Court Opinion

ID: 9702842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:26:52.105271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:42.022066
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
concurring and dissenting. The Court approves the preponderance standard of proof to establish a change of custody based on the custodian’s sexual abuse of his child, but then decides that, once the abuse is proven, the family court may not fashion the remedy best suited to help the children adapt unless a higher standard of proof (clear and convincing) is met. This Court’s direction to the family court is to refashion a visitation award. Such a “Catch *27722” is an odd way to promote the welfare of children caught in an abusive relationship with a parent.
The family court’s obedience to today’s mandate will force the children — against the advice of their therapists — to visit their abusive father, with all of the attendant emotional trauma. The family court originally left future visits by the father with the children in the decisional hands of the children’s therapists. The order reads:
Plaintiff shall have no right to a regular schedule of parent child contact with the minor children until such time as he acknowledges responsibility for his abuse of Kyle, engages in appropriate sex offender treatment including individual and group therapy as recommended by his therapist and visits between himself and the child are recommended by the child’s therapist.
Given that the Court has stricken the clause requiring the father to admit the abuse, I suggest that the remainder is the only workable remedy. The abusive father may now visit — I presume in a supervised way — even though it may be emotionally harmful to the children. The Court mandates that the family court “permit, at minimum, continued contact between the father and the boys consistent with their safety.” Given the Court’s unwillingness to permit, as originally ordered, the mental health professionals to protect the boys’ emotional health, “safety” must be intended to refer solely to physical well being.
I submit the only way out of this hopeless mess is to give authority to someone in a responsible position to help the children — a kind of “receiver in family bankruptcy.” By requiring a recommendation from each child’s therapist prior to visitation, the family court did exactly that. I dissent to this Court’s undoing it.