Court Opinion

ID: 9700253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:17:27.010837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:06.025341
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. The majority recognizes that “at first glance” the family court’s reliance on the best interest of the child to determine whether a change of circumstances in the custody situation existed “may appear to impermissibly expand the limited scope of the initial phase of the bifurcated modification hearing.” It fails to recognize that the court’s action was also not proper at any other glance. Unfortunately, the majority’s action leaves this litigation, and the parties, in status quo, the worst outcome possible. Accordingly, I dissent from the affirmance of the denial of the motions to modify.
Although the majority summarizes the facts and the proceedings below, I think some amplification is necessary. As the majority notes, these parties have been in continuous conflict and litigation since their *76February, 1993 divorce. Even after the initial modification of the divorce order, and the abuse prevention orders, the parties continued to return to court. Indeed, it is difficult to find any time when some request for court intervention was not pending. The docket entries before us, covering the period between September 21,1994 and July 24,1996, go on for most of six pages. They show twenty-two motions filed during that period, including eight for contempt or enforcement or both. This does not include the criminal litigation arising out of defendant’s prosecution for custodial interference.
On July 1, 1995, plaintiff moved to modify the order establishing joint parental rights and responsibilities for the three children and defendant’s visitation order. She requested that defendant’s role in the children’s lives be reduced to limited, supervised visitation. On the same day, she moved to hold defendant in contempt because, among other things, he used telephone contact to disparage plaintiff as a custodian and refused to return the oldest child from visitation. The motion to modify was amended in September to provide more specificity.
On October 10,1995, the family court judge sent the parties a letter which stated in part:
As I indicated earlier, I intend to bifurcate this hearing. The first segment will deal only with the contempt and the alleged basis for modification of the child custody order. If as to the latter motion the burden of proof is carried, the court would then schedule the “best interests” phase of the hearing and seek the report and evaluation by Dr. Halikias.
Dr. Halikias is a psychologist who the family court judge apparently selected for a family evaluation.
Plaintiff’s motions were heard on December 8, 1995, March 26, 1996 and April 22, 1996. On June 27,1996, the court issued its order holding defendant in contempt and denying the motions to modify. The court’s entire rationale for denying the motion to modify the parental-rights-and-responsibilities order was:
Revisiting that statute, and at present, the court cannot find it is in the children’s best interest to have the defendant excluded from “legal responsibility” decisions. He is vitally interested in his children’s upbringing, even if misguided. Further, the children love him and rely on his wisdom when he is providing it in a wholesome manner. In short, the *77problems with the “log” cannot constitute a substantial basis for modification and the plaintiff’s motion is DENIED.
The rationale for the decision to deny the motion to modify the visitation order is spread over the modification section of the decision. It appears to be in the following sentences:
However, the children love the defendant and will benefit from wholesome and appropriate contact with him once he is able to participate in the same.
In so far as the plaintiff seeks to limit or extinguish the defendant’s right to contact with his children, that is DENIED. It is appropriate that at present his right be suspended for contact with his children until he has complied with this court’s contempt order. . . . Until he prepares himself to do so, without reservation, the visits will neither be productive for him or for the children.
The contempt order required defendant to complete a parenting and empathy-raising course and to pay plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and the court costs associated with the proceeding.
I have no difference with the majority over the applicable law. The governing statute requires that the court engage in a two-step inquiry in determining a motion to modify. See 15 V.S.A. § 668. The moving party must first show that there has been a “real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances,” id., and then that modification is in the best interest of the child. See deBeaumont v. Goodrich, 162 Vt. 91, 95, 644 A.2d 843, 845-46 (1994). Only if the court finds a change of circumstances may it move on to consider the best interests of the child. See Kilduff v. Willey, 150 Vt. 552, 558, 554 A.2d 677, 678 (1988). Although the burden of showing a change of circumstances to warrant a shift of physical custodian is “heavy,” see id., the burden of showing such a change to modify a legal responsibility order is easier. See id. at 555, 554 A.2d at 679-80; Pill v. Pill, 154 Vt. 455, 460, 578 A.2d 642, 645 (1990).
Because the analysis involves two distinct steps, our rules authorize the court to bifurcate the presentation of evidence:
If a hearing is to be held on a motion to modify, the court may bifurcate the hearing and first determine and make findings as to whether there has been a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances; if no such change is *78found, the court may dismiss the motion without reaching the merits of the action.
V.R.F.E 4(j). The point of the rule is to allow the court to require the change of circumstances showing “before the court entertains evidence on the merits of the ruling which the moving party seeks to change.” Reporter’s Notes to 1991 Amendment to V.R.F.E 4(j). It is undisputed that the court was operating under Rule 4(j) in this case.
The court’s decisions on the motions to modify are clearly based on whether modification is in the best interest of the children and resolve the merits of the motion rather than the threshold question of change of circumstances. The modification of the legal responsibility order was denied because the children love defendant and rely on his wisdom. The modification of the visitation order was denied because the children will benefit from appropriate contact with defendant.
