Court Opinion

ID: 9758916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:55:53.712492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:31.151327
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
concurring and dissenting. I concur in the Court’s resolution of the relocation issue. Nevertheless, I continue to believe, as I have elsewhere stated, deBeaumont v. Goodrich, 162 Vt. 91, 104-06, 644 A.2d 843, 851-52 (1994) (Morse, J., concurring), that we have made the modification-of-custody proceeding needlessly complex and artificial through the two-step approach described in the recent case law and reaffirmed in today’s decision.
I.
The governing statute provides that a court may modify a custody award “upon a showing of real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances ... if it is in the best interests of the child.” 15 V.S.A. § 668. The plain language of the statute permitting modification does not, in my view, clearly and unambiguously mandate a two-stage judicial inquiry, first into whether there has been a substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances, and only then, if such change is found, into the question of the best interests of the child. The two questions are not rigidly separated in the text. On the contrary, the statutory language is fluid, authorizing a modification when circumstances have substantially changed “if it is in the [child’s] best interests.” Id. This suggests a blended or merged analysis, assessing the substantiality of the change in light of its effect on the welfare of the child.
I acknowledge this Court has held expressly to the contrary, most notably in Kilduff v. Willey, 150 Vt. 552, 554 A.2d 677 (1988). There, *451we stated in the starkest of terms that a finding of changed circumstances was a jurisdictional “threshold” to the court’s consideration of the child’s best interests. Id. at 558, 554 A.2d at 678. Some of the earlier cases on which Kilduff relied, however, stand for precisely the opposite conclusion. Most notably, in Gerety v. Gerety, 131 Vt. 396, 306 A.2d 693 (1973), we observed:
It is the settled law of this Court that to warrant the modification of a custody order, the petitioner must show a substantial change in the material circumstances since the date of the decree. Thus the petitioner must prove a substantial change in the material circumstances and that under the new conditions a change of custody is in the best interests of the child or children. It is equally well settled that it is the welfare of the child which in the last analysis is determinative in a custody matter.
Id. at 399, 306 A.2d at 694 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
The underscored language in Gerety strongly supports an approach in which the two issues are combined, and the substantiality of the change is evaluated in light of its effect on the child. That this was the understanding in Gerety is confirmed later in the opinion, where we stated:
There can be no fixed standards to determine what constitutes a substantial change in material circumstances. The court is guided by a rule of very general application that the welfare and best interests of the children are the primary concern in determining whether the order should be changed.
Id. at 402, 306 A.2d at 695 (emphasis added); see also Miles v. Farnsworth, 121 Vt. 491, 493, 160 A.2d 759, 760 (1960) (welfare of child is critical determinant in evaluating motion for modification of custody); McKinney v. Kelley, 120 Vt. 299, 309, 141 A.2d 660, 667 (1957) (in evaluating modification-of-custody motion, “the real question . . . was [whether] the change [was] detrimental as far as [the child’s] welfare is concerned”), cert. denied, 356 U.S. 972, reh’g denied, 357 U.S. 944 (1958).
Thus, the modification statute does not, in my view, contemplate a mechanistic two-step approach to change-of-custody issues, but rather a flexible test in which the change of circumstances and the welfare of the child are evaluated together in a single, unified inquiry. *452Indeed, Kilduff notwithstanding, I believe that courts deciding such issues routinely adopt this approach, albeit not explicitly. “After all, it is impossible to evaluate ‘real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances’ -without considering how the events and circumstances impact on the child’s best interests.” deBeaumont, 162 Vt. at 105, 644 A.2d at 851 (Morse, J., concurring). It is time we reinterpret the statute to reflect reality.
II.
I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the order requiring plaintiff to consult with defendant about “major decisions” affecting the children was impermissibly vague. While a more detailed order tailored to the specific circumstances of the case might in some cases be useful, the absence of such detail is not fatal. No mystery surrounds the meaning of “major decisions” in this context. The statute explicitly defines the six fundamental areas that a child-custody agreement must address. These are: (1) physical living arrangements; (2) parent-child contact; (3) education of the minor children; (4) medical, dental and health care; (5) travel arrangements; and (6) procedures for communicating about the children’s welfare. 15 V.S.A. § 666(b); see also 15 V.S.A. § 664(1) (defining scope of “parental rights and responsibilities”). The order in this case may reasonably be informed by these mandatory statutory areas to determine what is meant by the “major decisions” about which the parties must confer.
Accordingly, I dissent from that portion of the Court’s decision striking the consultation order and remanding for consideration of a more specific provision.