Court Opinion

ID: 9774373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:17:59.264653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:07.152406
License: Public Domain

HARRELL, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Majority opinion. I write separately principally from trepidation for what the Majority opinion does not state clearly enough for me as to the thrust and sweep of its reasoning when it addresses disapprovingly language in McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 354, 869 A.2d 751, 770 (2005), and Ross v. Hoffman, 280 Md. 172, 178-79, 372 A.2d 582, 587 (1977), (and also in In Re Adoption/Guardianship of Rashaum H. and Tyrese H., 402 Md. 477, 495, 937 A.2d 177, 188 (2007)), which holds that “no further inquiry” (or words to that effect) by judges is required into the best interests of the child in custody disputes involving at least one non-parental challenger, unless the presumption of parental control (a right of constitutional dimension) is overcome by sufficient and persuasive evidence of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances indicating that continued parental control would be detrimental to the best interests of the child. Just as the Majority opinion professes, I too *118have great respect for Judge Wilner’s opinion for the Court in Rashawn H. (which opinion I joined) because it offered a comprehensive and harmonized expression of how to balance the important common law and statutory factors that figure in the proper resolution of a CINA/TPR child custody dispute between parents and the State.1 Although the Majority opinion in Ta’Niya C. also is a well-expressed and well-structured body of legal reasoning for the most part, it contributes little additional insight, in my view, into the relevant area of Maryland family law than did Rashawn H., with the exception of its apparent disapproval of the “no further inquiry” language in Rashawn H., which it traces back to McDermott and Ross.
In its ambition to restore the status quo before Ross and McDermott were decided, the Majority opinion muddles the meaning of Rashawn H. and the proper role of the legal presumption of parental fitness to raise a child. While recognizing that Rashawn H. opined that the best interests of the child “infuses each element of a court’s analysis in TPR cases,” the Majority opinion here perceives that “other language crept into the opinion and apparently caused confusion.” Majority op. at 104, 8 A.3d at 753. The creepy language in Rashawn H. that alarms the Majority is Rashawn H.’s reiteration of McDermott’s principle that “if no parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances exist, ‘there is no need to inquire further as to where the best interest of the child lies.’ ” Majority op. at 105, 8 A.3d at 753, citing Rashawn H., 402 Md. at 495, 937 A.2d at 177.2 The full context of that language from Rashawn *119H. is supplied by the Majority in its footnote 13, Majority op. at 105, 8 A.3d at 753-54 (quoting Rashawn H., 402 Md. at 494-95, 937 A.2d at 177-78 (emphasis in Rashawn H.)):
The great majority of custody (and visitation) disputes, of course, are between the child’s parents, neither of whom, at least since the adoption of our State Equal Rights Amendment (Md. Decl. of Rts., Art. 46), has any preference over the other in that regard. In that setting, the governing standard, here and throughout the country, is and long has been the child’s best interest. See McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 353-55, 869 A.2d 751, 770-71 (2005). Custody and visitation decisions in disputes between the parents are made based on what the court finds to be in the child’s best interest. That decision generally lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge and is rarely disturbed on appeal.
A different element, though not a different standard, comes into play when the dispute is between a parent and a third party, for in that setting, there is a legal preference. In those cases, we have recognized that parents have a fundamental, Constitutionally-based right to raise their children free from undue and unwarranted interference on the part of the State, including its courts. See, most recently, Koshko v. Haining, 398 Md. 404, 921 A.2d 171 (2007); also McDermott v. Dougherty, supra, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d 751; Shurupoff v. Vockroth, 372 Md. 639, 814 A.2d 543 (2003); Ross v. Hoffman, 280 Md. 172, 372 A.2d 582 (1977). Even in those cases, however, we have not discarded the best interest of the child standard, but rather have harmonized it with that fundamental right.
We have created that harmony by recognizing a substantive presumption—a presumption of law and fact—that it is in the best interest of children to remain in the care and custody of their parents. The parental right is not absolute, however. The presumption that protects it may be rebutted upon a showing either that the parent is “unfit” or that “exceptional circumstances” exist which would make continued custody with the parent detrimental to the best interest *120of the child. In McDermott, the Court made clear that, in a parent-third party custody dispute, the initial focus must be on whether the parent is unfit or such exceptional circumstances exist, for, if one or the other is not shown, the presumption applies and there is no need to inquire further as to where the best interest of the child lies. In Koshko, we extended that approach to parent-third party visitation disputes as well.
(Some internal citations omitted.) The Majority opinion surmises that the confusion fostered by the above language is that it “could be interpreted to mean that parental unfitness, exceptional circumstances and the child’s best interests are different and separate analyses, and even that the child’s best interest inquiry does not come into play until there is a finding of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances.” Majority op. at 105-06, 8 A.3d at 754.
This surmise sets up a “straw man” for the Majority opinion to knock-over by offering a revisionist view of what Rashawn H. said and meant. In footnote 19, Majority op. at 111, 8 A.3d at 757-58, the Majority appears to channel for the Rashawn H. Court (but without any pinpoint citation to where in Rashawn H. the supposed support may be found for the views expressed). The Majority’s theory is that
Rashawn also shed light on how we may interpret the “no further inquiry” phrase. That phrase should not be read to mean that a court may not focus exclusively or even primarily, on the parent, or her interests or perspectives, in determining “exceptional circumstances” and then, finding none, fail to treat the child’s best interests as transcendent. Rather, it just means that in deciding the “best interest” of the child, the court should always keep in mind the presumption that a child is better off with his parent. So, in examining all of the parent’s and the child’s circumstances, if the court fails to find “exceptional circumstances,” then the presumption will resolve the issue. The “no further inquiry” phrase simply means that after a court does this analysis, and finds no exceptional circumstances showing that it is in the child’s best interest to be in the custody of *121someone other than the parent, it should not then undo that decision by re-examining the child’s best interest without also keeping in mind the constitutionally based parental presumption.
