Goldstein v. Goldstein

• Decision Date: 17 July 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-24-A,74-24-A
• Parties: Claire GOLDSTEIN v. Edward GOLDSTEIN. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 51

341 A.2d 51

115 R.I. 152

Claire GOLDSTEIN v. Edward GOLDSTEIN.

No. 74-24-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 17, 1975.

[115 R.I. 156] Richard B. Tucker, Providence, R.I. Legal Services, for petitioner.

Raymone J. Surdut, Providence, for respondent.

OPINION

JOSLIN, Justice.

This domestic relations matter is here on a wife's appeal from a Family Court decree continuing the custody of Ann Robin, the parties' 9 1/2 year-old daughter, in the husband.

The case has its roots in an August 4, 1970 decision and decree granting the husband's cross-petition and denying the wife's petition for divorce, and awarding custody of Ann Robin to the husband and visitation rights to the wife. Shortly after the entry of that decree the husband and child left Rhode Island to reside in Israel. The wife thereupon initiated a series of proceedings designed to compel the return of the child to this state and to modify the August 4 1970 decree so that she, rather than her husband, might have custody. Aided by cooperation of the Supreme Court of Israel, she finally succeeded in part, and in July 1973 the husband and child returned to this state, almost 3 years after their departure, and appeared in court.

Following an in-chambers conference, the trial justice determined that an attempt to reestablish a mother/daughter relationship was advisable and therefore ordered the child to be placed with her mother pending a custody hearing. At that hearing, which took place on August 30, 1973, the following transpired: the parties stipulated that both were fit to have custody of the child and to care for her needs; there was incorporated into the record psychiatric evidence disclosing, in the language of the trial justice, that '* * * Ann is a very intelligent 9 1/2 year-old girl who has had more burdens placed upon her at a very yound age than most youngsters, and that she has been able to cope with those problems and suffers no emotional damage as a result of having to bear those burdens'; at the wife's request the trial justice took judicial notice of the threat of war and terrorist activity in Israel; he also took notice, upon his own motion, that this country has been engaged in more violent wars then Israel during the past 25 years and that 'there's an awful lot of violence here'; and the wife presented testimony that the child, although reared in the Jewish religion, would not be considered a member of that faith under Jewish law until she had been converted as had her mother.

No further evidence was presented by the parties, and the trial justice thereupon engaged Ann Robin in conversation. He did so initially in open court, but the child said that it was difficult for her to say with which parent she wished to reside. When they talked further in chambers, however, she said that although she could not say so in her parents' presence, she loved her father more than her mother and wanted to go to Israel with him. See also said that she had no desire to visit with her mother but agreed, after the trial justice's urgings, that it would be a 'fair bargain' if he were to condition her being allowed to live with her father in Israel upon her visiting willingly with her mother for 4 weeks during each summer.

At the conclusion of this conversation the trial justice related to the parties and counsel what he had been told in chambers and announced that in his judgment it was in the child's best interests for her to remain in the father's custody, for the father to be authorized to take her to Israel, and for her to visit with her mother for 4 weeks during the summer months. He said further that the father should be required to...