Court Opinion

ID: 9770049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:35:43.298891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:12.289759
License: Public Domain

Skoglund, J.,
¶ 35. concurring. As a result of one parent’s efforts to deny another parent contact with their child, at the time of the trial court’s decision Janet Jenkins had essentially not seen her then seven year old daughter for over two years. The trial judge acknowledged that Lisa Miller’s repeated interference with Janet’s visitation rights had reached a point “where [Janet] is no longer a part of her daughter’s life.” The court also noted in its June 2007 order that it had already found the relationship between the child and Janet had been significantly affected by Lisa’s refusal to allow parent-child contact. The court concluded in 2009 that “[t]his situation has only become worse since that time.” Even so, the family court and majority both conclude that Janet “has a good relationship with IMJ” for the purposes of a best-interest analysis under 15 V.S.A. § 665(b). Ante, ¶ 23. Given the length of time in this child’s short life without any real relationship with her mother, Janet, I cannot find support for this conclusion. Cloutier v. Blowers, 172 Vt. 450, 452, 783 A.2d 961, 963 (2001) (‘We will... reverse if the court’s findings are not supported by the evidence, or if its conclusions are not supported by the findings.” (citations omitted)). While I concur with the majority’s decision — especially in light of the hearing the Court mandates to reevaluate Janet’s relationship with IMJ before transitioning custody — I write to highlight the necessary inconsistency in the family court’s ruling.
¶ 36. The pertinent findings in this case are uncontested. Lisa has prevented Janet from seeing their daughter IMJ for, now, the past three years. The family court found that Janet had had twenty-four hours of contact with IMJ in all of *5282008 and again only twenty-four hours in 2009. Indeed, from the family court findings, it appears that apart from these two visits, Janet has not had contact with her daughter since August 2007 and had only limited contact before then. The court concluded that Janet has a good relationship with her daughter by viewing the evidence “from the perspective of the time preceding [Lisa]’s initial termination of parent-child contact.” While we have held that the best-interests inquiry should focus on all relevant periods of a child’s life and not exclusively on the period immediately preceding trial, Nickerson v. Nickerson, 158 Vt. 85, 90, 605 A.2d 1331, 1334 (1992) (“A contrary holding may cause a primary-care-provider wishing to leave the home to uproot children from the marital residence solely to remain, in the view of the court, the primary-eare-provider.”), I suggest it is illogical and potentially harmful to simply ignore the reality of this child’s experience. I do not understand how a court can draw any conclusions about the current relationship between a mother and her daughter when the two have not spent significant time together for more than two years — a large portion of the daughter’s life.
¶ 37.1 do not lightly note this inconsistency. As we have recognized in the past, the family court should not construe the application of the § 665(b) best-interest factors in a manner that gives incentive for wrongdoing by a parent. See, e.g., id. That said, we likewise cannot ignore the plight of children whose relationships are significantly disrupted and/or distorted when one parent chooses to prevent another from contact. Parental kidnapping is the most common form of abduction in the United States with more than 200,000 children victims each year. Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, The Crime of Family Abduction: A Child’s and Parent’s Perspective iii-iv (2010), available at http:// www.ncjrs.gov/pdffilesl/ojjdp/229933.pdf. Its impacts last far longer than the search for and recovery of a missing child, especially for a child whose trust in both parents may have been seriously damaged. See id. at 37 (“To many parents, the recovery might seem like a moment of celebration, but to the child, it may feel like another abduction.” (citation omitted)). Simply because Janet had a strong relationship with her daughter before the current estrangement, the family court cannot assume that such a bond still exists.
¶ 38.1 concur with the majority’s result because exclusion of this factor would not shift the family court’s ultimate conclusion.