Court Opinion

ID: 9718336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:21:19.871095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.628451
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Watkins, J. :
I dissent. The facts are set forth in the majority opinion, but it is important for the discussion of the issue in this case to highlight the procedure.
The Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County had original jurisdiction of the subject matter and all of the parties when the original order of custody and visitation was made.
The appellant husband had instituted an action in equity on November 6, 1967, pursuant to the Marriage Act of June 26, 1895, P. L. 316, §2, 48 P.S. §92, seeking legal custody of the four children. The appellee wife then filed in the same court her Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and the actions were consolidated.
Five extensive hearings were held covering 771 pages of testimony so that the court had the full opportunity of seeing and hearing all the parties and witnesses involved. The Bucks County Court entered an Order awarding the three children to the appellant father and the youngest daughter to the appellee mother with visitation rights.
On appeal to this Court, the Order was reversed and three of the children were awarded to the appellee mother and one child to the appellant father with the same *339visitation rights as contained in the Bucks County-Order.
It is presently alleged that the appellee mother and the children awarded to her have removed from Bucks County to Philadelphia County; the appellant father and the child awarded to him continue to live in the family home in Bucks County.
The Bucks County Court, on Petition of the father appellant, fixed June 24, 1969, for a hearing on his Petition for increased visitation rights.
The appellee mother, after receipt of the notice of this action by the appellant father, instituted an action in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia seeking reduction in visitation rights and fixed the date for hearing four days before the date fixed by the Bucks County Court. If ever there was an apparent case of court shopping, this is it.
The issue in this case is whether the court of original jurisdiction whose order is in issue has lost jurisdiction of the parties.
The out-of-state cases are no help in solving the problem. Cases like Commonwealth ex rel. Graham v. Graham, 367 Pa. 553, 80 A. 2d 829 (1951), are based on the proposition that the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution is not applicable where there has been a change of jurisdiction and a change of circumstances in temporary orders of custody. In Irizarry Appeal, 195 Pa. Superior Ct. 104, 169 A. 2d 307 (1961). The question raised in this casé by the preliminary objections is whether full faith and credit must be given to an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County where that court had original jurisdiction of the subject matter and all the parties or if changing residence by one or some of the parties to Philadelphia County gives jurisdiction to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, a court of *340equal jurisdiction, and the power to ignore the existence of the original order.
I agree with the appellant that if this procedure is affirmed the stability of court orders will be destroyed with courts of equal jurisdiction willy-nilly changing each other’s orders. It will result in a multiplicity of orders and confusion and chaos in enforcement.
The only way Philadelphia acquires jurisdiction in this case is if the change of residence of the mother and her three children provides it. I agree with the Majority that the jurisdiction in a proceeding involving custody is determined by the domicile or residence of the child. Commonwealth ex rel. Camp v. Camp, 150 Pa. Superior Ct. 649, 29 A. 2d 363 (1942). It has also been decided that orders determining the custody of children and visitation orders are temporary in nature and always subject to modification to meet changed conditions so long as the court has jurisdiction. (Emphasis by the writer). Commonwealth ex rel. Dinsmore v. Dinsmore, 198 Pa. Superior Ct. 480, 485, 182 A. 2d 66 (1962).
The issue here is whether Bucks County has lost jurisdiction. I do not believe so. The Majority relies heavily on Commonwealth ex rel. Freed v. Freed, 172 Pa. Superior Ct. 276, 93 A. 2d 863 (1953). In that case, Judge Hiht, speaking for this Court, said at Page 280: “While the court had the authority to make the original order, it lost its jurisdiction to modify or make a new order when both parents left Washington County and the child lived with her mother in Bedford County.” That is not the instant case. In this casé, the father and the child awarded to him remain in the family home so that Bucks County, even under the reasoning of Commonwealth ex rel. Freed v. Freed, supra, did not lose jurisdiction.
I agree, too, with the Majority that the welfare of the children is paramount in all custody cases, but I *341cannot understand how that can possibly be in issue in the determination whether visitation rights are to be decided by the court of original jurisdiction as the result of extensive hearings or by a court that claims to have acquired jurisdiction by change of residence when the courts involved are only several miles apart.
This is especially true ■ when the record indicates that the change of residence was known at the time of the original hearings so there could not possibly be a change of circumstances based, on residence. . . ...
Wright, P. J., and Jacobs, J., join in this dissent.