Court Opinion

ID: 9884023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:31:44.738013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:09.813745
License: Public Domain

HUSPENI, Judge
(concurring specially).
I agree with the majority’s affirmance of the trial court. However, I believe that the task of that court and this is made more burdensome, and that the best interests of this child are less adequately served by our unquestioning acquiescence in the applicability of Minn.Stat. § 518.18 (1986) to the circumstances of this matter.
Upon the request of either parent, joint legal custody is presumed to be in the best interests of a minor child. See Minn.Stat. § 518.17, subd. 2 (1986). However, the same is not true of joint physical custody. There is a substantial body of case law which recognizes that joint physical custody can cause divisiveness and can seriously undermine the security and stability which is so vital to a child. McDermott v. McDermott, 192 Minn. 32, 36, 255 N.W. 247, 248 (1934); Brauer v. Brauer, 384 N.W.2d 595, 598 (Minn.Ct.App.1986).
Joint physical custody, I submit, should be approved by the court in only those cases where both parents demonstrate to the trial court’s satisfaction the necessary maturity and objectivity and, perhaps most important, the sincere dedication and determination of each parent to place the best interests of their child before the individual needs or desires of either mother or father. If issues of joint physical custody were subjected to such scrutiny, I submit, sadly, that few such custody arrangements would be ordered or recognized. Instead, however, it appears that grants of joint physical custody, with no further specification or scheduling, are often ordered or stipulated so as to avoid making a difficult decision, or in the optimistic hope that “things will work out.”
Often things don’t “work out.” When they don’t, the adverse effects on a child can be swift. However, an attempt by the trial court to satisfy the strict requirements of Minn.Stat. § 518.18 in such a setting may fail. Arguably, the facts of this matter fall short of meeting the section 518.18 requirements. Arguably, rather than a substantial change of circumstances as required by the statute, the trial court here was trying only to rectify an error in judgment made at the time of the dissolution. A representation had been made then that this mother and this father could cooperate in all the ways necessary to guarantee successful implementation of a questionable custodial arrangement. They discovered that they could not. Perhaps this should be the standard by which joint physical custody modification motions should be evaluated. Perhaps the failure of an anticipated effort to cooperate should be deemed sufficient. I submit that the best interests of the child would be more adequately protected under such a standard.
Minn.Stat. § 518.18, part of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, was enacted to promote and ensure stability and security in the lives of children of dissolution. Case law cautions that joint physical custody undermines stability and security. I find it *280unacceptable that a statute which was intended to be the guardian of a child’s need for stability and security should be invoked as a weapon to perpetuate a custodial arrangement that threatens and endangers it.