Court Opinion

ID: 9584568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:50:09.358659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:43.198484
License: Public Domain

Hays, J.
(dissenting) — While I feel that the decree appealed from should be modified, I do not agree that it should be reversed.
The case involves the question of the right of divorced parents to know and associate with their children. In 1949' the plain*144tiff and defendant were divorced and the custody of their three minor boys, age six, seven and eight, was granted to the father. The decree allowed the mother to visit them during certain hours on Saturday or Sunday of each week. For some six months prior to the decree, the mother was living at Goshen, Indiana, which had been her former home. The divorce was not contested and the instant record does not disclose the grounds upon which the decree was granted. One may, however, search this record with a microscope and not find a single word derogatory of either parent. The children, since the divorce, have lived with their father in his mother’s home and have undoubtedly received good care. At the time of the divorce the mother was working as a waitress in Elkhart, Indiana, and had no home to which she could have taken the children. It also appears she had no financial security. Since then she has married and now has a modern and comfortable home at Maumee, Ohio, and a steady and reliable husband who is willing to have the children in the home.
It should be noted that the petition herein asks only that the defendant-mother have the children for three months in the summer, and the decree, which the majority reverses, grants her the right to have them for a three-weeks visit.
The majority opinion deals at considerable length upon our well-recognized rule that there must be a change of circumstances since the divorce was granted, before a trial court may change or modify a divorce decree. I have no complaint with this rule, but do disagree with the statement in the majority opinion that no change of circumstances is shown, such as to permit a modification. The request for a change of the decree only as it applies to the visitation rights is such that the mere fact of the mother having a home to take the children is sufficient to grant the trial court the right to modify, if in its discretion such appears to be desirable.
The majority opinion treats a request to change ás to a right of visitation the same as though it was a change of custody. I do not agree that it is. “Custody” means control of a person with such actual or constructive possession as fulfills the purpose of the law or duty requiring it. “Visit” means the act of visiting a person; a short stay, usually longer than a call, sometimes involving brief residence. Both of the above defini*145tions are found in Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition. In Burge v. City and County of San Francisco, Cal. App., 256 P.2d 382, 386, it states that the essential element of custody of a child of divorced parents is the right to make decisions regarding the child’s care, control, education, health and religion. In my judgment, visitation rights do not contain this element.
This court has recognized the difference between custody and visitation, as used in child custody cases. In re Adoption of Chinn, 238 Iowa 4, 8, 25 N.W.2d 735, 737, cites with approval Hardesty v. Hardesty, 150 Kan. 271, 273, 92 P.2d 49, 50, to the effect that “ ‘right of visitation does not give custody.’ ” See also In re Kelly’s Adoption, 47 Cal. App.2d 577, 118 P.2d 479. In the recent case of Stillmunkes v. Stillmunkes, 245 Iowa 1082, 65 N.W.2d 366, this court clearly recognizes the difference. At page 1087 of 245 Iowa, page 369 of 65 N.W.2d, it is said, “We find no reason to disagree and therefore agree with the trial court in its determination that the care and custody of the plaintiff [action was habeas corpus for the custody of a child] should remain with the mother,” and yet it modified the decree as to visitation. See also Rader v. Davis, 154 Iowa 306, 307, 134 N.W. 849, 38 L. R. A, N.S., 131, Ann. Cas. 1914A 1245; Fitch v. Fitch, 207 Iowa 1193, 224 N.W. 503; Jensen v. Jensen, 237 Iowa 1323, 25 N.W.2d 316.
As to the modification of the decree: The record shows that the mother desires to take the children out of the jurisdiction of this state and into the state of Ohio. The majority opinion calls attention to the danger of the mother, once she gets the children into Ohio, commencing habeas corpus for the custody thereof. Under the recognized rule, here and elsewhere, the provision of a divorce decree of another jurisdiction, as it pertains to child custody, has no binding effect upon the courts of another jurisdiction. Under the theory of “what is best for the children,” the court then having the children before it will determine the question as it sees fit. I have stated in the past, and I still think, that such a rule is highly detrimental to the stability of the child rather than beneficial, but the rule exists and must be recognized. Helton v. Crawley, 241 Iowa 296, 41 N.W.2d 60.
*146I think all questions concerning both custody and visitation belong in the Scott District Court. To permit the children to be taken into Ohio creates at least a jeopardy, the degree thereof depending upon the secret intentions of the mother. On the other hand I am old-fashioned enough to believe that children, the innocent victims of a wrecked home, should have the opportunity to know their parents (both of them), and the parents to know their own children unless it clearly appears that such association would be detrimental to the children. It is true the record shows that at the time of the divorce the mother was living apart from the father; that she consented to the father having the custody; that she saw them but a few times between July 8, 1949, the date of the divorce, and 1953, when this action was commenced. But the record also shows that at the time of the divorce she had no home in which to take them; she was without finances and lived several hundred miles from the home of the father. I can find nothing in the record upon which to base an assumption that the mother has abandoned them or that her mother’s love for them is gone, and there is absolutely nothing in the record to show that association with her will be detrimental.
I would modify the decree by providing that before the children were removed from the state, the mother should post a bond with the clerk of the Scott County Court, conditioned upon the return of the children upon completion of the visitation period. I think a bond of $1000 would not be unreasonable. True, this does not guarantee their return, but it would, in my opinion, materially reduce the doubt thereof. I think the benefits far outweigh the risks.
As so modified, I would affirm the decree of the trial court.
Mulroney, J., joins in this dissent.