Richards v. Thompson

2004 ME 25, 842 A.2d 1289, 2004 Me. 25, 2004 Me. LEXIS 25
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedFebruary 27, 2004
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2004 ME 25 (Richards v. Thompson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Richards v. Thompson, 2004 ME 25, 842 A.2d 1289, 2004 Me. 25, 2004 Me. LEXIS 25 (Me. 2004).

Opinion

LEVY, J.

[¶ 1] Kelli Richards appeals from a judgment entered in the District Court (West Bath, Field, J.) granting Alfred Thompson’s motion for contempt. Richards contends that the District Court’s finding of contempt was not supported by clear and convincing evidence and that it exceeded its discretion by: (1) finding her in contempt; (2) ordering the modification of the parties’ parental rights and responsibilities; and (3) reserving for decision whether to impose a punitive sanction in addition to the remedial sanctions contained in its order. We agree with Richards that the court exceeded the scope of its discretion by reserving the possibility of imposing additional punitive sanctions and modify the judgment accordingly. We affirm the judgment as modified.

[1291]*1291I. BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] Richards and Thompson are the parents of a nine-year-old son. In 1997, the District Court entered a parental rights and responsibilities judgment that awarded sole parental rights and responsibilities to Richards and granted Thompson the right to unsupervised parent/ehild contact every weekend from 6:00 p.m. on Friday to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.1 The order gave Richards the responsibility to approve or disapprove of the weekend visits as follows:

All visitation shall be subject to Plaintiffs approval. Defendant shall contact Plaintiff at least 48 hours prior to any scheduled visitation. Plaintiff shall approve or disapprove the visitation at that time. Plaintiffs prior approval shall not preclude denial of visitation at a later time for good cause.

[¶ 3] Thompson filed a motion for contempt on December 3, 2002, claiming that Richards violated the parental rights and responsibilities order. He alleged that Richards ignored all of his phone calls, failed to notify him when she moved and to provide him with her new phone number, failed to respond to his phone messages, and intentionally and willfully denied him visitation or contact with his son.

[¶ 4] The court held a hearing on the motion in February 2003, at which both Richards and Thompson testified. It found Richards had “spurned” Thompson’s sporadic efforts to schedule visitation. In addition, the court found that in 2001 Richards obtained an order from the Cumberland County Probate Court (Childs, J.) changing the child’s surname from Thompson to Richards without notice to Thompson and based on the false representation that Thompson had only minimal contact with the child when, in fact, Thompson was having relatively regular contact with the child. The court also found that Richards would permit Thompson’s sister, the child’s aunt, to see the child only if the sister agreed to not allow the child to see Thompson. The court’s findings also noted that Richards had twice previously been found in contempt, and on both occasions the court had made “clear findings that the Plaintiff was in contempt for ‘intentionally and willfully violating the Court’s order permitting visitation.” ’ The court concluded that Richards had “engaged in a clear and deliberate course of conduct designed to deny access to the child by [Thompson] and his family, and ultimately to completely alienate the child from [Thompson].”

[¶ 5] Having found Richards in contempt, the court explained that the modification of the parties’ parental rights and responsibilities was necessary:

The more traditional contempt/purge approach was attempted by the Court in its Order of December 15, 1998 and clearly that failed. In order to remedy this situation, the Court is therefore going to enter into a more structured supervision of this case in order to ensure that the child’s best interests, which obviously include contact with his father, be met.

The court modified parental rights and responsibilities by granting Thompson additional parent/child contact every other Sunday with the Home to Home Program2 [1292]*1292designated to supervise the exchange of the child; terminating Richard’s right and responsibility to approve or disapprove Thompson’s weekend visits in advance; and scheduling a review hearing to be held approximately four months from the date of the order. The order also provided that “in addition to the remedial sanctions outlined above, the Court reserves decision on further punishment.”

II. DISCUSSION

[¶ 6] Richards does not challenge the court’s findings as clearly erroneous, but contends that the findings do not support a finding of contempt by clear and convincing evidence. M.R. Civ. P. 66(d)(2)(D).3 She also contends that the court abused its discretion by finding her in contempt, modifying the parties’ parental rights and responsibilities, and reserving the possibility of imposing further punitive sanctions against her.4

A. The Contempt Finding

[¶ 7] Richards asserts that her failure to communicate with Thompson in response to his efforts to schedule weekend visits does not constitute clear and convincing evidence of contempt because she had been awarded sole parental rights and responsibilities and had, in her words, “absolute discretion to disapprove visitation at any time.”

[¶ 8] An award of sole parental rights and responsibilities grants to a parent “exclusive parental rights and responsibilities with respect to all aspects of a child’s welfare, with the possible exception of the right and responsibility for support.” 19-A M.R.S.A. § 1501(6) (1998). It does not grant a parent absolute discretion, however, in connection with other provisions of the court’s order pertaining to the child. Here, the court granted Thompson the right of parent/child contact. Implicit in every court order establishing parental rights and responsibilities is each parent’s duty to refrain from unreasonably interfering with the rights of the other parent. Richards’s discretion to approve or disapprove weekend visits was necessarily tempered by her responsibility to not unreasonably interfere with Thompson’s right to parent/child contact.

[¶ 9] The 1997 judgment expressly recognized that Richards might disapprove of a visit for “good cause.” Richards, however, does not assert the existence of good cause that would justify her wholesale failure to communicate with Thompson during the year prior to the filing of his motion for contempt. The court found that Richards had “spurned” Thompson’s sporadic efforts to schedule visits. Thompson testified that as of the date of his motion for contempt, he had not seen his son for more than fourteen months, that he had called Richards approximately forty to fifty times in 2002, and that Richards had never answered his calls or responded to his recorded messages. The court also properly took notice of the fact that Richards had twice previously been found in contempt of the order. Under these circumstances, the court did not err or otherwise commit an abuse of discretion in finding Richards [1293]*1293in contempt by clear and convincing evidence. See Pratt v. Spaulding, 2003 ME 56, ¶¶ 12-13, 822 A.2d 1183, 1187.

[¶ 10] Richards also asserts that the court erred by basing its finding of contempt, at least in part, on its finding that she obtained a court order changing the child’s surname from Thompson to Richards without notifying Thompson of her petition.

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Bluebook (online)
2004 ME 25, 842 A.2d 1289, 2004 Me. 25, 2004 Me. LEXIS 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/richards-v-thompson-me-2004.