Court Opinion

ID: 9627581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:48:00.3724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:47.171320
License: Public Domain

BACON, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In G.S. v. Ewing, 786 P.2d 65 (Okla.1990), the court held that once an Oklahoma court enters a custody order, it has continuing jurisdiction to modify that order. Jurisdiction is only lost if both parents have left the state or if the resident parent has cut all connections with the child or children.
In the present case, while the father could have shown more interest in the children, the record does not show that he severed all connections with the children.
It should be remembered that the interest of the child is our paramount concern. In the present case the mother is permanently institutionalized from brain damage in the state of Oregon. The maternal grandmother, who also lives in Oregon, is undergoing cancer treatment. The children were turned over to an aunt living in Oklahoma who enrolled them in school in *1202the same town where the father lives, and the same county where the original custody was determined. Numerous relatives of the children live in the same town.
For this court to require these people to go back to Oregon to litigate custody seems to me to place form over substance and defy “good old common sense,” as well as the teachings of G.S. v. Ewing, supra.
I would find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion and affirm the trial court.