Court Opinion

ID: 9444551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:10.969292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:55.212424
License: Public Domain

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge, with whom STEPHENS, Chief Judge, joins
(concurring).
We are of the majority to whom our brother BAZELON refers as believing the finding that Mrs. Bartlett had reasonable cause to leave her husband was clearly erroneous. We concur in his opinion but are impelled to a further brief statement on this point.
This case concerns the custody of a child. Translated into language applicable to that problem, the finding that the wife had reasonable cause to leave her husband means that this wife had reasonable cause to break up the family home, the child’s home. The record does not support such a finding. The reasons advanced by the wife for leaving the home were the sort of irritations and difficul*514ties which not infrequently beset normal, decent human beings attempting to live together under one roof, especially two people in marital status. She thought him unduly critical of her, unnecessarily petulant at times, needlessly concerned over domestic expenditures, unsatisfactory in the marital relationship, and so on. They may have been somewhat mis-mated. She was young, liked people, was interested in what she called pleasures, such as trips, etc. He was taciturn, ungregarious, mindful of the needs of a rainy day, wanted to own a house. Perhaps these characteristics may produce the sort of unhappiness which is an acceptable social, although not legal, reason for two people to cease to live together. But we are here concerned with a sterner problem. The welfare of a child is involved. A basic public policy plays a part. The welfare of a child lies in a home with two normal, decent parents. W1 ere there are such parents and a home, public policy dictates that the family unit be maintained. That a price must be paid for it by one or both parents is of no concern from the standpoint of the child. The courts should not, and in our view must not, declare as a matter of law or as a conclusion of fact that circumstances such as those depicted in this record constitute reasonable cause for the destruction of such a home. The welfare of the child dictates otherwise.
The finding in question was one of the two which the District Court specifically directed counsel to include in the draft to be submitted for court approval. So it appears that the court gave great weight to it. It is in order that the doctrine implicit in that finding may not stand as a ruling in respect to awards of custody in this jurisdiction that we are compelled, as we see it, to vacate the judgment and remand the case for reconsideration of the award.
We agree that in determining which parent is to be custodian of the child it is not necessary to decide which of the parents is to blame for the destruction of the home. Expressed in other words, it is not necessary to find whether there was or was not reasonable cause, in a strictly legal sense, for the departing spouse to leave. These are the adversary rights of the parents of which Judge BAZELON writes, and they are, as he says, immaterial to custodianship. We are not so sure that the District Court meant “reasonable cause” in that strict legal sense; it may have meant a colloquial, or social, reasonable cause. But we agree with the others of the majority of this court that the law knows no reasonable cause for the separation of married couples except the causes specified in the statutes pertaining to divorce and separation, and we should not attempt to set up a new category of reasonable causes to use as criteria in custody cases. At the same time we agree that the circumstances which in fact generate a decision on the part of one spouse to leave the other may be relevant and material to the relative fitness of the parents to take proper care of the child. For the purpose of determining fitness for custodianship, such circumstances may be considered. To us the important consideration in this phase of this case is to make clear and certain that in this jurisdiction incidents and circumstances such as .those depicted here do not constitute reasonable cause in any sense of the term for the destruction of a child’s home.