I do not agree with this reading of Rashawn H. That is not what the Court meant then (and most certainly is not what I meant when I “signed on” to that opinion, and earlier McDermott).
I submit that the Majority opinion misunderstands the role that Ross, McDermott, and Rashawn H. contemplate for the parental presumption. The parental presumption serves, among other things, as a procedural and evidentiary ordering device to establish how child custody, guardianship, and visitation disputes should unfold in our courthouses. It orders who has shifting burdens of production and proof by establishing a pre-existing rebuttable presumption (infused with the notion that it is in the best interest of the child to be raised by the parent) that must be overcome (rebutted) in the court’s mind by a challenger with sufficient and persuasive evidence of parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances. Because the presumption exists, even before suit is initiated, a failure of proof to overcome the presumption leads, as Ross, McDermott, and Rashawn H. explain, to no need to inquire further. If the apparent disagreement between my view and that of the Majority is seen as merely a semantical brouhaha, it is one created by the Majority opinion’s unnecessary revisiting and interpretation of Rashawn H.
While I believe I understand what the Majority opinion aspires to do, I remain concerned where its reasoning leads beyond what the opinion appears willing to admit. What of Koshko ? Koshko, a visitation dispute between custodial parents on one side and maternal grandparents on the other, under the Maryland grandparental visitation statute (Md. Code, Family Law Article § 9-102), employs a similar standard/element to that found in Ross, McDermott, and apparently Rashawn H., which the Majority opinion proposes, at the very least, to write-out of our child custody jurisprudence. The Court in Koshko held “that there must be a finding of *122either parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances demonstrating the current or future detriment to the child, absent visitation from his or her grandparents, as a prerequisite to application of the best interest analysis.” 398 Md. at 444-45, 921 A.2d at 195. In accomplishing this, we overruled inconsistent language in five prior Maryland appellate opinions. Id.3 The need to rely on a “prerequisite” determination was necessary in order to give a judicial gloss to the statute, under the doctrine of constitutional avoidance, so that the statute could be sustained in the face of a substantive due process challenge. It was argued that the statute failed “to recognize a rebuttable presumption accorded the propriety of a parent’s determination of what is in his or her child’s best interest with respect to visitation with a grandparent.” 398 Md. at 407, 921 A.2d at 173. Unwilling as I am to unravel Koshko4 and brand the grandparental visitation statute with the sobriquet of unconstitutionality, I turn next to the task of distinguishing Koshko from the present case.
Koshko is distinguishable on the basis that it involved child visitation, while Ta’Niya C. involves custody.5,6 Although Koshko treated custody and visitation as equivalent for purposes of determining the level of judicial scrutiny to be given *123the statute, in the face of a substantive due process challenge, it was observed there that
[t]here is no dispute that the grant or modification of visitation involves a lesser degree of intrusion on the fundamental right to parent than the assignment of custody. We except from this notion, however, that, because of this conceptualization, visitation somehow ranks lower on the “scale of values” such that its determination does not require the application of stringent tests as is the case with custody. In other words, although there may be a difference in the degree of intrusion, it is not a difference of constitutional magnitude. Visitation, like custody, intrudes upon the fundamental right of parents to direct the “care, custody, and control” of their children.
Id. at 430, 921 A.2d at 186 (footnote and internal citation omitted; emphasis in original). Thus, Koshko’s reasoning followed its tact because Koshko engaged necessarily in constitutional analysis of a statute. Ta’Niya C. does not. Thus, the differences between custody and visitation in a non-constitutional analysis (like Ta’Niya C.) is a significant basis upon which to distinguish Koshko from Ta’Niya C. Then again, perhaps I do not need to engage in mental gymnastics to distinguish Koshko, nor the Majority to erase portions of Ross, McDermott, or Rashawn H. The trial court’s express belief in the present case, that Rashawn, H. “changed the law,” was simply wrong. In this mistaken belief, the trial court applied an incorrect standard, but for a reason different than that settled upon by the Majority opinion.
It seems to me that Ross, McDermott, Koshko, Rashawn H., and Ta’Niya C. (as do all of our child access cases frankly) strive to describe a proper tension among the factors that may be relevant in resolving virtually all child access disputes. These cases remind our judges to give due weight to the rebuttable presumption that a child’s best interests are served by not sundering or interfering with the parental role, unless a judge is persuaded that that presumption is overcome by a quantum of persuasive evidence demonstrating that the parents) is/are unfit or that exceptional circumstances exist that *124render parental control and affiliation no longer in the best interests of the child(ren). The best interests of the child standard infuses each consideration,7 and, to that extent, may be described fairly as a transcendent element; but, to lump all of the statutory and/or common law factors into some sort of general melee or mishmash analysis, without due regard for the parental “right,” present at the threshold in every child access case (save those between dueling parents), denigrates that “right” and might distract judges into failing to accord it the weight it deserves in the calculus. Directing the flow of the judicial inquiry, by recognizing the existence of the parental right and pointing out that it must be overcome in the first instance, is not new to Maryland law. Rashawn H. said this well. I am unpersuaded that Rashawn H. merits disapproval or even clarification now.
Judge MURPHY authorizes me to state that he joins the views expressed in this concurring opinion.

