Court Opinion

ID: 9675344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:49:49.720249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:33.515662
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent. K.R.S. 403.-420(4)(b) provides that a child custody proceeding is commenced in the circuit court “by a person other than a parent by filing a petition for custody of the child in the county in which he is permanently resident or found, but only if he is not in the physical custody of one (1) of his parents.” (Emphasis added.)
Admittedly, a person who kidnaps or snatches a child from one having legal custody and takes the child into another state or another county of this state for the purpose of filing a custody proceeding will be estopped from doing so. There was no such child snatching in this case, however. The father of the children had been indicted for homicide for causing the death of his wife, the mother of the children, and under the circumstances he suggested to the ap-pellee grandparents that they take the children to reside with them in Rowan County. The length of time that the children were to reside with the grandparents was not discussed at that time insofar as this record shows.
The grandparents believed that the father had a violent temper and disposition and were concerned for the safety of the children should they be returned to the custody of the father. When the father sought to regain possession of the children, the grandparents filed a proceeding in Rowan County, the county in which the children were then located, seeking custody of the children.
The majority now holds that Rowan Circuit Court could not entertain the action by limiting the words “or found” in the statute to permit an action in the county where the children are found only by a parent seeking to recover custody of children when they have been found in another county. This, in my view, is an improper limitation, and one which flies in the very face of the statute.
It defies logic to limit the right to sue where the children are “found” to a parent when the statute itself specifically grants this right to a nonparent. We must concede that the words “or found,” as used in the statute have some meaning, and if they do not apply to a nonparent, they are entirely superfluous and have no meaning at all. It seems to me that the majority has simply decided that the legislature used bad judgment when it allowed a nonparent to file a custody proceeding in either of two locations, (1) the county of the children’s residence, or (2) the county where the children happened to be located. By this decision this court has simply amended the statute to strike out the words “or found,” and in my view, it is beyond our prerogative to legislate in this manner.
Children are wards of the court, and the courts have a duty to protect children from harm. The court in the county in which children permanently reside has jurisdiction to enter protective orders and decide custody matters, but on occasions when children are legitimately in a county other than the county of their permanent residence, they become wards of the court of that county as well, and that court also has a duty to protect them.
I believe that the statute in question authorizes the court of a county in which children are then located to conduct a custody proceeding on the petition of both a parent or a nonparent who has standing to seek custody. Of course, a nonparent has no right to custody against a parent unless he can show that the parent is unfit for custody.
Here, grandparents seek custody on the ground that the safety of the children is endangered when in the custody of the father and that the father is not a fit person to be entrusted with the custody of the children. I believe they have the right *625under the statute to assert their claim in Rowan County, not because it is the residence of the grandparents, but because it is the county in which the children are “now found.”
The fact that the father attempted to revoke permission for the children to remain in Rowan County is irrelevant. The grandparents removed the children to Rowan County legally and with the father’s permission. Their continued possession of the children is not illegal, even though permission was revoked, as long as they are attempting to assert in court a good-faith claim that custody should be granted to them to protect the children from serious harm.
GANT and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.