Court Opinion

ID: 9700138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:12:15.739225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:05.074120
License: Public Domain

*589
Davidson, J.,

dissenting:

In concluding that custody of Stephanie Lee Powers should be transferred from her paternal grandparents to her natural mother, the majority has relied upon a court-made presumption that the child’s welfare will best be served in the care and custody of her mother. They maintain that custody may be denied to a natural parent only when such parent is unfit or there are other exceptional circumstances. They conclude that the natural mother here is fit, and that no other exceptional circumstance exists.
I believe that in assessing what constitutes the best interests and welfare of Stephanie Lee Powers, the majority has become involved with concern for a natural mother faced with the possible loss of a child, and has focused on her rights, needs, and conduct rather than on the interests of the child. Such a focus is common in contests between natural parents and custodial parents. For example, custody will be awarded to the natural parents if they have lost custody of their children involuntarily as a result of circumstances beyond their control, on the theory that such parents do not deserve to suffer. In contrast, custody will be awarded to the custodial parents where the natural parents have relinquished control over the children as a result of their own actions, on the theory that they are responsible for the consequences. Because the impact on the child of separation from its natural parent is the same whether custody was voluntarily or involuntarily surrendered, such considerations are totally irrelevant to the central issue in a custody case, namely what constitutes the best interests of the child.
Here the majority implicitly characterizes the adulterous mother’s surrender of custody as “involuntary,” and therefore as a factor militating in favor of a return of the child to her custody. In so doing, they fail to consider the fact that the mother voluntarily engaged in adulterous conduct, which inevitably caused her loss of custody. The majority’s inaccurate characterization demonstrates that underlying their opinion is the unarticulated feeling that, notwithstanding Maryland law, the natural mother should *590not have lost custody of her child as a result of her adulterous conduct. When all is said and done, the majority here has determined that solely because the adulterous mother has “repented,” and has thereby been converted, under Maryland law, from an “unfit” to a “fit” parent, six-year old Stephanie should be removed from a stable and successful environment. This determination is based upon no more than an unsupported finding that she will not be traumatized and an unsubstantiated presumption that some intangible force derived from natural parental love will provide her an environment superior to that which she has enjoyed during the previous three years of her life. Such a view is not consonant with Maryland law, which recognizes that if the best interests of the child are to be preserved, such outmoded, irrelevant and unfounded notions must be discarded. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The custody of children should not be disturbed unless there is some strong reason affecting the welfare of the children.1 To justify a change in the custody of a child, a change in conditions must have occurred which affects the welfare of the child and not of the parent.2 In accord with this principle it has been held that, where a parent surrenders complete custody of an infant for such a long time that its interests and affections attach to the persons who have filled the place of the parent, and where the infant develops into a healthy and happy child, then, if the parent seeks to reclaim the child by judicial decree, the court should place the right of the parent subordinate to the right of those who have performed the parental duties. This is done to protect the welfare of the child which largely depends upon the ties of companionship formed over the course of the years.3
*591Primary reliance upon parental rights which have not intentionally been abandoned or forfeited may well be appropriate in an adoption case ***4 or in a custody case in which the children have not long been separated from the parents, but such emphasis is not proper in a custody case where the best interests of a child, long separated from a parent, must govern. The strength of the family ties formed by a child with persons who fill the place of its natural parents, and the healthy and happy development of such a child, are regarded as being of such paramount importance that neither the age of the parental replacements,5 nor the fact that the child would be united with a sibling if returned to the natural parent,6 has been considered sufficient to justify a change in custody and the return of the child to a natural parent.
Here the record shows that Stephanie has been in the care and custody of her paternal grandparents from the age of two years and nine months, in January, 1972, to the time of the hearing on the present petition, in April, 1975, a period of three years and three months. During the last two of these three years, the natural mother had visited her on only *592three occasions. The paternal grandfather, age 49, and grandmother, age 44, are fit and proper custodians. The mother herself testified that Stephanie has been well cared for and loved by the paternal grandparents, and that she is “pretty normal.” Stephanie’s kindergarten teacher testified that the child is an “above average” student, is well-mannered, gets along well with other children, and is well-adjusted and secure.
In the absence of any evidence to show that the paternal grandparents are unfit to care for this child, and that she is experiencing any kind of difficulty, there is nothing in this record which justifies a change in custody. The stability to be provided by a continued relationship with two good and loving grandparents far outweighs any disadvantages to the child which might come from not living with her mother and her half-brother. There is absolutely no reason to expose the child to the risks inherent in uprooting her and moving her to a new environment.7
The Court of Appeals has recognized that custody will not be awarded merely to gratify the natural maternal affection.8 This Court has said that “custody is not a prize to be handed by the court to the innocent or unerrant parent *593solely on the basis of his or her innocence or unerring ways.” 9 In my view, the fact that the natural mother has become a fit and proper custodian is insufficient in and of itself to justify a change in custody. Accordingly, I would reverse the chancellor’s determination with respect to the custody of Stephanie Lee Powers.

