Shires v. Shires

• Decision Date: 18 June 1986
• Citation: Shires v. Shires, 494 So.2d 102 (Ala. Civ. App. 1986)
• Parties: Wayne Stanley SHIRES v. Elba Magana SHIRES (Morton). Civ. 5279.
• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

Page 102

494 So.2d 102

Wayne Stanley SHIRES v. Elba Magana SHIRES (Morton).

Civ. 5279.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

June 18, 1986.

Wayne Stanley Shires, pro se.

No brief for appellee.

HOLMES, Judge.

This is a domestic relations case.

After an ore tenus hearing, the trial court refused the father visitation privileges. The father appeals and we affirm.

The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the trial court abused its discretion in not allowing the father visitation privileges with his eighteen-year-old son.

Viewing the record with the attendant presumptions, we find the following is pertinently revealed:

The mother and father were divorced in 1978. Custody of the couple's four children was awarded to the mother, with visitation rights granted to the father.

At the commencement of the current proceedings three of the couple's four children had become emancipated. The couple's youngest child, Patrick, turned eighteen on November 24, 1985. The current proceedings were brought by the father to, in effect, force Patrick to visit with him.

The trial court held that, due to the child's age and ability to make decisions on his own, no further attempts at visitation should be made. The trial court specifically found in pertinent part the following:

"Said child has passed his 18th birthday and, therefore, would not be under the powers of the Juvenile Division of this Court to order enforced visitation; it seems to the Court that it would be greatly unjust that this Court order the Former Wife to enforce Court-ordered visitation upon said child when the Court itself could not enforce the same under its Juvenile powers."

It has been held by this court that visitation may normally be required, regardless of a child's fears and wishes, even if it is forced upon a child. See Hagler v. Hagler, 460 So.2d 187 (Ala.Civ.App.1984). The desires of a child may be given no credence when the trial court finds that the child is being manipulated by the wishes of a custodial parent, or that the child is too immature to form a considered opinion, or where the child expresses fears or an unwillingness to visit without any reasonable basis or foundation. See Hagler, 460 So.2d 187.

In the case at bar, the child has expressed a continued unwillingness to visit with his father.

We need not detail the reasons for this unwillingness to visit. Suffice it to say that the eighteen-year-old child certainly does not wish to visit with the father.

As indicated, given...