Court Opinion

ID: 9785754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:19:33.497804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:32.858639
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
dissenting
T1 The court reverses today the trial court's post-decree order that sustains the mother's objections to the father's proposed plan to change the children's residence from Oklahoma City to New York.
T2 I dissent from the court's pronouncement. In my view the trial court's order is not an appealable disposition. It fails to determine all the issues related to the custodial parent's quest for approval of his residential change. I would dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
"[ 3 Without warrant the court's pronouncement assumes the appeal was correctly brought and erroneously bases the order's reversal on the trial judge's unmemorialized open-court statements. Oral statements by the trial judge may not be considered to vary or impeach the memorialized order. The order's terms are to be measured solely by the recorded journal entry.
I
THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION
T4 Behrooz Mahmoodjanloo (father) and Tammy Mahmoodjanloo (mother) were divorced in 1993 and awarded joint custody of their two daughters. By a 1996 default order father was awarded sole custody of the children and mother given supervised visitation. The order was silent as to the residen*957tial relocation of the children. Father remarried in 2004 and notified mother in July 2004 of his plans to join his wife and move the children to Amherst, New York. Mother filed an objection to father's proposed plan to change the children's domicile and requested a hearing in accordance with the terms of 48 O.8.Supp.2002 § 112.3.
T5 The trial judge heard testimony from the parties as well as held an in camera meeting with the children, who were then 13 and 14 years of age. No exhibits were offered and admitted into evidence. The only testimony heard was that of the parents. The trial court's order (a) sustained the mother's objection to father's proposed residential change and (b) found the terms of 43 O.S.Supp.2002 § 112.3 to be free of constitutional infirmity. Father brings this appeal.
II
THE TRIAL COURTS DENIAL OF THE CUSTODIAL PARENTS RESIDENTIAL-CHANGE QUEST IS LESS THAN A COMPLETE ADJUDICATION OF ALL THE ISSUES RELATED TO RELOCATION AND HENCE CANNOT BE TREATED AS A TERMINAL ORDER FOR APPEAL
T6 This appeal is prosecuted from a non-terminal and hence unappealable order that stops short of a final disposition of the matter before the court. It does not rise to the status of a final order because it leaves unresolved critical issues related to the custodial parent's residential-relocation quest.
A.
The order fails to consider the impact of two statutory regimes now in force (10 ©.$.2001 § 19 and 43 O.S$.Supp.2002 § 112.3), both of which govern the custodial parent's quest for residential relocation of children.1
T7 Section 19, together with its judicial gloss,2 were left intact when the Legislature added the provisions of § 112.3 under Title 43. The principal unanswered question here is whether the statutes can be construed together3 or whether there is an implied repeal of the earlier-enacted Title 10 standards.4 Absent an express repeal or a repeal by implication, the provisions of 10 0.S.2001 § 19 must be construed together with those of 48 0.S.Supp.2002 § 112.3 and equal force given to both enactments for adjudicating the legal consequences that flow from a change of residence by a custodial *958parent to a distant geographical location'5
T8 The continued viability of the provisions of § 19, either in whole or in part, presents a first-impression issue that must in the first instance be tendered to, and resolved by, the trial tribunal.6
B.
The order fails to make the appropriate custodial and visitation changes that are needed in the aftermath of the relocation's denial.
9 The trial court's refusal to approve the residential-relocation quest placed the parties in a legal limbo by leaving unresolved the inextricably connected issues of custody modification and visitation. By attempting to dispose of the relocation issues under the Title 48 procedure without a post-denial proceeding to adjudicate the legal consequences that flow from its decision, the trial court cast an impermissible burden on the father's adjudicated custodial interest. For a complete disposition of the residential-change proceeding, the trial court's relocation quest's denial should have been immediately followed by a judicial modification of custodial and visitation arrangements.
1 10 In short, there is here no memorialized journal entry that disposes of the issues, which, if decided, would have amounted to an appealable disposition. The order on appeal is but an interlocutory mid-litigation disposition that leaves the parties in a legal limbo rather than terminates the relocation proceeding. These unresolved issues call for an immediate disposition that will in law become part and parcel of the decision. That decision is due both parties in a relocation litigation.
III
EVEN ASSUMING THE NISI PRIUS DECISION WERE APPEALABLE IT COULD NOT BE REVERSED BASED ON THE UNMEMORIAL-IZED COMMENTS OF THE TRIAL JUDGE
111 Today's reversal rests on the trial Judge's oral comments made during the August 2004 hearing, which appear to show a misallocation of the burden of proof.7 These courtroom remarks are being improperly used to impute error committed by the trial judge in an unappealable order.
112 The rule is well established that a court of common law speaks only through its record.8 The memorialized record entry *959signed by the judge is the only legitimate evidence of the nisi prius disposition's terms and its legal effect.9 A trial judge's statements in announcing the post-decree order will not and may not be considered to vary or impeach the order whose terms are to be measured solely by the recorded order's journal entry.10
T 13 None of the remarks the court relies upon today can be used as a basis for reversal. They do not stand incorporated into the journal entry of the proceedings tendered for our review.
IV
SUMMARY
T14 Because the trial court's decision denying the father's residential-relocation quest failed to consider the impact of both the Title 10 and the Title 43 standards on the relocation dispute before the court as well as left unresolved the disputed issues over post-denial custody and visitation, the order tendered for review is a nonfinal unappealable disposition.
{ 15 I would dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction and remand the cause for further proceedings.

