Court Opinion

ID: 9844438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:02:52.95065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:35.288719
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice
(dissenting):
There is a critical finding which is missing from this record which, in my opinion, necessitates a remand. The trial court did not enter any finding regarding whether or not it was in the child’s best interest to change the physical custody from the grandparents, who have raised this child from infancy, to her natural mother, who is a stranger to her. I cannot agree with the majority’s statement that the trial court implicitly reached the conclusion that it was in the best interest of the child to award custody to the mother. The trial court made three specific findings with respect to the parent-child relationship: (1) that the petitioner-mother had not manifested an intent to abandon the child; (2) that both the petitioner and the appellants were fit and proper persons to have the care and custody of the child; and (3) that it was in the best interests of the child that her custody not be immediately given to petitioner, but that it be transferred to the petitioner gradually during a transitional period. Conclusions of Law II, III and V, Clerk’s Transcript, pp. 21-22. These conclusions can be more readily characterized as a determination by the trial court that if the parent had not aban*782doned her child, and if the parent was not unfit to have custody of the child, then the parent was automatically entitled to custody, rather than a characterization that it was in the best interests of the child for her custody to be awarded to her mother. Accordingly, I would remand this proceeding to the trial court for a determination of whether the child’s best interests would require that her custody be awarded to her mother or remain with her grandparents. Application of Altmiller, 76 Idaho 521, 285 P.2d 1064 (1955).
In these cases the primary consideration should be the best interests of the child. See In re Ewing, 96 Idaho 424, 428, 529 P.2d 1296 (1974) (Bakes, J., concurring specially). I agree with the majority that there is a presumption that the natural parent should have custody of the child as opposed to other relatives or interested parties, but in cases such as this, in which the non-parental party has introduced sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption, the trial court must weigh the evidence presented and decide the case, not on the basis of any presumption, but on whether or not a change in the actual custody is in the best interests of the child. As I read the conclusions of law of the trial court, it appears to me that the trial court may have concluded that if the mother has not “forfeited” her rights to the child by abandonment, or was not otherwise unfit by her conduct, then the parent was automatically entitled to custody. But where, as in this case, the parent has turned the child over to its grandparents when she was just an infant, and the grandparents are really the only parents which the child has ever known, and where the mother is a stranger to the child as the petitioner is in this case, to automatically change the custody of the child to the mother without an express finding that it is in the child’s best .interests for the custody to be so changed, is to reduce the child to the status of a chattel. Children are not chattels, nor are they to be awarded to the least blameworthy of two litigants. The primary consideration in these cases should be what is in the best interests of the child, after considering all of the factors involved. Because the record in this case does not disclose that the trial court made an express finding that it was in the best interests of the child for the custody to be transferred from the grandparents to the mother, I would remand the case for further proceedings to make that critical finding.