Rosin v. Superior Court

181 Cal. App. 2d 486, 5 Cal. Rptr. 421, 1960 Cal. App. LEXIS 2019
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 31, 1960
DocketCiv. 24549
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 181 Cal. App. 2d 486 (Rosin v. Superior Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rosin v. Superior Court, 181 Cal. App. 2d 486, 5 Cal. Rptr. 421, 1960 Cal. App. LEXIS 2019 (Cal. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinions

ASHBURN, J.

J. — Through certiorari petitioner seeks to annul a judgment of contempt rendered against her as a consequence of her removal to Florida of the two children of her marriage with Victor M. Rosin, the real party in interest, which removal was made with the intent and effect of depriving the father of the exercise of his own part-time custody and visitation rights.

Interlocutory decree of divorce was rendered in favor of plaintiff wife (petitioner herein) on February 13, 1959. It divides the custody of the two children, boy and girl aged 10 and 8 years, as follows: “It Is Further Adjudged, Ordered and Decreed that plaintiff have the care and custody of the two minor children of the parties hereto, namely: Steven V. Rosin, born December 1, 1948, and Benita B. Rosin, born June 6, 1950, with the following reasonable visitation by defendant : he have the children with him on alternate Saturdays and Sundays commencing Sunday, March 1, 1959, from 8 :30 a. m. to 7 :00 p. m., provided he gives plaintiff 24 hours notice of his intention to have them with him; defendant have said [489]*489children with him the first two weeks in July and the first two weeks in August of each year commencing in 1959, provided he gives plaintiff 10 days notice in writing of his intention to take the children during said period; defendant be permitted to call said minor children by telephone once each evening.” The parties were then and thereafter residents of California and complied with the terms of the decree until November 14, 1959, some nine months, when petitioner left her home in Los Angeles taking the children with her to Palm Beach where she established a new and permanent home. This was done without the knowledge or consent of the father (herein sometimes referred to as respondent) and with the intent of depriving him of his periodical custody of the children and his right of telephonic visitation with them every evening. Respondent, after locating petitioner and the children and becoming satisfied that this was more than a temporary absence from California, initiated a contempt proceeding against petitioner which resulted, after a hearing which she did not attend in person, in an order of January 28, 1960, containing the following: “. . . The Court finds that plaintiff had knowledge of the order regarding specific visitation rights of defendant with the children; that she had the ability to comply with the Court order; that she failed to comply with the Court order and that said failure was a wilful failure and was done for the purpose of depriving defendant of his rights of reasonable visitation; plaintiff is therefore adjudged in contempt of Court. Continued to April 13, 1960 at 1:30 p. m. for pronouncement of sentence. ...” Before April 13th, the date set for sentencing, Mrs. Rosin filed her petition for certiorari in this court and same was granted. The matter is now before us for determination of a jurisdictional challenge directed to the contempt judgment.

The affidavit initiating the proceeding is challenged upon the ground that it does not state facts sufficient to show a contempt. Made by Mr. Rosin it alleges the fact of the divorce decree, quotes its custody provisions as above set forth, and alleges that the wife has “wilfully deprived me of my visitation rights and my rights to communicate with or see my children, Steven, age 11 and Benita, age 9. In the second week of November, 1959, she removed the children from the State of California without my knowledge or consent and with the intent of preventing the exercise of my visitation and communication rights. Since then the children have been kept out of the state. I have been wilfully prevented from having [490]*490any communication with them, and my visitation and communication rights have been destroyed by the plaintiff." The affidavit also alleges that petitioner had and has knowledge of the decree and its quoted provisions concerning custody of the children. Of course the contempt affidavit must state facts which unambiguously spell the commission of a contempt. Unless the major point raised by petitioner and hereinafter discussed is upheld this affidavit is sufficient. In other words, if removal of the children to a distant state for the specific purpose and with the intent and effect of depriving the father of his temporary custody and his visitation rights constitutes a contempt, this affidavit sufficiently avers all the constituent facts.

It has been suggested that the allegation of petitioner’s intent in removing the children from the jurisdiction is only a conclusion. The authorities are to the contrary. (See Woodroof v. Howes, 88 Cal. 184, 190 [26 P. 111] ; Hall v. Mitchell, 59 Cal.App. 743, 749 [211 P. 853] ; 2 Within, California Procedure, § 360, p. 1339.) The averment in question is that Mrs. Rosin “removed the children from the State of California without my knowledge or consent and with the intent of preventing the exercise of my visitation and communication rights.’’ This is an allegation of fact, not a mere conclusion.

The evidence clearly establishes the truth of the allegations of the affidavit and the case resolves itself into a basic question of whether destruction of custody and visitation rights in the manner found here does constitute a contempt, or whether the failure of the interlocutory decree to specifically state that the children shall not be removed from the state without consent or court order leaves the parent who happens to have custody on a particular day free to completely frustrate and destroy the rights of the other parent—whether inferences or implications from the language of the judgment must be totally disregarded in a contempt proceeding even though that inference or implication be an inevitable one.

Petitioner’s counsel rely upon authorities to the effect that no intendments or presumptions can be indulged in aid of a charge of constructive contempt (e.g., Warner v. Superior Court, 126 Cal.App.2d 821, 824 [273 P.2d 89] ; Frowley v. Superior Court, 158 Cal. 220, 224 [101 P. 817]). This phraseology, which has crept into numerous appellate decisions, has led to a dissecting and segmental interpretation of contempt charges to such a degree that trial courts have [491]*491been well-nigh denuded of their contempt powers, a tendency which should not be fostered or furthered. Of course there is no presumption of contempt, but intendments are quite another thing. Ordinarily that word connotes “true meaning.” “Intendment. True intention or meaning; specifically used of a person, or a law, or of any legal instrument.” (46 C.J.S. p. 1102.) But the term as used in the Warner and like decisions seems not to have that signification. “A word,” says Mr. Justice Holmes in Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 [38 S.Ct. 158, 62 L.Ed. 372], “is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.” The word “intendment” may have an archaic and technical meaning which is thus defined in Detroit L. & N. R. Co. v. McCammon, 108 Mich. 368 [66 N.W.

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Rosin v. Superior Court
181 Cal. App. 2d 486 (California Court of Appeal, 1960)

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Bluebook (online)
181 Cal. App. 2d 486, 5 Cal. Rptr. 421, 1960 Cal. App. LEXIS 2019, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rosin-v-superior-court-calctapp-1960.