Court Opinion

ID: 9710638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:13:51.243048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:58.660790
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE BURMAN, dissenting: I must respectfully dissent. In this cause a final decree of divorce had been granted to plaintiff-respondent, Carol Anne Chodzko, on June 22, 1965. The decree awarded plaintiff “the sole custody, education and control of their four (4) minor children * * subject to the father’s right of visitation at reasonable times. Seven years later plaintiff’s father filed an intervening petition seeking an order of visitation which plaintiff opposed. I believe that under the attendant circumstances the court erred in permitting the. petition to be filed and awarding visitation rights to the grandfather. In my opinion such action was neither reasonable nor proper. As the majority notes, the courts are concerned with and guided by the best interest of the child. This is not to say, however, that the matter of a child’s welfare invites uncontrolled judicial intrusion. The law recognizes that a child’s welfare presumptively is best left to the effective control and discretion of the parent who has the daily responsibility of rearing the child. I believe the law is clear that absent a showing of parental unfitness or other extenuating circumstances, the court is without authority to award visitation rights to a third party over the objection of the custodial parent. The cases cited in the majority opinion fully support this assertion. In the case of Giacopelli v. Florence Crittenton Home, 16 Ill.2d 556,158 N.E.2d 613, our Supreme Court recognized the natural parent’s superior right to the custody of his child. The court held, however, that where a natural parent affirmatively abandons his child, he will be deemed to have forfeited all right, control and authority Over said child by operation of statute. No contention is made in the case at bar that plaintiff has abandoned her children or other-wise forfeited her right to custody, and accordingly, Giacopelli presents an entirely different situation. The majority also cites Boyles v. Boyles, 14 Ill.App.3d 602, 302 N.E.2d 199, for the proposition that'the matter of third party visitation rights rests solely in the discretion of the court. In my opinion such a reading goes beyond intended bounds. In Boyles the natural mother had been awarded sole custody of her minor child pursuant to a decree of divorce. Shortly thereafter she died, and the maternal grandparents petitioned the court as intervenors seeking custody of the child or in the alternative visitation rights. After hearing evidence the court found the natural father, who resided in Colorado at the time, to be a fit and proper parent and awarded custody to him. The court also awarded visitation rights to the maternal grandparents who resided in Illinois. The visitation provision in the order was with the consent of the father. A year later the grandparents petitioned the court to issue a rule requiring the father to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the order of visitation. The appellate court considered the best interest of the child in light of evidence that the child had just lost his mother, that he was close to his maternal grandparents, and that he had visited his maternal grandparents every day prior to his mother’s death. The court held that under those special circumstances the father consequently was not free to disregard the provisions of a valid decree. No.such special circumstances exist in the case at bar. That the decision in Boyles is grounded on special circumstances is apparent from its reliance on Lucchesi v. Lucchesi, 330 Ill.App. 506, 71 N.E.2d 920, also cited by the majority. In Lucchesi the natural mother appealed from an order granting the paternal grandparents the right to take custody of her minor child for specified hours on alternate Sundays. She contended that as natural mother of the child, she had the sole right to custody, and that the order was a material abridgement on that right. The appellate court stated, “This contention is a meritorious one” (330 Ill.App. 506, 511), citing Kulan v. Anderson, 300 Ill.App. 267, 20 N.E.2d 987. The court, however, did take note of the fact that the child’s natural father recently had been killed in combat, and that under his last will and testament he created a trust for the benefit of the minor naming the grandparents as trustees. Under the terms of the trust the grandparents were required to pay the mother $10 per month for the use and benefit of the child. The grandparents further were given the power to pay an additional $10 per month if in their discretion they deemed that amount necessary for the maintenance of the child. The court held that “in view of the particular facts of the instant case,” the grandparents should be permitted to visit the children in the home of the mother. The court further expressed its opinion that the mother of the child would not seriously oppose such an order. In the case at bar no contention is made that plaintiff or the father are unfit parents. Moreover, tire intervening petition makes no allega-, tion of exceptional circumstances as would allow the court to substitute its discretion for that of plaintiff and award visitation rights to her own father. The petition merely alleges a regular pattern of past visits and the love and affection of a grandfather for his grandchildren. While such devotion and interest is commendable, it is legally insufficient to warrant judicial intrusion into a domestic matter of purely discretionary character. Plaintiff has expressed her apprehension and her disapproval of granting visitation rights to her father. In her reply to the intervening petition she stated that such action would adversely affect her control and discipline of the children. She further enumerated several instances where petitioner had embarrassed her in the company of third parties, exploded in rage toward her for no logical reason, demanded that she not invite certain parties into her home, and otherwise disrupted the tranquility of her household. If these allegations be true, the decision of the majority will perpetuate an intolerable situation. The child who has the love and affection of both his parents and grandparents is indeed fortunate. But, in my opinion, the original decree of divorce maintained family continuity to the degree possible by granting reasonable visitation rights to the natural father. The record discloses that the father has in fact taken custody of his children for several hours every Sunday, and generally, every Wednesday as well. It would be unduly optimistic to believe that the best interest of plaintiff s four children is served by awarding visitation rights to yet another party. The right to determine which third parties may share in the custody and influence of a child lies properly in the parent. It is the custodial parent who has the daily responsibility of rearing the child and who occupies the optimum position to make such determinations. The majority’s observation that “not one single moment of their time with their mother was disturbed by the order” simply misses the point. The order disturbs a mother’s attempt to rear her children as best she can and without interference by her own father. In conclusion, one now must ask, where is the line to be drawn with respect to visitation rights of third parties? Is it limited to grandparents and other blood relatives? Or can any third party now intervene? Regardless of the answer, the decision of the majority is certain to have an unsettling effect on the orderly management of internal domestic matters, and I question whether such a result is in the best interest of the children.