Court Opinion

ID: 9685044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:21:49.085296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:01.940823
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The posture of this case is an appeal from an order of the trial court determining that the father of the minor children has abandoned them within the purview of SDCL 25-6-4(2).
Whether abandonment exists is a question of fact for the trial court and the court’s findings will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. Matter of Adoption of Everett, 286 N.W.2d 810, 814 (S.D.1979).
Reliance on In re Adoption of Christof-ferson, 89 S.D. 287, 232 N.W.2d 832 (1975), is misplaced as it can be clearly distinguished. In Christofferson, supra, the natural mother was living. Here, the natural mother had been dead for nearly three years. During this period, the father did nothing to secure the custody of his children. He made no attempt to pay anything toward their support.* A couple telephone calls and a couple birthday gifts fall far short of the father’s responsibility. When the mother died, for all intents and purposes, the custody determination of the divorce decree was terminated. See SDCL 25-5-7; Sweeney v. Joneson, 75 S.D. 213, 63 N.W.2d 249 (1954); Kienlen v. Kienlen, 227 Minn. 137, 34 N.W.2d 351 (1948). To maintain his rights as a father, he should have come forward and asserted his parental right to custody.
I not only cannot find the trial court’s finding of abandonment clearly erroneous, I agree with his judgment.

The $200.00 tendered, as noted in the majority opinion, was during the mother’s lifetime.