State Ex Rel. Maubach v. Sarangi

196 P.3d 26, 223 Or. App. 421, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 1644
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedOctober 29, 2008
Docket044230S0; A134887
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 196 P.3d 26 (State Ex Rel. Maubach v. Sarangi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Maubach v. Sarangi, 196 P.3d 26, 223 Or. App. 421, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 1644 (Or. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

*423 ORTEGA, J.

Father appeals an order regarding the enforcement of earlier orders concerning parenting time. ORS 19.205(3). As pertinent to this appeal, the trial court denied father’s motion to enforce parenting time. Because father did not establish his entitlement to the relief that he sought, we affirm.

We understand the background facts to be undisputed. Mother and father, who were never married to each other, have one child, born in October 2001. When the child was seven months old, mother initiated proceedings in Multnomah County concerning custody and support. Nearly a year later, in May 2003, the trial court entered a judgment awarding mother sole custody, subject to parenting time with father on two weekday evenings per week, one or two weekend days per week, and important Hindu holidays.

Shortly after entry of the judgment, however, mother moved with the child from Portland to Ashland. The trial court found that the move prevented the parenting plan from taking effect. In the course of entering a supplemental judgment modifying parenting time, the court found that mother failed to respect the effect of her decisions on the child and father and that father had “been frustrated and angry over the denial of his parenting time, and ha[d] raised his voice, which [had] upset [mother].” The court modified the parenting plan to provide parenting time with father every other weekend, with the location alternating between Ashland and Portland; parenting time for six Hindu holidays with father in Portland, with mother providing transportation for the child; and, when parenting time did not occur as scheduled, make-up time on the following weekend. Father could initiate telephone calls with the child “at home (on land line)” three evenings per week.

In October 2005, the court entered an order transferring the file and changing venue to Jackson County. The court incorporated into its order its oral findings from a hearing on mother’s motion to transfer, including a finding that mother had failed to comply with previous orders. The court observed that father had been “on an uphill battle for four- and-a-half years to maintain a relationship with” the child, *424 that mother made doing so more difficult, and that father sometimes was “difficult to deal with when [he] get[s] frustrated and angry about it.”

Proceedings continued in Jackson County. In February 2006, the trial court entered a supplemental judgment modifying parenting time. That judgment allowed mother to initiate telephone contacts between father and the child by either land line or cellular speaker phone. Hindu holiday parenting time was to be “on the nearest weekend for a maximum period of 24 hours, from 10 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday, unless [father] notifies mother of a sooner pick-up time.”

Father subsequently moved to enforce parenting time, seeking make-up parenting time and modification of the parenting plan. Although father sought enforcement under ORS 107.434, the trial court concluded that, under ORS 109.103(1) (2005), the provisions of ORS chapter 107, except for ORS 107.093 to 107.425, do not apply to parents who were never married to each other. 1 The trial court therefore heard the matter as if father instead had sought remedial sanctions for contempt of court. The court explained that *425 “the relief in contempt will be the same relief sought in the motion to enforce parenting time.”

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court denied father’s motion “for contempt or for enforcement of parenting time,” stating that “[n]one of the things [father] is complaining about have been shown to be any kind of willful violation.” The court also denied father’s requested modifications but granted father leave to raise those issues in a later hearing. In the court’s view, “the primary cause of this conflict is [father], who wants to create problems at every turn, rather than to try to resolve them. It seems to me almost every issue presented could have been dealt with had he taken a position of reasonableness.”

Father appeals. He first contends that the trial court erred by denying him a “hearing on his enforcement motion that he filed under ORS 107.434(l)(b).” On the facts of this case, however, father cannot prevail, whether we treat his motion as one for remedial sanctions for contempt or as one for enforcement of parenting time. Because it has no real effect on this appeal, we have no reason to consider and do not decide whether the trial court’s interpretation of ORS 107.434 and ORS 109.103(1) (2005) was correct.

We begin with the standards applicable to each type of proceeding. To prevail in a contempt proceeding, father would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that mother “willfully” disobeyed the court’s orders or judgments. ORS 33.015(2)(b) (defining “contempt of court”); ORS 33.055(11) (“In any proceeding for imposition of a remedial sanction other than confinement, proof of contempt shall be by clear and convincing evidence.”). We review a judgment in a proceeding for remedial sanctions in the same manner as a judgment in an action at law, examining whether any evidence in the record supports the trial court’s factual findings. ORS 33.125(2); ORS 19.415(1); G. I. Joe’s, Inc. v. Nizam, 183 Or App 116, 123, 50 P3d 1282 (2002).

*426 To obtain additional parenting time in a proceeding to enforce parenting time, on the other hand, father would have to show by a preponderance of the evidence that mother engaged in a “wrongful deprivation of parenting time” and that make-up time would be in child’s best interests. ORS 107.434(2)(a)(C); Cole v. Wyatt, 201 Or App 1, 8, 116 P3d 919 (2005) (applying the preponderance standard to a motion to modify parenting time). We review such matters de novo, but give weight to the trial court’s credibility findings arising from its opportunity to observe witnesses firsthand. ORS 107.405

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
196 P.3d 26, 223 Or. App. 421, 2008 Ore. App. LEXIS 1644, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-maubach-v-sarangi-orctapp-2008.