Court Opinion

ID: 9668442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:13:55.362482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:45.525162
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the majority opinion but write to tout the proposition that ordinarily, guardians ad litem should be treated as advocates of the children or investigators for the court, and not expert witnesses.
A trial court may, sua sponte, or at the request of either party, appoint a guardian ad litem to represent the interests of the child. NDCC § 14-09-06.4. It may also appoint an investigator of its choice to conduct an investigation and report its findings to the court. NDCC § 14-09-06.2. In this case, the court appointed the guardian ad litem and then directed her to conduct the interview, authorized by section 14-09-06.2, of the parents, children, and others, and make a recommendation as to the requested modification of the children’s custody. Thus, the guardian ad litem was selected to fulfill both roles: investigator and advocate.
Guardians ad litem range in experience and training from professional child psychologists to interested lay persons and attorneys. Tara Lea Mulhauser, From “Best” to “Better”: The Interests of Children and the Role of a Guardian Ad Litem, 66 N.D.L.Rev. 633, 634 (1990). Our law has carefully distinguished between expert testimony and guardian-ad-litem recommendations. See, *593e.g., McGurren v. S.T., 241 N.W.2d 690 (N.D.1976) [remanding for expert testimony concerning future harm to infant from remaining with mother and refusing to give “special consideration” to recommendation of guardian ad litem]; NDCC § 14-17-15 [permitting court to order one or both parties to pay fees of “counsel, experts, and the child’s guardian ad litem” (emphasis added)]. Compare In Interest of R.W.B., 241 N.W.2d 546, 666 (N.D.1976) [applying law governing weight of expert testimony to guardian’s ad litem testimony, but stopping short of accepting “the proposition that [a] guardian ad litem [is] an expert witness.”].
I believe the better approach favors maintaining the separate legal status of guardians ad litem as advocates of the children they represent and as fact-finding investigators. Only if an individual guardian ad litem were to possess special skills, qualifications, or experience which the trial court were to acknowledge as conferring expert status, should a guardian ad litem be treated as an expert.