Court Opinion

ID: 9728735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:15:29.991118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:51.652697
License: Public Domain

ZASTROW, Justice
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. The majority acknowledges that the actual physical custody is now with the mother’s parents. The mother and father have only occasional visitations with the child; the mother by choice, the father by court order.
The majority upholds this de facto custody arrangement even though there was a finding that both mother and father are fit and proper parents. Although there is no finding of fitness of the grandparents, I presume they are fit. The granting of actual custody of a child should be given to grandparents only when it is shown that the best interest of the child requires it and the parents are not fit and proper persons to have custody. This has not been shown.
The majority justifies this de facto award of custody because “[t]his situation was known to plaintiff at the time he entered into a stipulation and agreement [for custody] with defendant.” However, the transcript reveals that the “situation” known by the plaintiff was that while the defendant attended high school during the day the grandparents baby sat for the child. When the harsh winter days made it difficult to commute to high school, the defendant began to stay in Fort Pierre with her grandmother.
The plaintiff did not know, and could not have known, that when the defendant finished high school, obtained employment and her own housing, that the child would remain with the grandparents for almost three years.
Likewise, the majority seems to indicate that the plaintiff’s four-year acquiescence somehow forfeited his right to seek custody of the child. To the contrary, it appears that the plaintiff went out of his way to cooperate with the defendant and the grandparents. It was only after it became abundantly clear that the defendant was not going to exercise physical custody of the child that he took this action.
I feel that a substantial change of circumstances has been shown, i. e., the abandonment of physical custody of the child, and the finding of fitness of the plaintiff to have custody, requires a reversal of the judgment.