. Krebs v. Krebs, 255 Md. 264, 266, 257 A. 2d 428, 429 (1969); Kramer v. Kramer, 26 Md. App. 620, 623, 339 A. 2d 328, 331 (1975); Sullivan v. Auslaender, 12 Md. App. 1, 5, 276 A. 2d 698, 701 (1971).

. Winter v. Crowley, 231 Md. 323, 331, 190 A. 2d 87, 91 (1963); Kramer, supra, 26 Md. App. at 623, 339 A. 2d at 331; Peterman v. Peterman, 14 Md. App. 310, 320-21, 286 A. 2d 812, 819 (1972); Sullivan, supra, 12 Md. App. at 5, 276 A. 2d at 701.

. Melton v. Connolly, 219 Md. 184, 188-89, 148 A. 2d 387, 389-90 (1959); *591Ross v. Pick, 199 Md. 341, 352, 86 A. 2d 463, 469 (1952); Dietrich v. Anderson, 185 Md. 103, 119-20, 43 A. 2d 186, 192-93 (1945); Piotrowski v. State, 179 Md. 377, 383, 18 A. 2d 199, 201-02 (1941).
The validity of the Court of Appeals’ policy recently has been substantiated in J. Goldstein, A. Freud and A. Solnit, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). The authors demonstrate that because of the law’s inability to make long-range predictions, child placement should provide the least detrimental alternative for protecting the child’s development. They functionally define and contrast tifie biological parent-child relationship and the psychological parent-child relationship. They establish that the emotional well-being of the child requires that placement decisions safeguard the child’s need for continuity of relationship with the psychological parents. They conclude that in terms of the child’s well-being, the rights of the biological parents are irrelevant and must be subordinated to the child’s right to an uninterrupted relationship with its psychological parents.

. See Dawson v. Eversberg, 257 Md. 308, 313, 262 A. 2d 729, 732 (1970); Walker v. Gardner, 221 Md. 280, 284, 157 A. 2d 273, 275 (1960); Lloyd v. Schutes, 24 Md. App. 515, 521-22, 332 A. 2d 338, 341-42 (1975).

. Trenton v. Christ, 216 Md. 418, 422-23, 140 A. 2d 660, 662 (1958); Piotrowski, supra, 179 Md. at 380, 18 A. 2d at 200.

. Lippy v. Breidenstein, 249 Md. 415, 420, 240 A. 2d 251, 254 (1968); Melton, supra, 219 Md. at 190, 148 A. 2d at 390.

. Goldstein, Freud and Solnit, supra, describe the risk inherent in disturbing the continuity of relationships of a school-age child, at 33-34:
“For school-age children, the breaks in their relationships with their psychological parents affect above all those achievements which are based on identification with the parents’ demands, prohibitions, and social ideals. Such'identifications develop only where attachments are stable and tend'to be abandoned by the child if he feels abandoned by the adults in question. Thus, where children are made to wander from one environment to another, they may cease to identify with any set of substitute parents. Resentment toward the adults who have disappointed them in the past makes them adopt the attitude of not caring for anybody; or of making the new parent the scapegoat for the shortcomings of the former one. In any case, multiple placement at these ages puts many children beyond the reach of educational influence, and becomes the direct cause of behavior which the schools experience as disrupting and the courts label as dissocial, delinquent, or even criminal.” (Footnote omitted. Emphasis in original.)

. Townsend v. Townsend, 205 Md. 591, 596, 109 A. 2d 765, 767 (1954); Carter v. Carter, 156 Md. 500, 506, 144 A. 490, 492 (1929); see Atkins v. Gose, 189 Md. 542, 551, 56 A. 2d 697, 701 (1948).

. Mullinix v. Mullinix, 12 Md. App. 402, 411, 278 A. 2d 674, 679 (1971).