Court Opinion

ID: 9520117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:31:40.501271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:34.772255
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: I concur fully in the court’s opinion. In addition, I think it relevant to point out a circumstance which came to our attention during oral argument, indicating that the change of custody was unrealistic and likely to have been based more on the trial judge’s adverse reaction to the living arrangements of Jacqueline and Wayne — neither of whom was married— than on consideration of the best interest of the children. After custody was transferred from Jacqueline to Walter, the children lived with Walter during the week but spent weekends at their mother’s home. Thus, the children continued to be exposed to the same relationship between Jacqueline and Wayne that prompted the trial judge to grant a change of custody. Whether right or wrong, it appears to be more and more common for a person, including a divorced parent, to live with one of the opposite sex without marriage. Prosecution by legal authority in such a situation today is extremely unusual. Realistically, if a divorced parent chooses to enter into such a living arrangement, there is no way to insulate his or her children from knowledge of and exposure to the relationship the parent is maintaining, unless, perhaps, a court is willing to go to the extreme and unusual length of terminating the parent’s visitation privileges. No one in this case has even suggested such a drastic and cruel approach. Here, living with their mother and Wayne on a permanent basis could not affect the children appreciably differently than spending weekends with their mother and Wayne after their custody was changed. In either case the children were fully exposed to their mother’s relationship with Wayne and, therefore, that relationship in itself did not warrant a change in custody.