Court Opinion

ID: 9713447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:15:35.168104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.868659
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurs in result).
As visitation rights are only at issue, and not custodial rights, I would stand by the precedent of this Court as enunciated in Blare v. Blare, cited in the majority, and Hershey v. Hershey, 85 S.D. 85, 177 N.W.2d 267 (1970). However, I believe the trial court’s decision to be harsh in view of the fact that appellant is committing no crime such as adultery (our Legislature abolished adultery as a crime, 1976 S.D.Sess.L. ch. 158, § 22-8) nor engaged in criminal conversation (nonexistent tort, see Hunt v. Hunt, 309 N.W.2d 818 (S.D.1981)). Further, the showing of an adverse demonstrable effect on the two children is assumed and woefully weak. It appears to be subjective in the mind of the mother and the trial court. Thus, I concur in the results based on stare decisis as I cannot join in the moral judgmental overtones of this opinion. This *866case, factually, does not begin to approach the circumstances in Spaulding v. Spauld-ing, cited by the majority. In Spaulding, the mother openly and notoriously carried on an adulterous affair in the presence of two young boys. Such is not the case here.
In Krueger v. Stevens, 90 S.D. 641, 244 N.W.2d 763 (1976), this Court held that the mere fact that a divorced father having custody of his two children chose to live with a woman to whom he was not married did not give rise to circumstances which could deny him custody rights. I hew to that decision and I point out that it was a custody, not visitation, dispute.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice WOLLMAN joins in this concurrence in result.