. Oklahoma's statutory regime for dealing with the residential relocation of children is governed by two enactments carried into the statutory compilation under two different titlee-10 O.S. 2001 § 19 and 43 O0.S.Supp.2002 § 112.3. There is no indication in the trial court's order whether the trial court considered both statutes applicable, though it may be deduced that Title 10 came to be overlooked or disregarded because it is nowhere mentioned in the record of the proceedings before us.

. This court construed the provisions of 10 O.S. 1991 § 19 as giving custodial parents the presumptive authority to move their children and establish a new residence absent a showing that the residential change "would prejudice the rights or welfare of the child." Kaiser v. Kaiser, 2001 OK 30, ¶18, 23 P.3d 278, 282.

. Different statutes on the same subject-matter are generally to be viewed as in pari materia and must be construed together as a harmonious whole so as to give effect to each provision. Mustain v. Grand River Dam Authority, 2003 OK 43, ¶23, 68 P.3d 991, 999; Culbertson v. McCann, 1983 OK 57, ¶14, 664 P.2d 388, 391 (citing De Graffenreid v. Iowa Land and Trust Co., 1908 OK 49, 95 P. 624, 639, 20 Okla. 687). All legislative enactments in pari materia are to be interpreted together as forming a single body of law that will fit into a coherent symmetry of legislation. Conflicting legislative acts should be construed in such a way as to reconcile their provisions and render them consistent and harmonious, giving force and effect to each. Beavin v. State ex rel. Dept. of Public Safety, 1983 OK 34, 662 P.2d 299, 302; Sharp v. Tulsa County Election Bd., 1994 OK 104, ¶11, 890 P.2d 836, 840.

. Legislative repeals by implication are not favored and all statutory provisions must be given effect, if possible. It will not be presumed that in the enactment of a subsequent statute the Legislature intended to repeal an earlier one, unless it has done so in express terms. Mustain v. Grand River Dam Authority, supra note 3, at ¶23, 68 P.3d at 999; American Ins. Ass'n v. State Indus. Com'n, 1987 OK 107, ¶7, 745 P.2d 737, 740; Citicorp. Sav. & Trust Co. v. Banking Bd. of State of Okl, 1985 OK 63, 704 P.2d 490, 494.

