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Spaulding v. Butler8/31/2001
were cigarette burns, and a report was made to SRS. The following week, father learned that Nathan had fallen out of a second-story window during a visit with mother. At that time, mother determined that Nathan was fine and did not seek medical care. Father reported the fall to SRS and filed a motion to stop visits. In November 1997, the court issued an order terminating Nathan's visits with mother pending SRS's investigations of the marks on Nathan's body and of his fall.
In the meantime, Dr. Peter Aines, a psychologist had begun evaluating mother, pursuant to the parties' September 1997 stipulation. He requested supervised visits so he could observe mother and Nathan interacting. A guardian ad litem also supported resumption of visits. However, because the parties could not agree on the arrangements for supervised visits, mother did not visit Nathan for several months. The court found
that a contributing factor was that Ms. Butler, who is a person who tends to be overpowered by others and can be overwhelmed by the needs of her other child Michael, was unrepresented and was being presented with proposals from Mr. Spaulding's attorney that she not have any contact at all with Nathan until he was ten. Ms. Butler did not pursue seeing Nathan as actively as she might, but she was also dealing with some fairly strong forces working against her. She did not have the ability or strength to overcome those forces and maintain a relationship with Nathan, even though she was being urged on by the evaluator and GAL.
In March 1998, SRS attempted to investigate an allegation that Nathan and another child had been showing each other their private parts in the home of a friend of the Spauldings. Father refused to allow SRS to investigate. According to the court: "The lack of cooperation suggests that [father] is willing to use the SRS reporting mechanism for his own benefit to build a record of abuse of Nathan against Ms. Butler, but he is not open and cooperative when there is any suggestion involving possible claims of abuse connected with his own household."
In June 1998, after six months without a visit between mother and Nathan, supervised visits were reinstated, the first visit taking place in the evaluator's office. While acknowledging that it would be hard for Nathan to re-establish a relationship with his mother after not seeing her for so long, the court found that Nathan's response to this first visit was "beyond what is reasonable to expect" in that he avoided his mother and played only with the evaluator. The court noted that "Mr. Spaulding, with very active involvement on the part of Penelope, has engaged in a LONG TERM PERSISTENT CAMPAIGN TO CUT OFF ANY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATHAN AND MS. BUTLER." (emphasis added).
Nathan began to show a lack of desire to go on visits. According to the court, this was
not surprising for several reasons. For one thing, he had had extremely limited contact with his mother over the previous seven or eight months. In addition, his experience with supervised visits included the experience of having the Spauldings remain on the premises, with Mr. Spaulding and/or Penelope and some of the Spaulding children walking around and observing what was going on, while he was visiting with Mrs. Butler. . . . Third, the testimony as a whole in this case, and the evaluation of the demeanor of the witnesses, leads the Court to find that THE SPAULDINGS HAD ENGAGED IN A CAMPAIGN OF PRESENTING MS. BUTLER TO NATHAN IN A VERY NEGATIVE LIGHT. Rather than encouraging a constructive relationship, they presented her to him as a person who represented potential abuse to him. (emphasis added).
On July 2, 1998, SRS completed
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