Court Opinion

ID: 9645325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:21:02.367383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:27.341218
License: Public Domain

*262SPAETH, Judge
(concurring):
I agree that the case must be remanded. In remanding, however, I should require two procedures to be followed.
—1—
The hearing judge imposed the burden of proof on appellant. The majority correctly notes that that was error: the burden is on the party seeking to deprive a mother of custody of her child; and it is an “enormous burden.” In addition, however, there is another procedural point that we should in my opinion insist upon.
I agree with the majority that in a custody proceeding the question is likely to arise as to where the child’s best interests lie. (I say “likely to arise” because much will depend on the sort of custody proceeding, and who the parties are. Compare with each other such recent decisions as In re: John and James LaRue, 244 Pa.Super. 218, 366 A.2d 1271 (1976); Gunter v. Gunter, 240 Pa.Super. 382, 361 A.2d 307 (1976); Stapleton v. Dauphin County Child Care Service, 228 Pa.Super. 371, 324 A.2d 562 (1974).) The best interests test, however, is a comparative test. The occasion to apply it, therefore, never arises until there is some reason to compare the mother of the child with the person who refuses to return the child; and there is no such reason unless the mother has in some respect failed to provide proper care for the child.
It follows that at the hearing on remand, the following procedure should be followed. First, appellees must prove that in some respect appellant has failed to provide proper care for the child. If they fail in such proof, that should be the end of the matter: the case would be no different than if, suppose, a mother were to send her child to summer camp, and at the end of the camp season one of the counselors refused to return the child simply *263because he had grown fond of it. Second, if appellees are able to prove that in some respect appellant has failed to provide proper care for her child, then, and only then, should the hearing judge determine whether the best interests of the child require an order that appellant and her child be separated.
—2—
One reason the hearing judge erroneously imposed the burden of proof on appellant is that she is poor and is represented by Legal Aid. Extraordinary as this statement may seem, the judge leaves one in no doubt about its accuracy. Thus in his opinion he says:
Another equity enters here. The prosecutrix is indigent; in fact she is on welfare. The respondents are not. I know he is a postman in Waynesburg who lives in Washington. Such a person walks the tight rope between indigency and affluence and is representative of that Middle America that pays the bills, supports the government, and doesn’t have much left over at the end of the month. Quarts of ink and buckets of tears have been shed over the plight of the criminal defendant opposed by the whole weight and panoply of the Commonwealth and the scales of justice have been heavily weighted in favor of the criminal defendant because of this seeming imbalance. What then of the plight of the small holder compelled to face the resources, not merely of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but of the United States of America, in its capacity as Free Legal Services? I do not go so far as to say that this imbalance should alter the burden of proof or change the rules of evidence. I do believe, however, when one party to a private thing in action is paying lawyer’s fees from his wages (already subject to withholding and wage tax) and the other is calling upon the government in its role as parens patriae, we *264should be careful not to let the individual party be worn out by the wealth of the government.
Consequently I did not feel that when Miss Milligan was unable to prevail on her own proof, I should subject the Davisons to further protracted hearings at their expense.
Slip opinion of lower court at 5-6.
This statement demonstrates that the hearing judge was unable to render an impartial adjudication in this case. Accordingly, on remand we should require that the case be decided by another judge.
HOFFMAN, J., concurs in the result of this opinion as well as that of the majority opinion.
JACOBS, J., joins in this opinion as well as in the majority opinion.