In the ordinary case, both of these decisions would be sustainable, and they may ultimately be the correct decision in this case. They are not sustainable, however, when the court has bifurcated the proceeding and is specifically required to make findings on whether there was a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances and has failed to do so. See Pill, 154 Vt. at 460, 578 A.2d at 645 (“court must make findings sufficient to satisfy the threshold requirement”); Kilduff, 150 Vt. at 555, 554 A.2d at 680 (“court must make specific findings” on issue of whether breakdown of communication is a change of circumstances). Nor can we sustain the result when plaintiff relies on the bifurcation order to hold back evidence on the best interest of the children, only to find that the court’s decision is based on its view of the children’s interests.
As I read the majority decision, it has four answers to the above analysis: (1) the family court found that plaintiff failed to show a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances with respect to both motions to modify; (2) because the evidence supports the court’s decision that there was no change of circumstances, the court’s findings about the best interest of the children are harmless and superfluous; (3) there never was a change of circumstances with respect to the legal responsibilities order because the parties never could communicate; and (4) the family court found that the parties could cooperate on decisions within the scope of their legal responsibilities.
My first disagreement with the majority decision is that its rationale relates solely to the motion to modify the legal responsibilities order. Contrary to the majority decision, the motion to modify *79visitation was not based on the parties’ failure to communicate, but instead on defendant’s constant undermining of plaintiff’s custody and his refusal to return the oldest child to plaintiff. We have recognized that violations of custody and visitation orders can be a change of circumstances. See Kilduff, 150 Vt. at 556, 554 A.2d at 680; Wells v. Wells, 150 Vt. 1, 4, 549 A.2d 1039, 1042 (1988). Indeed, in this case, in light of the family court’s conclusion that defendant was in “knowing, willful violation” of the court’s order on numerous occasions, I would hold that there are changed circumstances as a matter of law. In any event, despite the bifurcation, the court clearly rendered its decision based on the best interests of the children in violation of the rule.
I also disagree with the majority’s four reasons for affirmance of the legal rights and responsibilities order. They rest on the fiction that the family court concluded that no real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances existed and the rest of its findings and conclusions can be ignored. In fact, there is no finding or conclusion on whether a change of circumstances has occurred. All of the relevant statements are quoted above. The only statement that comes close to the majority’s characterization is the family court conclusion that the problems with the log “can not constitute a substantial basis for modification.” That statement says nothing about change of circumstances. Cf. Pill, 154 Vt. at 459, 578 A.2d at 644 (subsidiary findings are not equivalent of finding that there was a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances). More important, it follows immediately after the discussion of what is in the best interest of the children and starts “In short” to indicate that it is a summary of that discussion. We cannot fairly find from the court’s statement that it concluded that no real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances existed.
There is a more fundamental reason why the majority cannot be correct. The family court modified the divorce order, albeit on dispute resolution, and had to find a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances to do so. That modification is based on the inability of the parties to resolve their differences, exactly the grounds asserted for the motion to modify the legal responsibilities order.
Nor can I agree with the majority’s other characterizations of the record, as used to support its decision. Nowhere did the family court find that the parties are able to effectively cooperate with respect to “religious, educational, medical or other issues included in the scope *80of an award of legal responsibilities.” Nor is there any finding that the parties never could communicate by way of the log. The court’s finding is “that the ‘log’ has now impaired their ability to communicate” (emphasis supplied), a choice of words that at least implies that the breakdown did not always exist. Moreover, even if we had the power to supply findings where they are missing, we cannot do so in this case because we have only a partial transcript of the evidence.1
Although I agree with the majority that we cannot affirm the family court’s requirement of binding arbitration or its denial of visitation until defendant paid plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, the situation in which we are leaving these parties heightens the concerns behind this dissent. These parties are locked in a destructive pattern of intense conflict and continuous litigation that is consuming them and all their economic resources and alienating their children. In a disturbing demonstration that the present situation is not working, one of the children has filed in this Court an “emergency” motion to modify the custody order.2 The family court recognized that the status quo was unacceptable and fashioned an order to improve the situation. I doubt that it believed that the second choice was to do nothing, but that is exactly the result of today’s decision.
To the extent that the majority opinion addresses the merits of this dispute, its view appears to be that when parties are in open warfare, more warfare can never be a change of circumstances to allow the court to intervene and try to bring order, especially to protect the interests of the children. This is a very disappointing message to the parties and children in this case, and a particularly disappointing message to the many parents who come to our family courts seeking stability in the lives of their children. I dissent.

The parties could not afford a transcript and did not order one. However, a transcript of the first three days of the evidentiary hearing was produced by mistake and is before us.

The motion was treated as a request for extraordinary relief which was referred back to the family court.