Court Opinion

ID: 9709273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:43:56.716052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.333006
License: Public Domain

Thomas Gallagher, Judge
(dissenting).
The effect of the order of the trial court, which is affirmed here, is to deny forever to Robert Lloyd Wilkinson, natural father of Robert Lloyd Wilkinson, Jr., 9 years of age, not only the visitation rights accorded to him in a divorce decree but also the right to any future contact with his son for whom he feels a deep love and affection.
The language of M. S. A. 259.24, subd. 1, which the majority asserts compels this result, specifies that:
“No child shall be adopted without the consent of his parents and his guardian, if there be one, except in the following instances:
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“(b) Consent shall not be required of a parent who has abandoned the child, or of a parent who has lost custody of the child through a divorce decree, * *
In the divorce proceedings, upon stipulation of the parties, custody of the child was awarded to the mother, Elsie C. Wilkinson, now Elsie C. Jordet, one of the petitioners herein. This award was “subject * * * to the right of the defendant to take said child with him once each month for a period not to exceed two (2) days, provided, however, that such visitation does not interfere with the education of said child and provided further than under no circumstances shall the defendant take said child outside of the State of Minnesota.” The order further provided that Robert Lloyd Wilkinson pay the sum of $15 per week for the child’s support.
The judgment therein was entered August 28, 1952. During the following May, the mother, without the knowledge or consent of the father, moved with the child from Minneapolis to Sacred Heart, Minnesota, to the home of the parents of her present husband, Merton C. Jordet. At no time thereafter did she advise the father as to her new residence. He testified that he was unable to locate either the child or the mother until December of 1953; that when he first learned *445that they had gone to Sacred Heart he went there and was told that they had gone west; that he talked to the father of Merton C. Jordet, petitioner, hut “didn’t get any information whatsoever, and * * * kept checking to see if they ever came hack to Sacred Heart, and * * * finally found them just before Christmas 1953.”
With reference to the payments required by the decree, he testified that he had made such payments up to the time his former wife had left Minneapolis, but since then such payments had fallen in arrears; that he discontinued them after she left mainly because she would not allow him to take the boy on visits; that at times when she was in Minneapolis or St. Paul and he had asked her if he might keep the child a day or so, she had insisted that he return the child after about three hours. He further testified that he is engaged in the trucking business in St. Paul; that, while it was not easy for him to get away from his work, he had gone to Sacred Heart to visit his son at least every two or three months after he had located the child there; that it was his intention to include his boy as a participant in his estate which would likely be in a substantial amount ; and that he carried health insurance covering the boy.
The record indicates that, in a prior divorce proceeding between the same parties, the mother had left the child, then only 9 months old, at the home of the parties, which was then in Eockford, Illinois, and that thereafter the father had cared for the child without assistance from the mother who had remained away from him for a period of approximately two years. He testified that, in the divorce proceedings involved herein, he had stipulated and consented to the award of custody to the mother with the specific understanding that in return therefor he would be accorded reasonable visitation rights including the right to “have the boy once in a while.”
A reasonable construction of § 259.24, subd. 1(b), would not seem to require a determination that, when there has been an award of a child’s custody to one parent in a divorce proceeding, and such award has been made contingent upon reasonable visitation rights being accorded to the other parent, such award is absolute to the extent of compelling a finding that thereafter the necessity of obtain*446ing the written consent of the latter parent in subsequent adoption proceedings involving the child was thereby eliminated. To hold thus is to effectuate a means whereby a parent, bearing a deep love for a child and without serious fault, is forever cut off from the child merely because, in an act of compromise or kindness, consent has been given to an award of the child’s custody to the other parent. I do not believe the legislature intended that § 259.24, subd. 1(b), be given such a harsh and arbitrary effect. This seems to be particularly true when it is recalled that by virtue of § 518.18 an award of custody in divorce proceedings is never regarded as final and may at any time be modified when a child’s best interest would so require.