Court Opinion

ID: 9516421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:42:15.334267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:35:44.650432
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I would affirm the Order of the trial judge as I see no abuse of discretion either in the expansion of the mother’s right of partial custody or the court’s restriction on exposure of the children to the mother’s contact with different men while the children are in her custody. The court properly did not view this as a question of the mother’s morality, but one of the children’s best interest in that being with the mother in the presence of different men at different times can only have a destabilizing effect on them. The situation would obviously be different if the mother was keeping company with one man in a relationship that had stability and promise of permanancy. It does not solve the problem to posit that the children should know their parents for what they are, for better or worse (majority view), when the effect on the children is likely to be harmful.
I also take exception to the majority’s basis for evaluating the lower court’s finding applying an independant scope of review which is enunciated by Donna W., 325 Pa.Super. 39, 472 A.2d 635 (1984).
The proper scope of review is that enunciated in Commonwealth ex rel. Robinson v. Robinson, 505 Pa. 226, 478 A.2d 800, 806 (1984) in which our Supreme Court quoted Commonwealth ex rel. Spriggs v. Carson, 470 Pa. 290, 295-6, 368 A.2d 635, 637 (1977) and said:
*600(O)ur law has long recognized that the scope of review of an appellate court reviewing a custody matter is of the broadest type ... Thus, an appellate court is not bound by deductions or inferences made by a trial court from the facts found; ... nor must a reviewing court accept a finding which has no competent evidence to support it ... * # * * * *
However, we have also taken great care to stress: “... (T)his broader power of review was never intended to mean that an appellate court is free to nullify the factfinding function of the hearing judge ...”
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(but, instead, is to remain) within the proper bounds of its review and (base a decision) upon its own independent deductions and inferences from the facts as found by the hearing judge. (Citations omitted; emphasis added.)
The Supreme Court concluded by saying:
Thus, an appellate court is empowered to determine whether the trial court’s incontrovertible factual findings support the trial court’s factual conclusions, but may not interfere with those conclusions unless they are unreasonable in light of the trial court’s factual findings. Bohachevsky v. Sembrot, 368 Pa. 228, 81 A.2d 554 (1951); and, thus, represent a gross abuse of discretion, Carson.5
(Footnote omitted; explained infra)
Footnote 5 in Robinson is the key to the intendment of the Supreme Court in distinguishing the “independent scope of review” from the “broad scope of review” standard. Broad scope of review is implicitly recognized in these Superior Court decisions, including the present one, requiring common pleas courts to explain fully the reasons for their decisions. See, e.g., Gunter v. Gunter, 240 Pa.Super. 382, 361 A.2d 307 (1976); Commonwealth ex rel. Lettie H.W. v. Paul T.W., 281 Pa.Super. 262, 422 A.2d 159 (1980). Were an appellate court to act with absolute independence of a trial court’s conclusions in reaching its own decision, the trial court’s conclusions would be irrelevant and a *601remand for further explication of those conclusions would be erroneous, as well as logically absurd. Robinson, supra.
Thus, in this case we exercise a “broad scope of review” in evaluating the case as it made its way through the trial court; and upon such review, determine the appropriateness of the judgment of the trial court, ultimately tested on the abuse of discretion standard.
In this case, it would have been appropriate for the trial court to dismiss the petition for modification of partial custody as the record shows and the court rightly concluded there were no changes of circumstance that warranted a modification of the final custody Order of October 15, 1982. However, by agreement of the parties, the trial court treated the contempt petition and petition for modification by each party as properly raising issues which would be considered and after hearing, modified the Order of October 15, 1982 by Order dated June 8, 1983, from which this appeal was taken. Since neither party raised the issue as to the appropriateness of the June 8, 1983 Order for failure to establish change of circumstance, that issue is waived and may not be considered sua sponte by this Court. Robinson, supra. However, the desired finality of custody orders will only be achieved by adherence to the tried and tested standards reaffirmed in Daniel N.D. v. Jan M.H., 301 Pa.Super. 36, 446 A.2d 1323 (1982).
The trial court clearly explained in his Opinion the understanding of the parties and the court when the “male visitors” clause was inserted into the order. I would defer to his knowledge and superior opportunity to evaluate and observe the needs of the children and the capacity and intention of the parents.
I would, therefore, affirm the Order of the court below, with directions to make more specific, and consistent with his Opinion, language relating to the mother’s contact with male friends while the children are in her control.