Court Opinion

ID: 9549901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:26:13.920737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:02.732121
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s result and in much of its reasoning. I agree that in an initial judicial custody determination—the situation presented by this case—the court simply considers all the relevant factors, including the parents’ respective relationships with the child and any potential relocation of either parent, to determine what formal custody and visitation arrangements are in the “best interest of the child.” As the majority hold, a parent who seeks to relocate with the child has no special burden of proving the move is “necessary” as a precondition to obtaining a formal award of custody.
*41Here, the relocating parent was already acting as the child’s custodian under the terms of an interim agreement. Moreover, the reasons for relocation were legitimate, the distance was short and rapidly traversed, the facilities available to the child in the new location were excellent, and the other parent’s visitation rights could be accommodated with relative ease. Hence, as the majority suggest, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that a formal award of custody to the relocating parent was in the child’s “best interest.”
I also agree with the majority that when a relocation dispute arises after an initial award of custody has been made, the usual “changed circumstances” rule should apply. A child’s welfare is not served by casual changes in caregiving arrangements, and the law abhors the endless relitigation of matters already determined. Hence, the parent who seeks a change in formal custody based on “changed circumstances” (including a parental relocation) bears the burden of persuading the court that in light of the new circumstances, an alteration of the existing award is in the child’s “best interest.” (Burchard v. Garay (1986) 42 Cal.3d 531, 536 [229 Cal.Rptr. 800, 724 P.2d 486, 62 A.L.R.4th 237].) Thus again, a parent who wishes to relocate with the child has no special burden of proving the move is “necessary.”
While I acknowledge that the “changed circumstances” rule properly places the burden of a “best interest” showing on the parent who seeks to modify an existing formal custody award, I believe the “best interest” test itself retains its usual meaning in such cases. Insofar as the majority imply that the child’s “best interest” has a special, more stringent connotation in a “changed circumstances” case, I cannot subscribe to their reasoning.
My concern arises because of the majority’s focus on language in In re Marriage of Carney (1979) 24 Cal.3d 725 [157 Cal.Rptr. 383, 598 P.2d 36, 3 A.L.R.4th 1028] (Carney) to the effect that because the law favors custodial stability, a change in formal custody cannot be ordered absent a showing of new circumstances which “ ‘render it essential or expedient for the welfare of the child that there be a change.’ [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 730, italics added.) Furthermore, the majority insist, when the modification dispute concerns a custodial parent’s wish to relocate, the case is governed by an 1872 statute, now Family Code section 7501 (hereafter section 7501), which declares that “[a] parent entitled to the custody of a child has the right to change the residence of the child, subject to the power of the court to restrain a removal that would prejudice the rights or welfare of the child.” (Italics added.) According to the majority, this statute reflects “the presumptive ‘right’ ” of a parent with formal custody to change the child’s residence, regardless of the other parent’s objections, unless the move would be *42prejudicial to the child’s welfare. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 38; see also id. at p. 29.)
If the majority are applying these authorities to suggest that an existing formal custody award cannot be modified in the child’s “best interest” absent a showing of positive detriment or necessity, I cannot agree. In my view, the statute and the decision on which the majority primarily rely do not lead to that conclusion. Nor should it be endorsed as a matter of public policy.
Section 7501 has no specific reference to parental custody disputes, and it appears in a section of the code dealing with “rights” as between parents and their children. (See Fam. Code, div. 12, pt. 1, § 7500 et seq.) Insofar as this statute and its 1872 predecessor may nonetheless apply to “move-away” disputes between parents (see, e.g., In re Marriage of Ciganovich (1976) 61 Cal.App.3d 289, 293 [132 Cal.Rptr. 261], and authorities there cited), the statutory language must be read in harmony with later and more comprehensive legislative declarations about the issues pertinent here.
When it adopted the Family Law Act in 1969, the Legislature specified that custody disputes between parents must be decided exclusively on the basis of the child’s “best interest.” (Fam. Code, §§ 3011, 3040, subds. (a)(1), (b); see Civ. Code, former § 4600, subds. (a), (b).) This court has made clear that the statutory “best interest” test, which allows the court and family “the widest discretion to choose a parenting plan ... in the best interest of the child” (Fam. Code, § 3040, subd. (b)), “governs all custody proceedings.” (Burchard v. Garay, supra, 42 Cal.3d 531, 535, citing In re B.G. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 679, 695-696 [114 Cal.Rptr. 444, 523 P.2d 244], italics added.)
