Helen S.K. v. Samuel M.K.

288 P.3d 463, 2012 Alas. LEXIS 149, 2012 WL 5659703
CourtAlaska Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 16, 2012
DocketNo. S-14422
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 288 P.3d 463 (Helen S.K. v. Samuel M.K.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Helen S.K. v. Samuel M.K., 288 P.3d 463, 2012 Alas. LEXIS 149, 2012 WL 5659703 (Ala. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

STOWERS, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

Helen S.K. and Samuel M. K.1 were married in 1990. Helen filed for divorce in December 2010, requesting sole legal and primary physical custody of the parties' three minor children and equitable division of the marital assets. Samuel counterclaimed, requesting joint legal and shared physical custody of the children. Superior Court Judge Frank A. Pfiffner awarded joint legal custody of all three children, shared physical custody of the parties' two younger children, but awarded Samuel primary physical custody of the parties' oldest child. The court imputed income to Helen and required that she pay Samuel child support. Judge Pfiffner divided the parties' marital assets equally and made other decisions concerning the valuation and distribution of certain marital assets. Helen appealed this decision on several grounds, including the use of in camera interviews,2 the primary physical custody award to Samuel, the imputation of income, the equal property division, and the valuation and distribution of many of the assets. We reverse and remand with respect to the court's valuation of one asset, but affirm all of its other decisions.

IIL _ FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

A. Facts

1. The family

Helen S.K. and Samuel M.K. were married in 1990. Helen filed for divorce in December 2010, requesting sole legal and primary physical custody of the parties' three minor children and equitable division of the marital assets. Samuel counterelaimed, requesting joint legal and shared physical custody of the children. The three minor children were, at the time of trial: Jason, aged 16; Ellen, aged 14; and Jacob, aged 12.

[468]*468Helen and her oldest son Jason had a contentious relationship. Helen described her son as an "instigator" with respect to the other two children, and believed that he had a "hard time getting along" with them. Samuel confirmed that Jason and Ellen often got "on each other's nerves," fought daily, and sometimes needed to be separated. During their in camera interviews, each of the children noted some conflict between Helen and Jason.

This situation was made more complicated because Helen believed that Jason should continue medication for his diagnosed attention deficit disorder (ADD), while Samuel and Jason himself did not believe Jason should do so. At one point, Samuel took Jason to the doctor and had Jason removed from the medication without Helen's prior knowledge.

2. The court's interviews with the children

At the end of the hearing on interim custody, Samuel asked the court to interview the children prior to trial. Helen objected to judicial interviews with the children. Helen argued that the children had already been over-involved in decision-making and that placing this responsibility on them would be "unhealthy." She instead requested the appointment of a custody investigator because she felt that asking the children to talk to a judge was "a heavy burden to put on a kid in a highly contentious situation."

At the conclusion of the interim custody hearing, Judge Pfiffner explained:

These children are over the age of 12. I'm required statutorily under one of the factors under AS 25.24.150(c) to take into account the children's interests because of their age in what ultimately happens here. Yes it is a stressful thing, but I somehow ... [have] to figure out what the kids want, [but] ... I'm not bound to follow what they want. I'm required to make a statutory determination of their best interests using ... all of the nine factors cited under the statute that I just mentioned ....
I certainly want to take their interests into account. One of the ways I put it is that the children, they are still children and they don't drive the bus. . .. [O]n the other hand ... it's their lives that we're talking about here....

After Helen objected to the in camera interview and again requested a custody investigator, the court responded:

I am going to interview them. I'm not going to appoint the custody investigator....
I'll explain to you the way I do interviews. I do them in a non-threatening environment in my chambers on the record. The record is confidential. Actually, it's ... sealed, not confidential, which means that unless I order otherwise, it's recorded on the record, but not available to anybody.
I have an in-court deputy in there in my chambers with them. And frankly, it's worked. I used to not do very many of these at all, but over time, I've started doing more of them, because frankly, it's worked pretty well.
I don't want to put ... the children on the [witness] stand [to testify in court]. You know, that would be horrible here, and that's not going to happen. And because of the exigencies of time, I'm not going to utilize the custody investigator's office, which ... may or may not be able to do this the way that I'm doing it. So we'll ensure that happens....
And basically, I'll ... give you at the start of the trial some kind of perspective on where the children are coming from.

After the in camera interviews and before trial, Judge Pfiffner provided the parties with a summary of what he learned from the children:

[Ellen and Jacob] want to be together, and they like the new one week on/one week off schedule. If I were to do what they want-of course, I'm not obligated to do, and that remains for a decision-it would be one week on/one week off, They like the new regime, and they want it to continue indefinitely. That's my take.
[Jason] is a bit of a different situation. I think somebody described Jason as kind of a handful or-I'm not sure exactly what
[469]*469[Jason] wants. Iwas not able to really pin him down like you would put a pin on a dartboard....
But I will tell you this. It's clear to me from talking to [Jason], and really from talking to all three children, that [Jason] and Mom don't get along, and [Jason] really doesn't want to spend much time at all with Mom.
And what ... [Jason] told me really was consistent with what the other children perceived, as well. So ... it's not that [Jason] is out there on the edge of the cliff somewhere....
As to [Jason], he clearly wants primary physical custody with his father.
The squishy part, if you will, the part that I wasn't really able to pin him down on was how much time he wanted to spend with Mom. And he clearly wanted to spend time with Mom....
[Hle was really not definitive on exactly what he wanted there. But he certainly wanted one weekend a month, and maybe a little bit more, but not much.
And he wanted a couple of nights, like 5 to 8 [p.m.], a month with Mom. And that was kind of squishy, too, because he was very definitive that he was going to be involved in some sports, like soccer, and he didn't want the visitation with Mom to interfere with his extracurricular activities.

Later during trial, the court reiterated, "I understand what [Jason] wants[, but] ...

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Bluebook (online)
288 P.3d 463, 2012 Alas. LEXIS 149, 2012 WL 5659703, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/helen-sk-v-samuel-mk-alaska-2012.