.2d 806 (1962). However, that discretion is a judicial discretion, not an uncontrolled one, and its exercise must have sound and substantive basis in the testimony. Hines v. Hines, supra; Bunim v. Bunim, 298 N.Y. 391, 393, 83 N.E.2d 848, 849 (1949). In Yager v. Yager, 83 S.D. 315, 317, 159 N.W.2d 125, 127 (1968), this Court stated: Neither parent is entitled to custody as a matter of right. The consideration paramount to all others is the welfare and best interests of the children [citing] Larson v. Larson, 70 S.D. 178, 16 N.W.2d 307 (1944); Howells v. Howells, 79 S.D. 480, 113 N.W.2d 533 (1962). The mother would immerse and cloud our thinking with the liberal argument: bad wife but not bad mother. The record discloses she was both. Good mothers do not forsake their children and leave the family home to take up a life of a person totally unaware of parental responsibility. It could be urged that the children were unaware of her adulterous life. However, this Court has also stated that the fact that children, because of their ages, do not understand the improprieties of their mother is not determinative. Yager, supra, at 317, 159 N.W.2d at 128; see also Currin v. Currin, 125 Cal.App.2d 644, 271 P.2d 61 (1954) and Bunim, supra. It is to be remembered that the mother taught in the Lemmon School system from January 1969 until the end of the 1977 school year. For nearly two years, the evidence shows that the mother carried on an adulterous affair with her superintendent. Her meretricious conduct included rendezvouses with the superintendent at Minneapolis, Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Flagstaff, Arizona. This conduct finally burst upon the public scene in this small western South Dakota town into public affection. To my way of thinking, this was detrimental to these young girls and this little boy. The children attended the Lemmon School system where the superintendent presided and the mother was a teacher. When confronted by her husband, the mother lied about her relationship with the superintendent. Similar acts of adultery have been found by the courts to constitute evidence of aggravated maternal unfitness and custody was awarded to the father. McNamara v. McNamara, 181 N.W.2d 206 (Iowa 1970); Peck v. Peck, 16 Ill.2d 268, 157 N.E.2d 249 (1959); Baker v. Baker, 166 Neb. 306, 89 N.W.2d 35 (1958). Applying the settled law of this state to the facts of this case, I therefore dissent and would reverse the trial court and return (vest custody in) the two children to their father for these reasons: (1) there was no sound and substantial basis in the testimony to grant their custody to the mother, (2) the mother's irresponsible conduct has indicated that her care and custody would be detrimental to the children, and (3) the welfare and best interests of the children would be best served by placing them with the father. I concur in the balance of the majority opinion.