. As Judge Wilner wrote in Rashawn H., 402 Md. 477, 495, 937 A.2d 177, 188 (2007), "[c]ustody and visitation disputes, even between a parent and a third party, are on a different plane than TPR proceedings!, 1” for reasons he explained earlier in Shurupoff v. Vockroth, 372 Md. 639, 657, 814 A.2d 543, 554 (2003). Ross involved a custody dispute, as did McDermott. Rashawn H. and the present case are CINA/TRP matters.

. If anything in McDermott deserves revisiting, perhaps it is the declaration that " 'the constitutional right [of the parent) is the ultimate determinative factor.' ” Maj. op. at 108, 8 A.3d at 756 (quoting McDermott, 385 Md. at 418, 869 A.2d at 808). That may go too far, especially when taken out of context.

. I note in passing that the Majority opinion in Ta’Niya C. presumably concedes (because it neither mentions nor attempts to deconstruct the analysis in McDermott) that its restoration of the pre-Ross, pro-McDermott state of our child custody jurisprudence removes Maryland from the considerable majority of our sister states on this score. See McDermott, 385 Md. at 375, 869 A.2d at 783 (2005).

. Likewise, at least three subsequent reported opinions of the Court of Special Appeals, applying Koshko (without demurrer), are implicated. See Aumiller v. Aumiller, 183 Md.App. 71, 959 A.2d 849 (2008); Barrett v. Ayres, 186 Md.App. 1, 972 A.2d 905 (2009); and, Brandenburg v. LaBarre, 193 Md.App. 178, 996 A.2d 939 (2010).

. See footnote 1 supra.

. Judge Eldridge, the lone dissenter in Koshko, nonetheless was of the view that Koshko was “quite distinguishable” from McDermott on this ground, among others. See Koshko, 398 Md. at 446, 921 A.2d at 196.

. Even the recognition of the parental right is grounded on the belief that the best interests of a child are served by being reared by his/her parents (or parent).