Court Opinion

ID: 9696919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:01:37.289397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.694924
License: Public Domain

Thompson, J.
(dissenting) :
I. The majority opinion removes this small child from the only home he has known, where he has been happy and well cared for for about two and one-half years, almost all of his short life, and sends him to the care of a mother who has suffered serious mental illness in the past and has admittedly been guilty of acts of sex deviation. It may be true that she has recovered from her mental troubles and that her sexual aberrations will not be repeated. But the child will be far removed from Iowa and it will be a practical impossibility for the father and the paternal grandparents in whose custody he has thrived to date to know what is happening to him or what the mother’s mental condition and conduct may be, or for the Iowa courts to do anything about it if serious danger to his welfare develops. The mother voluntarily left him in his present home and for some time paid little or no attention to him.
As the majority rightly says it is impossible to know the future, and the courts can at best make only an educated guess as to what will best serve the interests of the child. In this situation there is an old rule which expresses the commonsense experience of men over the centuries. It is that when we cannot be certain we should leave well enough alone. We know the boy will be well cared for and reared where he is; we are gambling with his future when we send him to a new home and a new life in a distant state. I would follow the rule of common sense.
*1406II. The majority states and follows another rule which it must be admitted has become fixed in our consideration of child-custody cases. It is that the trial court has discretion and we will reverse only when an abuse appears. Several cases, cited in the majority opinion, so hold. I think we should take another look at this rule. All child-custody cases, including habeas corpus when such custody is involved, are tried in equity, as the majority points out. This should mean that we try appeals de novo; such is the equity rule. But I suggest that if we are trying nothing but the question of the abuse of discretion of the trial court, we are not hearing these cases de novo on appeal. It is proper to give weight to the fact findings of the trial court; but if we confine our examination only to whether it has abused its discretion we are not examining the record to make our own determination on the facts as we should do. We should reexamine our pronouncements on this point, and modify them to the extent that the appellant has a real trial de novo. Our present rule, I apprehend, gives the appellant only a limited review, which amounts in effect to a determination whether there are facts which support the trial court’s findings. The present rule makes our review little more than a review at law, in which the fact findings of the trial court have the force and effect of a special verdict. We should make our own examination and decision as to the weight of the evidence.
Hays and Snell, JJ., join in this dissent.