Court Opinion

ID: 9735981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:38:27.732281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:03.177614
License: Public Domain

*236ROBERT W. HANSEN, R.J.
(concurring). Legal custody of a child in this state involves both rights and duties. It involves "the right and duty to protect, train and discipline the child, and to provide food, shelter, legal services, education and ordinary medical and dental care.” Sec. 48.02(12), Stats.; see also sec. 767.24(l)(d), Stats.
In the case before us, the child of the parties, a developmentally disabled teenager, afflicted with cerebral palsy, went, after four years of institutional treatment, to live with his father, his legal custodian. After four months marked by problems, the father took the son to the home of the mother and left him there. Some days later, the father telephoned the mother to tell her that their son could stay with her as he wanted to do. The father wanted only to have weekend visiting rights. The mother agreed. No court approval was sought despite the fact that no offer was made by the father or agreed to by the parties as to regular payments by the father for support of the child.
This arrangement, shifting the duties of a custodian to the noncustodian mother, apparently worked harmoniously and well. For over ten months, the child of the parties lived with his mother at her home, attended school regularly and evidently had no adjustment difficulties. However, this custodial arrangement ended when the mother brought a motion for custody and contributions by the father to the support of the child. Four days later, after being served with papers, the father, saying that the mother had "gone too far,” took the son, Bobby, from the home of the mother to his home. There he stayed for some weeks, until the original trial judge in this case entered a temporary custody order restoring the child to the *237home of the mother. He has resided with his mother for nearly two years under that order. Child support payments ordered to be paid by the father were included in the temporary custody order. And it is to be noted that the trial court found that the father "has paid relatively little for support during the time since this order to show cause proceeding was commenced.”
In this case, granting the mother’s motion for change of custody and court-ordered contributions by the father to the support of the child has the son return to the home and care of the mother, where he has been now for nearly three years. It is likewise clear that denial of the mother’s motion would have the child go to live at the home of the father, where he has spent only four weeks in the past nearly three years. In making its choice between these custody awards, the trial court was required to consider the factors mandated by sec. 767.24(2), Stats. See sec. 767.32(2), Stats. Here are those mandated factors required to be considered, followed by the findings of the trial court as to each set forth in parentheses:
(a) The wishes of the ... parents as to custody; ("Here, Robert [the father]... largely relinquished his responsibilities to the non-custodial parent, Paula ....”)
(am) The wishes of the child as to his ... custody; ("His [the child’s] ... preference for custodial placement seems to be that he remain with his mother ....”)
(b) The interaction and interrelationship of the child with his ... parents; ("Robert’s [the father’s] interaction with Bobby [the child] tends to be negative and rejecting of Bobby.”)
*238(c) The child’s adjustment to the home, school, religion and community; ("Robert [the father] is unrealistic in his perception of Bobby’s [the child’s] capability.”)
(d) The mental and physical health of the parties [and] the minor children ...; [and]
(e) The availability of public or private child care services; and ("The continued educational needs and the continued psychological counseling needs of Bobby [the child] can be set in either custodial setting.”1 )
(f) Such other factors as the court may in each individual case determine to be relevant. [Emphasis added.] ("By his actions in voluntarily placing Bobby [the child] with Paula [the mother] for a ten and one-half month period ... and by his resumption of physical custody of Bobby basically because of a dispute over what support he should pay Paula for Bobby’s care, he has waived and relinquished his right ... and is estopped from asserting that Paula has the moving party’s burden_”)
These "other factors” found by the court to establish waiver and create estoppel may not accomplish that, but they do establish the harmfulness to the child’s best interest in the present custodial arrangement. See Millikin v. Millikin, 115 Wis. 2d 16, *23923-24, 339 N.W.2d 573, 576 (1983); see also Gould v. Gould, 116 Wis. 2d 493, 500, 342 N.W.2d 426, 430 (1984). The requirements of sec. 767.24(2), Stats., and Millikin and Gould for granting change of custody are here clearly met.
