Court Opinion

ID: 9609540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:28:15.654596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:41.731949
License: Public Domain

Judge McCRODDEN,
concurring in the result.
I write separately to disagree with the majority in its determination that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-13.2(a) (1987) modified the common law rule that, absent a showing of unfitness, a natural parent was entitled to the custody of his or her child.
“The rights to conceive and to raise one’s children have been deemed ‘essential,’ ‘basic civil rights of man,’ and ‘[rjights far more precious . . . than property rights.’ ” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 31 L.Ed.2d 551, 558 (1972) (citations omitted). Although our Court has previously interpreted N.C.G.S. § 5043.2(a), which was enacted in 1967, to have modified the common law in this regard, see, e.g., In Re Gwaltney, 68 N.C. App. 686, 315 S.E.2d 750 (1984); Campbell v. Campbell, 63 N.C. App. 113, 304 S.E.2d 262, disc. review denied, 309 N.C. 460, 307 S.E.2d 362 (1983); In Re Kowalzek, 37 N.C. App. 364, 246 S.E.2d 45, disc. review denied, 295 N.C. 734, 248 S.E.2d 863 (1978), I do not believe that this is a proper interpretation.
N.C.G.S. § 50-13.2(a) states in pertinent part:
An order for custody of a minor child entered pursuant to this section shall award the custody of such child to such person, agency, organization or institution as will best promote the interest and welfare of the child.
Prior to the enactment of this statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 17-39.1, enacted in 1957 and repealed fin 1967, contained similar language:
*446[T]he judge may award the charge or custody of the child to such person, organization, agency or institution for such time, under such regulations and restrictions, and with such provisions and directions, as will, in the opinion of the judge, best promote the interest and welfare of said child.
Our Supreme Court did not, however, read that statute to repeal the common law doctrine that a natural parent, absent a finding of unfitness, is entitled to the custody and care of a child. In Jolly v. Queen, 264 N.C. 711, 716, 142 S.E.2d 592, 596 (1965), Justice Sharp stated this principle in no uncertain terms: “[T]he parents’ paramount right to custody would yield only to a finding that they were unfit custodians because of bad character or other, special circumstances.” See also Brake v. Mills, 270 N.C. 441, 154 S.E.2d 526 (1967); Wilson v. Wilson, 269 N.C. 676, 153 S.E.2d 349 (1967).
Justice Sharp imagined some of the mischief that could come from abandoning the principle that, as against non-parents, a natural parent, absent unfitness, is entitled to custody of his child: “Conceivably, a judge might find it to be in the best interest of a legitimate child of poor but honest, industrious parents, who were providing him with the necessities, that his custody be given to a more affluent neighbor or relative who had no child and desired him.” Jolly, 264 N.C. at 715, 142 S.E.2d at 596. The Supreme Court, therefore, did not read the language of N.C.G.S. § 17-39.1, the precursor to N.C.G.S. § 5043.2(a), as abrogating the common law principle. Because “the common law . . . which has not been otherwise provided for in whole or in part, not abrogated, repealed, or become obsolete, [is] ... in full force within this State,” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 4-1 (1986), I believe that prior cases of this Court renouncing the principle are in error.
The majority would have us believe that when the legislature changed the word may found in N.C.G.S. § 17-39.1 to shall in N.C.G.S. § 50-13.2(a), it altered the common law presumption. The statutory requirement, however, that the trial court must award the custody of a child in a way that will best promote the interest of the child in no way abrogates the common law presumption that, absent parental unfitness, the best interest of the child is that he remain with his natural parent(s). As the characteristic that will defeat the presumption, unfitness is an integral part of the presumption, and the majority’s abrogation of that part encourages exactly the mischief Justice Sharp feared.
*447Furthermore, the majority’s reading of the two statutes promotes the conclusion that, prior to the amendment, a trial court, acting under the permissive (as opposed to mandatory) language of section 17-39.1, could have ignored the common law presumption if it had so chosen. This reading, however, is contrary to N.C.G.S. § 4.1.
I realize that prior rulings of panels of this Court bind succeeding panels. In the Matter of Appeal from Civil Penalty, 324 N.C. 373, 379 S.E.2d 30 (1989). However, prior holdings eroding the common law principle concerning custody are in conflict with the Supreme Court’s rulings, are ill-advised, and do not bind us.
I would affirm the trial court on the basis that, since there was no showing that the natural father was unfit, he is entitled to the custody of his child. Such a ruling would send a clear signal to our courts and would stop the mischief Justice Sharp envisioned.