Court Opinion

ID: 9717858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:11:44.678086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.871000
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
Rita Wyman, an adult woman, chose freely to leave Indiana, the locality in which she grew up, and to settle in the State of Colorado. There she married relator according to the laws of that state. They established a home there with all of the thought, sharing and activities that process entails. He held a job there. In that home she got in a family way. Together they chose to permit the pregnancy to run full term, to bring the child into the world, and to care for it. During her pregnancy there, she and the child received the care and attention of physicians. Within the last month of the pregnancy, Ms. Wyman elected to travel back to Indiana to give birth to the child. After the birth in Indiana in December, 1981, she elected not to return to her home in Colorado, and in response in four months' time her husband, the father of the child, and relator herein, filed the first court action on April 28, 1982, before the Honorable Richard P. Doucette, District Court Judge for the County of Routt, State of Colorado, Cause No. 82-DR-68. That action was for dissolution of the marriage and custody of the couple's minor child, and in that cause, following a hearing, Judge Doucette on November 29, 1982 made an *399initial order granting custody to the father, relator herein. At the time that order was made in Colorado there was no action pending in Indiana in which the issue of custody was raised. Indeed, after consultation with Judge Doucette, and a hearing upon jurisdiction, respondent court dismissed an Indiana action of Ms. Wyman for custody upon motion of relator on November 24, 1982, thereby expressly making clear the way for exercise of jurisdiction in the Colorado court five days later.
The Colorado order was filed for enforcement, pursuant to Ind.Code § 31-1-11.6-18, on December 16, 1982, in respondent court, and enforcement by the sheriff was ordered. Attempts at enforcement were not successful. On December 28, 1982, Ms. Wy-man fled to Marion County, Indiana where she filed a suit for custody in the Marion Superior Court, and obtained an ex parte order for temporary custody. On February 8, 1983, Judge Dugan of that court dismissed the action on motion of relator in light of the pending Colorado suit and order. On February 28, 1983, Ms. Wyman returned to Martin County and respondent court and filed an Amended Verified Petition for Custody and was granted an ex parte temporary custody order on February 25, 1988. ' The issue presented in this original action is whether the respondent court could properly exercise its jurisdiction to make that February 25th order.
At the time Ms. Wyman filed her Amended Verified Petition for Custody and Support in the Martin Circuit Court on February 28, 1988, Colorado Cause No. C-82-68 raising the custody issue between mother and father, from which cause the order granting the father custody had emanated, was then pending. Indiana Code § 31-1-11.6-6 governs where as here simultaneous proceedings are pending in different states. Subsection (a) provides:
"(a) A court of this state shall not exercise its jurisdiction under this chapter if at the time of filing the petition a proceeding concerning the custody of the child was pending in a court of another state exercising jurisdiction substantially in conformity with this chapter, unless the proceeding is stayed by the court of the other state because this state is a more appropriate forum or for other rea-song."
In this case the Colorado court has proceeded in substantial conformity with the UCCJL. It stayed the Colorado proceedings pending a determination by the respondent Indiana court of its jurisdiction and whether it was the more appropriate forum for litigating the custody issue. Respondent court deferred to the Colorado court as being the more appropriate forum, before the Colorado court made its November 29, 1982 order vesting custody of the child in relator. After the Colorado order was made and before respondent court granted its custody order, the Marion Superior Court likewise deferred to the Colorado court case. Moreover the jurisdiction of the Colorado court to litigate the custody issue is clear. Indiana Code § 81-1-11.6-4 provides that such jurisdiction exists where:
"(2) It is in the best interest of the child that a court of this state assume jurisdiction because (A) the child and his parents, or the child and at least one contestant, have a significant connection with this state, and (B) there is available in this state substantial evidence concerning the child's present or future care, protection, training, and personal relationships. ..."
The child has significant connections with the state in which his father lives and works and where both his mother and father made their permanent home up until a recent separation. The family doctor, the family dentist, the family church, the family friends and associates are all in Colorado. This is not to say that Indiana courts do not have jurisdiction in the same sense as well. It should not come as surprising that the courts of two states can have the basic jurisdiction as contemplated by Ind.Code § 31-1-11.6-8 at the same time. Having that jurisdiction is only the first hurdle which an Indiana court must get over in a case like the one before us. The second hurdle is the one erected by Ind.Code § 31-1-11.6-6(a) above which prohibits an
*400Indiana court from exercising "its jurisdiction under this chapter", where a case is already pending in the court of another state. Such a case was pending when the order below was made granting Ms. Wyman temporary custody, and the extraordinary writ should be issued to the respondent court to vacate its February 25, 1988 order granting temporary custody to the mother and to enforce the Colorado order granting custody to the father. To refuse the writ in this case is contrary to the statute and to reward truculence.