The Family Law Act further declares that when weighing how parental custody should be arranged in the child’s “best interest,” the court must consider “which parent is more likely to allow the child frequent and continuing contact with the noncustodial parent.” (Fam. Code, § 3040, subd. (a)(1).) That is because “it is the public policy of this state to assure minor children frequent and continuing contact with both parents after the parents have separated or dissolved their marriage, and to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities of child rearing in order to effect this policy, except where the contact would not be in the best interest of the child.” (Id., § 3020, italics added.)
Given these legislative developments, section 7501 cannot be read to mean that a relocating parent may retain custodial “rights” which no longer suit the child’s “best interest” so long as the move causes the child no *43positive harm. If the majority are suggesting otherwise, we part company to that extent.1
Moreover, despite some expansive language in Carney, supra, 24 Cal.3d 725, and earlier cases, these decisions need not and should not be read to require showings of positive detriment or necessity in “changed circumstances” cases. The implication of these cases, which I do not dispute, is simply that the prior “best interest” finding, which led to the initial custody award, may not be relitigated on its merits, and that the stability of the existing custody arrangement has substantial weight when determining whether the child’s custodial “best interest” has changed. Indeed, that is precisely what we have more recently said. In Burchard v. Garay, supra, 42 Cal.3d 531, 536, we made clear that the “changed circumstances” rule affects the “best interest” test in only two ways: it “changes the burden of persuasion [and] also limits the [cognizable] evidence . . . .” The net effect is simply that the court “should preserve the existing mode of custody unless some significant change in circumstances indicates that a different arrangement would be in the child’s best interest.” (Id. at p. 535.)
In sum, a change in circumstances, including a pending relocation, warrants modification of formal custody or visitation if “significant” enough to indicate that modification would be in the child’s “best interest,” i.e., better for the child, all things considered, than keeping the existing arrangements intact. The parent seeking modification bears the burden of persuasion on this issue, but need not go further and establish the existence of positive detriment, prejudice, or necessity which requires such a change for the child’s welfare.
Depending on the particular facts, the impending relocation of either parent may well represent such a “significant” change in the child’s “best interest.” As our statutory law makes clear, California’s public policy strongly favors the maximum contact between a minor child and both of his separated parents. (Fam. Code, § 3020.) This policy must be considered in the “best interest” balance. Doing so does not constitute an undue interference with a parent’s personal rights. When one assumes parental responsibilities, his obligations include good faith efforts to foster both his own bond *44with the child and the relationship which exists between the child and a coparent. When a custody dispute arises, the court must weigh the child’s “best interest” even where that may affect a parent’s freedom, travel, lifestyle, and economic interests.
We recently concluded that when a biological parent makes diligent efforts to acknowledge and assume his parental obligations, the other parent may not frustrate his attempts to attain the legal rights of parenthood by preventing his contact with his child. (See Adoption of Kelsey S. (1992) 1 Cal.4th 816 [4 Cal.Rptr.2d 615, 823 P.2d 1216].) Similar concerns may arise when a separated parent who has legal status, and who has maintained a diligent relationship with the child, stands to lose the existing pattern of contact because a unilateral pending relocation will place the child beyond his or her reach. This potential disruption of the parent-child relationship may well mean, in the child’s “best interest,” that a modification of the existing rules for custody or visitation should occur.
In deciding whether a relocation warrants a modification of custody or visitation, the court is, of course, free to consider the quality of the current relationship between the child and each parent. The degree of diligence a parent has displayed in maintaining voluntary contact with his child is highly pertinent when deciding whether the relocation of either parent justifies a change in the arrangements previously ordered.
Finally, though a parent who seeks to relocate need not prove the move is “necessary” in order to retain or change the award, the reasons for the change in residence have some bearing on the “best interest” analysis. Even if the relocation is not a conscious effort to frustrate parent-child contact, casual motives for moving may indicate the relocating parent’s lack of commitment to the child’s interest in a continuing bond with both parents. The court may and should take that into account when deciding whether a consequent change in the award is justified.

In re Marriage of Ciganovich, supra, 61 Cal.App.3d 289, a post-Family Law Act case, cites the predecessor of section 7501 as support for the “general rule [that] a parent having child custody is entitled to change residence [over the other parent’s objection] unless the move is detrimental to the child. [Citations.]" (61 Cal.App.3d at p. 293, italics added.) Insofar as this statement implies a departure from the usual “best interest” test, it is undermined by the Court of Appeal’s failure to consider the intervening Family Law Act provisions discussed above. In any event, the statement is dictum, since the case turned on the corollary rule that modification of custody may be ordered when the custodial parent has moved for the purpose of frustrating contact between the child and the noncustodial parent.