Court Opinion

ID: 9775069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:42:35.4772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:19.836694
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
As indicated in our opinion, both sides in this case are before us as appellants. Both of them duly gave notice of appeal, both filed appeal bonds on June 14, 1952 and 'both sides in their briefs on appeal asked 11s to reverse and render the cause in their favor. Neither side prayed that the judgment of the trial court be affirmed. It was not until we had reversed and rendered the case in favor of the mother, that the grandparents in their motion for rehearing prayed, in the alternative, that the judgment of the trial court *342be reversed and remanded, or, also in the alternative, be affirmed. We call attention to this state of the record because the grandparents in their brief refer to themselves as appellees, and seek to place on the mother the legal burdens on appeal which must be carried by an appellant, while claiming for themselves all the legal presumptions that ordinarily must be indulged in favor of an appellee who seeks only an affirmance. There was as much a burden on the grandparents, as appealing parties, to bring up a statement of facts in the record as there was on the mother; and as much of a burden also to request supplemental findings of fact if they wished on appeal to urge that we either reverse and render in their favor, or reverse and remand.
There is nothing in the record on this appeal to indicate that this mother is unfit to have custody of her child. On the contrary,- the court’s judgment awarding her custody for three months of each year carries with it a presumption that she is fit to have custody. Moreover the court expressly found that “no proceedings were ever -had to show * * * that the mother was an unfit person to have custody of him.”
In his findings and conclusions filed at the request of the mother, the trial court made no fact findings as to changed conditions which might support the judgment rendered changing custody. But in the written judgment signed by the court there is such a finding. The court says: “ * * the conditions of the parties respectively have changed since the entry of the former judgment and order herein respecting the custody of said child, in that the mother of the said child now has a fixed home * * Since the mother, so far as the record shows, is a fit person to have custody, is now financially able to do so, and now has a fixed home, we held that as a matter of law the best interests of the child would be served by awarding her full custody.
We believe that the law frowns on divided custody of a child. We believe further that such rule is grounded on reason and good sense. A divided custody may be expected to develop in a child a sense of instability, insecurity and confusion which might well have permanent ill effects on its life, even as an adult. The frequent change from one environment to another, the confusion incident to adjusting to different disciplinary codes, and the difficulty of conforming to varying and often conflicting rules of conduct in general, can do a child no good. And these considerations1 seem to us to be more moving when a child, as is usually the case, must divide its time between hostile camps, in which the jealous and warring custodians do not ordinarily speak well of each other, if they speak of each other at all. We do not say that such are the facts in the case before us, for there is no statement of facts in the record. But we believe the undesirable features of divided custody are apparent, even when the contestants are both fit to have custody, as they seem to be in this case.
The trial court concluded, “No grounds have been established for changing the custody other than to provide for the rights of ■ visitation.” Nevertheless the court then proceeded to render a judgment changing the custody. We think the quoted conclusion is in conflict with the judgment rendered, and is also in conflict with the finding in the written judgment that there had been a change in conditions.
In the absence of a statement of facts, we cannot say from the record before us whether the fact's in the case were fully developed in the trial court. In view of the incompleteness of the record, and the conflicts in it, and the importance of the matters involved, we have concluded that we were in error in rendering judgment. We think that the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and the cause remanded to the trial court for complete development- of the facts affecting the welfare and best interests of this child.
Motion of grandparents for rehearing is sustained to the extent that the judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause remanded for new trial.
Reversed and remanded.