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Spaulding v. Butler8/31/2001
ay, it is no surprise that the majority concluded it did not support a finding that mother as a custodian would better foster for the child a positive relationship and frequent contact with the father than father as custodian would foster with the mother. Indeed, it has recast the family court's rationale so it supports custody in the father, not the mother. Consistent with its description of the family court's rationale, the majority has added that the family court should have pursued whether mother intended to alienate father from the child through her allegations.
One can find pieces of the majority's rationale in the family court decision, but not in the way the majority has put them together. For example, the family court rejected mother's allegations that father abused her and misused drugs and speculated that she might have made such accusations to minimize his role in the child's life. It never suggested that the mother was trying to alienate the child from the father. Indeed, it found that the parents had successfully co-parented in the past and tried hard to induce them to develop a new co-parenting arrangement. This case is a far cry from Renaud v. Renaud, 168 Vt. 306, 309, 721 A.2d 463, 465 (1998), in which the family court expressly found that "mother had undermined the child's relationship with father by filing excessive and baseless abuse allegations." We are not faithful to the limited standard of review if we construe the family court decision in a way to make it least defensible.
If the family court made any mistake here to induce the majority's response, it was a labeling mistake. The family court's rationale better fits factor three, 15 V.S.A. § 665(b)(3), or an independent factor, than factor five, id. § 665(b)(5). Under the proper standard of review, a labeling mistake does not justify the majority's response of creating a new and indefensible analysis.
We do, I believe, have to address directly the argument that father did make on appeal - that the family court rendered its decision based on the interests of the mother, rather than the interests of the child. I again stress that this is an exceptional case. The parties, who never expected to marry, planned this child to fill a void in mother's life caused by the death of another child. Thus, in explaining its rationale, the family court stressed the effect an adverse custody decision would have on the mother. If the court had gone no further, I would agree with appellant father that we could not affirm the court's conclusion.
But the family court did go further and relate the mother's loss to the effect on the child. Essentially, the court concluded that making the father the primary custodian would have such an effect on the mother that it would destroy her ability to be an effective parent, adversely affecting the child. It concluded that the reverse custody situation would not have this effect. Its reasoning is focused primarily on the effect of its decision on the best interests of the child. In these circumstances, I would affirm the family court's conclusion as consistent with the statutory mandate of § 665(b) under our deferential standard of review.
III. Reevaluation of the Relevant Factors
It is impossible to read the trial court and majority decisions in Spaulding v. Butler without concluding that these decisions simply give different weight to the various factors bearing on custody and, as a result, reach different conclusions. This would be entirely understandable and healthy if the decisions came from two different trial judges. It is not appropriate if one of the decisions comes from an appellate court purportedly issued under a limited standard of review.
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