. No special significance may be ascribed to the specific location of statutory provisions in the decennial compilation. The topical place assigned to an enactment in the assembled body of legislation does not restrict the force and effect of its terms to subjects under which the statute is carried into the compilation. American Ins. Ass'n v. State Indus. Com'n, supra note 4 at 17, at 740. The location of a statute in the compilation does not generally limit the meaning, force and effect of its provisions. Johnson v. Tony's Town Mister Quik, 1996 OK 138, ¶5, 915 P.2d 355, 357; Harber v. Shaffer, 1988 OK 45, ¶9, 755 P.2d 640, 642; Church v. Church, 1982 OK 147, ¶4, 657 P.2d 151, 152; McCracken v. City of Lawton, 1982 OK. 63, ¶6, 648 P.2d 18, 20; WRG Const. Co. v. Hoebel, 1979 OK 125, ¶7, 600 P.2d 334, 336; Green v. Green, 1957 OK 70, ¶12, 309 P.2d 276, 278.

. Appellate courts do not make first-instance rulings on either facts or law. House of Realty, Inc. v. City of Midwest City, 2004 OK 97, ¶27, 109 P.3d 314, 322; American Ins. Ass'n v. State Indus. Com'n, supra note 4 at ¶7, at 740; A-Plus Janitorial & Carpet Cleaning v. Employers' Workers' Compensation Ass'n, 1997 OK 37, ¶25, 936 P.2d 916, 928. When necessary dispositions are absent, the case must be remanded with directions that they be effected at nisi prius. American Ins. Ass'n v. State Indus. Com'n, supra note 4 at ¶7, at 740; Matter of Estate of Bartlett, 1984 OK 9, ¶19, 680 P.2d 369, 377; Davis v. Gwaltney, 1955 OK 362, ¶13, 291 P.2d 820, 824.

. For its reversal the court relies on the trial judge's unmemorialized open-court statements:
"Once the burden was established, the burden then shifted to Ms. Mahmoodjanloo to show that it was not in the best interest of the children to, in fact, move. Or I take that back. It was Mr. Mahmoodjanloo's burden at that point to show that it was in the best interest of the children to move."
The custodial father bears no probative onus under Title 43 except to show that the proposed residential change is made in good faith. The burden then shifts to the contesting parent to show that the move is not in the best interests of the child. 43 0.$.$upp.2002 § 112.3 (K).

. Depuy v. Hoeme, 1989 OK 42, ¶8, 775 P.2d 1339, 1342-43. The term "record" or "record proper" is synonymous with "common-law rec*959ord" and "judgment roll." Rodgers v. Higgins, 1993 OK 45, 871 P.2d 398, 405. The judgment roll includes the petition, process, return, all subsequent pleadings, reports, verdicts, orders, judgments, and all material acts and proceedings of the court. 12 0.$.2001 § 32.1. The latter has been held to be the court's only official memorial and the only medium through which it speaks. Elliott v. City of Guthrie, 1986 OK 59, 725 P.2d 861, 863.

. Depuy v. Hoeme, supra note 8, at 19, 775 P.2d at 1343.

. A nisi prius decision cannot be impeached by or varied from the trial judge's unmemorialized courtroom - remarks. - Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. v. Hayes, 1968 OK 106, ¶¶0, 11, 445 P.2d 254, 256 syl.5, 259; Ralston v. Tucker, 1958 OK 54, ¶10, 324 P.2d 525, 528; Hays Trucking Co. v. Maxwell, 1953 OK 245, ¶¶0, 9, 261 P.2d 456, 458 syl.2, 462. Recitations in the memorialized entry will always control over any inconsistent oral statements made by the nisi prius judge. Hedges v. Hedges, 2002 OK 92, ¶17, 66 P.3d 364, 371; Elliott v. City of Guthrie, supra note 8, at ¶7 n. 11, at 863; Thompson v. Inman, 1971 OK 32, 482 P.2d 927, 937; Irwin v. Irwin, 1966 OK 146, ¶12, 416 P.2d 853, 857; Diem v. Diem, 1962 OK 124, ¶11, 372 P.2d 19, 23; Moree v. Moree, 1962 OK 95, ¶6, 371 P.2d 719, 722.