Court Opinion

ID: 9513697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:39:19.727031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:58.707262
License: Public Domain

NEUMANN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
[¶ 27] I concur in almost all of the majority’s opinion. The only exception is paragraph 18, the majority’s holding that it is, as a matter of law, error not to permit fourteen and seventeen-year-old children to testify regarding custody if called as witnesses.
[¶ 28] Most children experiencing the upheaval of divorce would prefer that the parents find a way to resolve their differences, drop their divorce, and live happily ever after in the same house with one another and with their children. Children desperately want — desperately need — the love of both parents in the midst of such great upheaval. Asking them to choose one parent over the other in such a situation is barbaric. Subjecting their children to such trauma merely for the sake of victory is a clear indication of the strength of the self-centered madness that engulfs too many divorcing parents. Our courts should do as much as possible to discourage such madness and the resulting trauma.
[¶ 29] I realize there are cases in which a child’s strongly held, well-founded opinion on custody should be expressed to the courts, particularly where there has been some form of genuine mistreatment or abuse. Fortunately, such cases are still the exception, not the rule, and clearly such facts were not present in this case. Here, the trial court explicitly found the appellant had inappropriately attempted to recruit the children to his side of the battle. The trial court cited this inappropriate manipulation of the children as the basis for its decision not to hear the children’s testimony.
[¶ 30] This Court’s failure to recognize the abusive nature of such manipulative exploitation encourages short-sighted parents to traumatize their children by attempting to recruit them in the parents’ self-centered battle. I cannot fault a trial court for trying to discourage such behavior, and I cannot join that part of the majority’s opinion finding such fault.
[¶ 31] WILLIAM A. NEUMANN and MARY MUEHLEN MARING, JJ., concur.