Opinion ID: 1956315
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alleged Trial Court Reliance on the New York Court Order

Text: Appellant makes much of the fact that when he took his daughter from her maternal grandfather on February 22, 1976, there was no outstanding written court order granting custody to his wife. See note 1, supra. He argues that Mrs. Moore's reliance upon the New York court's temporary custody order of February 23 was therefore fraudulent, in that she misled the District of Columbia court into believing, erroneously, that Mr. Moore had kidnapped the child in violation of an outstanding judicial decree. He further maintains that the trial court erred by relying upon this faulty factual premise in rendering its decision. Mrs. Moore did have what was asserted to be a temporary custody order marked at trial, but the court sustained objection to its admission on authentication grounds. As a result, it was never entered into evidence. It appears that the trial court did not consider Mr. Moore's alleged violation of an outstanding written court order in resolving any of the issues. In fact, apparently the court's decision was not even influenced by Mr. Moore's conceded disregard of the New York court's oral temporary custody order of December 30, 1975. The trial court, in fact, expressly disavowed any reliance on the New York order when, on April 7, 1977, it issued the memorandum and order denying Reuben Moore's new trial motion. The court did refer in its memorandum to the fact that plaintiff is quite capable of, again, taking the child from the jurisdiction of this court or any other court of the United States. He has a history of having done so. But this finding was amply supported by both parties' evidence and does not reflect a trial court understanding that Mr. Moore, in doing so, had violated a judicial decree. Even if we assume, moreover for the sake of argument, that Mrs. Moore misrepresented the status of the New York judicial proceedings, we cannot find that it had any effect upon the deliberations and decision of the trial judge in this case. We therefore reject this claim of error.