Carle v. Carle
| Decision Date | 08 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 1496,1496 |
| Parties | George Vandal CARLE, Appellant, v. Charlotte Ann CARLE, Appellee. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Before RABINOWITZ, C. J., and CONNOR, ERWIN and BOOCHEVER, JJ.
This appeal concerns the superior court's determination of child custody in a divorce proceeding between George Carle, appellant, and Charlotte Carle, appellee. As part of its decree of divorce, the trial court awarded custody of George Carle, Jr., the parties' 7-year old son, to his mother Charlotte Carle. George Carle has appealed from the superior court's custody determination.
George Carle and Charlotte Carle were married in 1963, when George was 21 and Charlotte 16. George is a Haida Indian whose family is from Hydaburg. Charlotte is a Tlinget Indian with family ties at Klawock. 1 George's primary source of income is employment on commercial fishing boats, although he has worked at other jobs. During the fishing off-season, he leads the traditional subsistence existence of village Alaska, hunting, trapping, fishing, and picking berries. Since the marriage of the parties, Charlotte has held many different jobs and has also attended school. At the time the custody hearing was held in this case, she had been employed in Juneau for some 6 months.
When the matter was before the trial court, Charlotte was living in Juneau with Tom Hughes, a non-Native, with whom she had been living since shortly after she separated from George in 1965. Charlotte and Hughes expressed their intent to marry after her divorce. They also indicated that they hoped to be able to bring Hughes' three children from an earlier marriage into their home in addition to George Jr. and two children of their own union. Hughes and Charlotte work alternate shiffs at their respective employments and have outside help for the brief period when their shifts overlap and neither can be home.
George Jr. was born at Mt. Edgecumbe, Alaska, December 20, 1964. He first lived with Charlotte's grandmother in Klawock when Charlotte was working in a cannery for a short time in the summer of 1965. He returned to this home when his father brought him back from San Diego where Charlotte had taken him in 1965, and remained there until 1968. In October, 1968, Charlotte's grandmother became ill, so one of her daughters took the boy to Charlotte in Juneau. He stayed with Charlotte about 9 months until her financial situation became so bad that she could not adequately care for her two children. 2 To see that they were properly cared for, she sent them to her grandmother who was at home again in Klawock. 3 George Jr. remained in Klawock until after the 1970 fishing season. His father then came to get him because the grandmother was too old and because the grandmother was too old and sick to be able to care for the child any longer. After visiting various relatives, George Sr. took his son to Hydaburg to live with one of the boy's paternal aunts briefly during the fishing season. At the end of the season, George Sr. made more permanent living arrangements for the boy, placing him with another aunt and her family where he could live next door and participate in the boy's upbringing. Had custody been awarded to the father, the boy would have continued to live with this married aunt indefinitely.
In our jurisdiction it is well established that the trial court is possessed of broad discretion to determine where custody should be placed. We will disturb the trial court's resolution of custody issues only if convinced that the record shows an abuse of discretion, or if controlling findings of fact are clearly erroneous. King v. King, 477 P.2d 356, 357 (Alaska 1970); Sheridan v. Sheridan, 466 P.2d 821, 824 (Alaska 1970). In the case at bar, the trial court recognized that the paramount consideration in any custody determination is what appears to be for the best interests of the child. 4
The facts have been set forth in some detail because of appellant George Carle's contentions that the trial court erred in its evaluation of the relevant facts for the purpose of deciding what custody disposition would be in the best interests of the minor child, George Jr. George Carle's argument before this court is two-pronged: first, that the trial court failed to give adequate consideration to the 'actual interests' of the child, defined essentially as his psychological well-being; and second, that the trial judge's custody decision was the result of his cultural bias against the Native village way of life. In regard to this latter argument, appellant contends that the trial judge erroneously employed a presumption that the Native village culture is 'inevitably succumbing' to the caucasian, urban culture.
We turn first to the asserted failure of the trial court to consider the actual interests or psychological well-being of the child. George Carle contends that the interests of the child in a custody dispute merit constitutional protection and that due process requires courts to 'determine custody according to criteria which assure full and meaningful consideration of the child's actual interest.' 5 According to the father, this would mean focusing primarily on 'the actual psychological interests of the child,' and more particularly, on 'the existence and quality of . . . emotional relationships between the child and his possible custodian.' We agree that the nature of the child's existing relationships should be a significant factor in choosing his custodian. Nevertheless, we believe that the 'best interests' criterion adequately encompasses this factor.
Even were we to adopt the father's position and focus primarily on the actual psychological interests of the child the evidence does not clearly require a different result as to the choice of custody. The child's most stable, continuous, and longlasting relationship was with his greatgrandmother who can no longer care for him. He has spent relatively little time in 7 years with his mother, but his contacts with his father have been transitory also. 6 The child has related well to both parents and to the respective living situations they offered him. Moreover, the trial court's decision frequently touched on elements of the child's relationship with other-with his aunt and her family, with Hughes, with his school in Hydaburg. In fact, it was precisely his concern for the child's psychological development that led the judge to place him with his mother in Juneau. In his decision the trial judge found that the child's mother had obtained stable employment and possessed the means of providing good care for the child; that the mother and Hughes provided a sense of family and home for the child, 'a settled place of security and safety'; that the paternal aunt could not fulfill the necessary filial relationship; that placing the child in the mother's custody provided greater assurance of a settled, stable, family environment for the child; and that the mother was in a position to materially aid the child's development of a sense of identity, worth, and self confidence. The trial court was also of the view that the transition from the village to urban way of life could be more easily accomplished while the child was still young than if delayed until his character and personality were more rigidly formed. 7 In short the trial court concluded that the child would be emotionally and economically more secure in an urban setting.
The father asserts that the trial court failed 'to give sufficient recognition to the traditional manner of care and upbringing of Native children' in weighing the custody alternatives available to the minor child of the parties. This assertion is not borne out by the record. Throughout the custody hearing the trial judge allowed evidence bearing on the nature and quality of village life. Before hearing final argument, the trial judge indicated what he thought was the most important question for counsel to discuss. In doing so, he said that the custody alternatives offered were perhaps somewhat unique and that
I'm most fundamentally faced with a decision whether this child is to be reared in a Native culture in a village or in the Anglo-Saxon culture in a developed community. And I'm concerned about the basic differences between the environmental circumstances of the village life on the one hand, where his family associations are offered, apart from the specific capabilities of the (father), and on the other hand, the advantages and disadvantages of a different way of life.
Finally, in his oral decision the trial judge explicitly recognized that it is common in villages for members of the extended family to assist the natural parents of a child in his rearing, and that the village offered certain advantages to children raised there. 8 More particularly, the trial court recognized that George Jr. was then being well...
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