Court Opinion

ID: 9511145
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:02:09.852048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:53.267456
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE GRAY,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
¶45 I concur in much of the Court’s opinion. However, I respectfully dissent from the result the Court reaches. I would remand.
¶46 The District Court denied Drollinger’s motion to decline jurisdiction as an inconvenient forum. As the Court correctly states, our review of the District Court’s decision is whether that court abused its discretion. Having properly begun to apply the correct standard, however, the Court takes it upon itself to make the ultimate decision about whether Montana is an inconvenient forum and, indeed, concludes that Washington is the “more appropriate” forum for this case. I cannot agree with the Court’s approach.
¶47 I do agree with the first sentence in ¶ 34 of the opinion, where the Court determines that the District Court abused its discretion by neglecting to consider which forum could best protect Drollinger and the children. I also agree with ¶ 32 of the opinion, which lists other findings not made by the District Court. The Court then implicitly makes these missing findings of fact-an undertaking totally outside this Court’s authority-in order to reach the conclusion it desires to make.
¶48 On this record, I conclude that the District Court abused its discretion by failing to make sufficient findings on the domestic violence matters. I would remand, however, for the entry of those findings and, thereafter, for reconsideration of the entire issue of a convenient forum under § 40-7-108, MCA. I simply cannot agree with this Court’s choice to make the ultimate decision which properly belongs with the District Court.