Court Opinion

ID: 9642190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:51:37.691093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:44.284208
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The record discloses that the proceeding in the juvenile court of St. Louis county was instituted by the filing of a complaint by the father while a divorce suit between the parents was pending in the circuit court of the City of St. Louis. It was after the divorce court had awarded custody of the child to the mother, and while the divorce suit was pending on motion for new trial, that the father complained to the juvenile court that the child was without proper care and treatment in its mother’s custody, thereby causing the juvenile court to invoke its jurisdiction. *184Thereafter, and while the juvenile proceeding was pending, the divorce court sustained the motion for new trial, heard evidence in that suit, awarded the mother a divorce, and again awarded her custody of the child.
I am not unmindful of the record fact that the parents stipulated in the divorce suit that custody of the child be awarded the mother if the court granted a divorce. On the contrary, I consider this a significant indication that the father has attempted to play fast and loose with the courts, with the child as a pawn. If the father were truly sincere in his complaint that the child was without proper care and treatment in the custody of the mother, he had the opportunity to, and should have, presented evidence of those facts to the divorce court. Instead, he continues to insist, through respondent, that the issue of custody be relitigated. At least on the surface it appears that it is the father who continues to insist; he initiated the proceeding and the usual procedure is for attorneys representing a person in the father’s position here to represent the respondent in prohibition. There is no reason to believe this case is any different in that respect from the usual prohibition case, so far as this record shows. It would be most unusual for a respondent judge to employ counsel and hardly conceivable that the respondent would employ counsel on his own to encourage the continuance of litigation. To me the father’s continued insistence smacks of piquant harassment of the mother to the possible detriment of the child, an improper use of jurisdiction of the juvenile court neither we nor that court should countenance.
Respondent contends that the principal parties in a juvenile proceeding are the state and the child; that the filing of a complaint in juvenile court by one parent does not “reduce the juvenile case to a controversy between spouses which should be relegated to the divorce court.” I agree that the state and child are the formal parties, but cannot ignore these facts: this proceeding was initiated by the father after the custody was awarded the mother; it is opposed by the mother whose motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction was overruled, as a result of which she sought our writ-of prohibition; the petition for the writ is being vigorously opposed by someone in opposition to the mother’s present right of custody so as to maintain, for some purpose, jurisdiction assumed by the juvenile court. These facts point toward the father as the real party in interest, not the state of Missouri, and a child custody fight between parents as the purpose.
The main allegation of the petition in juvenile court is that the child is without proper care, custody and treatment and cannot receive in her home such care, guidance and control as will conduce to her welfare and the best interests of the state. There are no allegations (1) that she “ * * * is otherwise without proper care, custody or support * * section 211.031, subsection 1(b); or, (2) that her “ * * * behavior * * * or associations * * * are injurious to * * * [her] welfare or * * * the welfare of others,” subsection 1 (c); or (3) that she has violated a law, subsection 1(d). If this petition in juvenile court involved more than an effort by the father to relitigate with the mother the custody issue; if it involved an utter abandonment of the child or circumstances described in subsections 1(c) and (d), and possibly subsection 1 (b) (as I understand that subsection) or parts of subsection 1(a), I could concur in the result reached by the majority. But, as I see it, it is a proceeding instituted and vigorously prosecuted by a father who has had his day in court.
The majority opinion expresses the caveat that juvenile courts should not permit their jurisdiction to be invoked when it appears that one of the parents is endeavoring to relitigate the custody issue with the other parent, where that question has been determined by a divorce court. What the majority opinion suggests should not be *185permitted is, to me, exactly what the record shows respondent has done. In other words, I respectfully conclude that the court has in deciding this case put its stamp of approval on that which it says juvenile courts should not authorize.
Under the facts and circumstances of this record, I would hold that the divorce court had and retains exclusive jurisdiction of the custody issue, as between the 'parents; that the juvenile court acted in excess of its jurisdiction. It follows that I would order our preliminary rule in prohibition made absolute.