Wills v. Wills

197 S.W.3d 187, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 806, 2006 WL 1593950
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 13, 2006
DocketWD 65197
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 197 S.W.3d 187 (Wills v. Wills) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wills v. Wills, 197 S.W.3d 187, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 806, 2006 WL 1593950 (Mo. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

HAROLD L. LOWENSTEIN, Judge.

Dwane Wills (“Father”) filed a petition to modify child support to be paid by his former wife, Julie Whitlock (“Mother”), for their two children and to restrict her visitation. Father has legal and physical custody. At the heart of this appeal is Father’s request to substantially restrict Mother’s visitation. Whitlock is presently incarcerated.

*190 The Saline County Circuit Court modified child support to increase Mother’s obligation from nothing to $362 per month and modified custody pursuant to Sections 452.370 1 and 452.400, addressing support and visitation respectively. Wills brings four points on appeal and, as stated above, his main point asserts that the judgment of the trial court did not sufficiently restrict Mother’s visitation.

I. Factual & Procedural History

The marriage of Mother and Father was dissolved on December 11, 1997. Two children were born of the marriage, a boy born in June 1987 and a girl born in June 1992. There was no order of child support entered by agreement of the parties. Mother was to provide health insurance.

The following background facts are taken from Wills v. Wills, 90 S.W.3d 126, 127-28 (Mo.App.2002), where Father disputed the amount of visitation allowed to the maternal grandmother, Doris Whitlock:

Pursuant to the parties’ separation and property settlement agreement, which was approved by the trial court and was fully incorporated into the decree of dissolution on December 11, 1997, Father was granted sole legal custody of the children and was designated as the primary physical custodian. Mother was granted reasonable and specific visitation with certain conditions. Specifically, Mother was not to consume alcohol at any time or prior to or during any period of visitation, she was to submit to random urinalysis for two years after the entry of the decree, and she was to attend 12-step meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous weekly. Any positive urinalysis would result in Mother’s visitation being supervised by a responsible adult selected by the Guardian Ad Litem for six months subject to random alcohol testing. After two years, if Mother had all negative alcohol and drug screens, all visitation conditions would be terminated.
Within one month of the dissolution decree, Mother tested positive for alcohol. By January 1998, she tested positive a second time and her visitation was supervised. Mother’s mother, Doris Whitlock (Grandmother), was named as the supervisor.
On May 24, 1999, Mother filed a motion to modify the dissolution judgment as to child custody, visitation, and support or, in the alternative, to remove or rescind all visitation restrictions on her. She requested joint legal custody and primary physical custody of the children. Approximately one year later, on April 20, 2000, Father filed a motion for award of attorneys’ fees alleging that Mother failed to offer to enter into non-binding mediation before filing her applications for orders to show cause in April and May 1998, as required by the parties’ separation and property settlement agreement incorporated into the dissolution judgment.
Hearings on the merits of Grandmother’s and Mother’s motions to modify were held in October and December 2000. The trial court entered its judgment on December 29, 2000. It found that a change in circumstances so substantial and continuing had occurred to make a modification of the dissolution judgment necessary to serve the best interests of the children. It awarded Father sole legal and primary physical custody of the children with visitation to Mother to be supervised by Grandmother. The court also placed special conditions on Mother’s visitation including that she not consume alcohol or illegal *191 drugs any time including prior to or during any period of visitation, that she submit to random urinalysis tests, and that she attend 12-step meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous weekly. The court further ordered that after six months of negative alcohol and drug screens, all restrictive conditions of visitation, including supervision of visitation, shall be terminated.

Mother did not consistently comply with the order. She failed to make weekly filings of the tests over a six-month period, but on several occasions, Mother filed several weeks’ worth of negative tests. Once Mother failed to comply with the testing requirements, Father prevented her from having any visitation with the children. March 2001 was the last time Mother had contact with the children.

Between 2002 and the end of 2004, Mother was incarcerated three times in those three years for alcohol-related offenses. On September 8, 2003, Father filed this action to significantly restrict Mother’s visitation and child support modification, in the form of periodic payments.

In his proposed parenting plan, Father requested that he be allowed to listen in on phone conversations between Mother and the children. He wanted Mother prevented from attending the children’s school functions without his consent. Mother was not to contact the children at school or daycare without Father’s express prior verbal and written permission. He asked that Mother not “impose her presence” within 100 yards of the children without Father’s written consent. He requested sole access and control over the children’s medical records and decisions. His proposed visitation schedule did not allow Mother any visitation on holidays, school breaks, or summer vacations.

After a hearing, the trial court found that while Mother’s chronic alcohol dependence may impair the children’s emotional development, the behavior that caused the incarcerations did not involve or endanger the children. The trial court also found that Father was misusing the 2000 custody plan to totally eliminate Mother’s contact with the children, and that Father would misuse any impediment placed between Mother and her right to see the children. The trial court noted the public policy of the state to ensure that both parents had meaningful contact with the children under custody arrangements, and the need to protect the children from Mother’s destructive behavior.

In its judgment now under review, the trial court allowed Mother, upon her release from prison, to have unsupervised visitation with the children on various holidays, birthdays, and school vacations. Under the new parenting plan, Mother was to pick up and drop off the children at the county Sheriff’s department. At the time of exchange, if an officer suspected that Mother was intoxicated, the custody plan required Mother to submit to a breathalyzer or blood test. If she failed the test, she would not be allowed to exercise her visitation rights.

The trial court found that there was a substantial and continuing change of circumstances as to make the terms of child support unreasonable. The trial court found that Father’s income had decreased since the time of dissolution and that Mother’s had increased. Mother was ordered to pay $362 in monthly child support. Father’s first and second points on appeal deal with the visitation. His remaining points relate to the decisions on child support and attorney’s fees.

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Bluebook (online)
197 S.W.3d 187, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 806, 2006 WL 1593950, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wills-v-wills-moctapp-2006.