Court Opinion

ID: 9783569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:49:23.08156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:25.953993
License: Public Domain

ISAAC, Senior Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority in its opinion that the trial court did not abuse its discre*632tion in denying appellant’s motion for a continuance. However, I respectfully dissent in its reversal of the trial court on grounds that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction due to statutory deficiencies of the pleadings. Although this was not a textbook example of how a custody modification should proceed, the pleadings nonetheless met the requirements necessary for the trial court to proceed to the merits. Gary first asked the court to address the custodial arrangement by his inartfully drafted pro se motion of July, 2010, which stated as follows:
Gary Corns, Petitioner, ask (sic) the Court to have a hearing of Taffy Corns Ratcliffs lying to have Allison Corn’s tonsil removed and shared parenting decision making, (emphasis added).
Taffy then filed a verified response wherein she alleged that Gary’s motion was defective, but agreed with the essence of his motion that she and Gary could no longer share joint custody of their daughter. Her response set out that it was apparent from the various litigation in the case that joint decision making was impossible. She went on to also request a hearing on the issue of modification of custody. At the motion hour on August 5, 2010, the trial court stated that the matter to be discussed was Gary’s motion “for basically a change in custody.” Gary did not object to the trial court’s characterization of his pleading and Taffy’s attorney agreed that a custody hearing was needed and that he intended for Taffy’s response to fill in any gaps left by Gary’s motion and to satisfy the statute. The trial court then set a hearing on the modification issue for September 9, 2010, which was held despite the fact that Gary’s previous attorney appeared that day (after being contacted by Gary’s mother the evening before) and asked for a continuance.
There is no question that both parties desired the trial court to address and change the existing joint custody order. Although Gary’s motion was statutorily deficient, Taffy’s verified response included her motion to change joint custody. There is no magic in the title given a document. The failure of Taffy’s attorney to designate the response as a “Response and Motion” does not change the nature of the pleading. No notice was required in Taffy’s motion since Gary’s motion already had a date to be heard. On that date, with both sides present, the trial court continued the case to be heard on September 9, 2010. There is no question that both parties were before the court and personally told that the hearing on custody modification was to take place on September 9th. There was a discussion at the August hearing that the September hearing would take up the issue of both parties’ motions for modification. Notice is not an issue in this case.
As to whether the verification of Taffy’s pleading was sufficient to act as an affidavit, that question is answered by the Coff-man case cited by the majority, in which the Supreme Court states, “while filing a separate affidavit is the better practice, Appellant’s verified petition in this instance technically meets the requirements of an affidavit.” (FN 6, page 769).
I would deem Taffy’s verified pleading, styled, “Response,” but in effect a “Response and Motion,” to be statutorily sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction upon the trial court. I would affirm the trial court in all respects.