Court Opinion

ID: 9505468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:05:08.887997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:30.839891
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring in result.
At least since 1905, this Court has held that there is a strong presumption that natural parents are the proper custodians of their own children. In Gilmore v. Kitson, 165 Ind. 402, 74 N.E. 1083 (1905), we spelled out the rather dire circumstances under which this presumption might be overcome such that someone other than the parent could obtain custody: forfeiture by misconduct, abandonment, or long acquiescence in custody by another. Id., 165 Ind. at 407, 74 N.E. at 1084.
The more recent expression of this rule appeared in Hendrickson v. Binkley, 161 Ind.App. 388, 316 N.E.2d 376 (1974), which relied on Gilmore. Judge Lowdermilk's opinion in Hendrickson has been perhaps the cornerstone of our law in this field over the last quarter century.
Until recently. As Justice Dickson points out, some very recent decisions of the Court of Appeals hold that a court may strip a parent of his or her role on simpler grounds. Such seemed to be the holding, for example, in Atteberry v. Atteberry, 597 N.E.2d 355, 357 (Ind.Ct.App.1992) ("Our law clearly prefers to consider the best interests of the child over the presumption that custody must be in a natural parent.").
The apparent object of Justice Dickson's opinion is to disapprove the rather casual approach to taking children away from parents represented by Atteberry and other opinions in the Turpen line of cases. Instead, today's opinion says, courts may place a child with a non-parent only when a rigorous standard is met. There is an "important and strong presumption" in favor of the child's natural parent. Op. at 287. A non-parent must overcome this presumption by "clear and convincing evidence." Id. The fact that the non-parent might be better as a provider or presents evidence that merely leads the trial judge to conclude that placement with the non-parent is "in the best interests of the child" do not suffice to overcome this presumption. Id. at 287.
I embrace the objective of requiring a rather considerable showing to overcome the natural parent. I do not join today's opinion, however, because I think what the Court ends up saying about the required showing actually weakens the parental presumption as it has usually been applied by us and by the Court of Appeals over the last five generations.
The tests from Gilmore and Hendrick-son, today's opinion says, are "important," but hardly exhaustive, because "[the issue is not the 'fault' of the natural parent but whether the best interests of the child will be substantially and significantly served by placement with another person." Op. at 287. This declaration seems to take us back to Turpen and Atteberry, the very line of cases the opinion seeks to disapprove.
Whether Gilmore/Hendrickson or Tur-pen is now the rule seems unresolved. Today's opinion counsels against the "rigid" three factors from Gilmore and Hen-drickson, suggesting that the father in this case might well prevail if the trial court was limited to examining proof of those three factors. Op. at 288. But, the opinion says, the father loses anyway, because there are "many factors" other than the *290Gilmore three to demonstrate that the stepfather should prevail.
As I see it, nearly all of these "many factors" fall within the Gilmore formula. The Court cites abuse, violence, and excessive drinking, all of which I see as evidence the father is "unfit" under Gilmore It cites failure to care for the children since 1991" and chronic failure to pay support, called "abandonment" in Hilmore. And, it cites the stepfather's role as the only psychological father the children have known, called "emotional interweaving" in Gilmore and Hendrickson.
Labeling all these facts as "factors" sufficient to warrant removing a child as long as the trial judge is willing to say "clear and convincing" actually makes it somewhat easier to remove a child than it has been under Gilmore and Hendrickson. I think this is not what Justice Dickson intends, and perhaps asking the question another way will highlight why. If the evidence showed that the natural parent was a fit parent, that he/she was caring regularly for the child, and that no third person was emotionally central to the child's life, what "non-Gilmore factors" would suffice to remove the child from the natural parent? It is hard to imagine what such factors would be.
I think the Gilmore/Hendrickson line of cases .has served well historically and serves well for the case before us. Today's opinion abandons that tether, in favor of a regime under which any old facts may suffice.
SULLIVAN, J., concurs.