Of course, there can be no dispute that the findings of fact made by the trial court as to the factors it was required by statute to consider, establish that "it is in Bobby’s [the child’s] best interest that legal custody be now granted to Paula [the mother] and not to Robert [the father].” It is also this writer’s opinion that the harmfulness in the present custodial condition, required by Millikin and Gould to be found for a change in custody, is also overwhelmingly established by the same findings. Here, the custodian father, when he turned the child over to the mother’s care, made no offer or firm commitment to the child’s support payments. But this absence of a fixed and firm commitment by the father for child support, while itself harmful to the child, pales alongside the circumstances of the father’s taking the child back from the home of the mother. This use of the child as a pawn in the dispute over support payments surely establishes the harmfulness iv. che existing custodial arrangements to the child, which meets the burden of proof placed upon a moving party by sec. 767.24(2), Stats.
So, the writer would affirm, holding that requirements of both the statute, sec. 767.24(2), Stats., and Millikin and Gould have been met. The writer would, therefore, affirm the granting of the mother’s motion for change of custody and affirm the setting by the trial court of contributions to the support of the child by the father. The trial court reached this result by the route of waiver and estoppel, holding that, by turning over the duties of day-to-day care and control *240of the child to the noncustodian mother and then taking back the child when and because the mother sought court-ordered help in supporting the child, the father waived his right and was estopped from placing upon the noncustodian mother the burden of proving that a change of custody here was "necessary.” While the concepts of waiver and estoppel are awkwardly, if at all, applicable in custody determinations where, after all, the focus is upon the well-being of the child, not the wishes or rights of the custody claimants, the factors upon which the trial court found waiver and estoppel are here highly relevant to determining whether the best interest of the child requires and makes necessary the award of custody to the mother.
In holding that custody of Bobby should be awarded "as if it were an initial [sic] litigated determination,” the trial court described the measuring stick in this state for such initial determination as "the standard of doing what the best interest of Bobby requires. ” (Emphasis added.) This writer is persuaded that "necessary” and "required” are sufficiently synonymous to be equivalent. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1510-11, 1929 (1976). Therefore, what is required by the best interest of the child is no different than what is necessary to such best interest.
It must be noted, however, that, despite its reliance on waiver and estoppel theory, the trial court did make a determination that "it is not necessary that he [the child] be removed from either the Tieberg or the Ehlke home.” Considering the findings made in accord with the sec. 767.24(2), Stats., factors already discussed, the writer would hold that the trial court’s necessity determination is not warranted by the facts *241as found. The trial court’s statement on necessity, then, may and must be disregarded.
The court majority here rejects, as would the writer, the waiver/estoppel basis for decision in favor of holding that the change of custody statute, sec. 767.32(2), Stats., requiring proof that "removal is necessary to the child’s best interest,” applies only to a situation where change is sought from a parent or one who has both the rights and duties of custodianship as set forth in sec. 48.02(12), Stats. The writer concurs, finding the phrase "removal from the care” in the change of custody statute crucial. The statute applies only to a custody order which "removes a child from the care of a parent having custody.” Sec. 767.32(2) (emphasis added). It is not appropriately applied in the case before us where the consequences of granting the mother’s motion would keep the child in the care of the parent with whom he has resided for nearly three years after being placed there by the other parent. While the writer concurs in the result and resources of the court majority, this concurring opinion is written to submit that sec. 767.32(2) and the Millikin and Gould decisions not only support but require that this mother’s motion for custody and child support assistance be granted. Two roads then can be followed but either one leads without detour to requiring affir-mance of the trial court order granting the noncusto-dian mother’s motion for change of custody and contribution by the father to the support of the child. So the writer would affirm.

 It is to be noted as to factors (c) and (e) that the trial court in its decision referred to the testimony of expert witnesses, particularly stressing and completely agreeing with the clinical psychologist whose opinion it was that Bobby’s best interest would be served by awarding legal custody to the mother. The trial court stated: "Her [the psychologist] opinion appears well-founded based on the facts in the case. ...” No testimony by any of the expert witnesses faulted in any way the custodial care given by the mother or the child’s adjustment while living with the mother.