Stoltz v. Clark
| Decision Date | 31 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 2156,2156 |
| Parties | ANGELA C. STOLTZ v. CHARLES C. CLARK, IV |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Queen Anne's County
UNREPORTED
Opinion by Arthur, J.
*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
The parties to this appeal are the parents of two teenaged daughters. Beginning in 2008, the children lived primarily with their mother in Maryland during the school year and primarily with their father in Delaware during the summer. In 2017, however, both parents made competing requests for modification of custody. The Circuit Court for Queen Anne's County awarded sole legal custody and primary physical custody of the older daughter (then 15 years old) to the mother and awarded sole legal custody and primary physical custody of the younger daughter (then 14 years old) to the father.
The mother has appealed. She contends that the circuit court erred in two ways: by excluding evidence of text-message communications between the children and their parents; and by interviewing the children without recording the interviews and without disclosing the substance of the interviews to the parties.
Because the record fails to show reversible error, the judgment will be affirmed.
Angela Stoltz ("Mother") and Charles Clark IV ("Father") are the parents of L., born in August of 2002, and E., born in February of 2004. Mother and Father are not married to one another.1 They have lived separately for nearly the entire lives of their two daughters. Father lives in Millsboro, Delaware, where he manages a residential community. Mother, a university professor, lives in Stevensville, Maryland, with her husband and their two younger children, who were born in 2009 and 2010.
Mother first petitioned for custody of the parties' older daughter, L., in 2003 in the Family Court of the State of Delaware. On an interim basis, the parties agreed that they would share joint legal custody, that Mother would have primary physical custody, and that Father would have regular visitation. After a reconciliation period and the birth of their second daughter, E., the parties separated permanently in 2005. Father petitioned for primary physical custody of both daughters, and Mother countered with her own petition. The Delaware court ordered that, until the resolution of their claims, the interim agreement would remain in effect and would apply to both daughters.
In 2007, the Delaware court issued an order establishing equal residency for both parents on a temporary basis. Under the temporary order, the children resided with one parent during one week and with the other parent during the next week, while staying overnight with the non-residential parent once in the middle of each week.
A year later, the Delaware court determined that the equal-residency arrangement was no longer in the best interests of the children. The court awarded Mother primary physical custody of the children during the school year, while granting Father visitation every other weekend. The court awarded Father primary physical custody of the children during the summer months, while granting Mother visitation every other weekend. The court also established an annual vacation and holiday schedule. By a separate order, the court established Father's child-support obligation.
In 2011, Mother and her husband decided to relocate their family to Maryland, approximately 100 miles away from her Delaware residence, to accommodate her husband's change of employment. Father moved for an order prohibiting Mother frommoving the two daughters outside of Delaware and for a modification of custody. The Delaware court declined Father's request for primary physical custody during the school year, but granted him three extra weekends of visitation during each school year.2 The parties then agreed to the entry of a supplemental order that established mutually convenient locations for custody exchanges.
For several years, both parents abided by the terms of the 2008 and 2011 custody orders. In early 2017, however, Mother refused to transport the children to a custody exchange and unilaterally suspended Father's visitation. Father petitioned the Delaware court to find Mother in contempt for violating the governing custody orders. He also petitioned the Delaware court to award him primary physical custody of both children.
In response, Mother instituted new proceedings in the Circuit Court for Queen Anne's County. She asked the circuit court to register the 2011 Delaware custody order pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. At the same time, she moved to modify that order. She requested sole legal custody of both children, primary physical custody of the children throughout the year, a supervision requirement for Father's visitation, and a recalculation of child support. The primary basis for her request for custody modification was her allegation that Father was "encouraging" a relationship between L. and a boy who was a few years older than L.
At the hearing in Delaware on Father's contempt petition, Mother admitted that she withheld the children from visitation after she read text-messages on the children'sphones and learned that Father had permitted a 16-year-old boy to stay overnight at Father's house while the two girls were staying in the same house. Father explained that, on one occasion after returning home late at night from a trip to Ocean City, he had permitted the boy to sleep on a living room couch on the first floor, while the two daughters slept in their bedrooms upstairs. The Delaware court found Mother in contempt for violating the existing custody orders, directed her to restore Father's visitation rights, and granted Father additional visitation days to make up for the period in which Mother had denied him access to the children.
Meanwhile, the Circuit Court for Queen Anne's County confirmed the registration of the Delaware court's 2011 custody order, but stayed the proceedings initiated by Mother in Maryland pending the outcome of the proceedings previously initiated by Father in Delaware. The Delaware court then declined to exercise further jurisdiction, concluding that the Maryland courts were the more convenient forum for the custody modification proceedings. As a result, the circuit court lifted the stay of the proceedings.
In the circuit court, Father filed a counter-motion for modification of custody. He requested primary physical custody of both children, supervised visitation for Mother, and a recalculation of child support. Among other things, Father alleged that Mother had restricted his communication with the children by confiscating their phones, that Mother failed to communicate effectively with him about the children, and that Mother made false comments to the children about his health.
In his counter-motion, Father also alleged that both children wanted to live primarily with him. He asked the court to appoint a best-interest attorney to represent thechildren. Over Mother's objection, the court appointed a best-interest attorney.
Father also moved to dismiss Mother's motion for modification of custody, arguing that it relied on allegations that the Delaware court had already rejected. Mother then amended her motion, omitting the allegations regarding Father's decision to permit the older boy to stay overnight at Father's house, but adding new allegations. Among the new allegations, Mother claimed that Father suffered from medical conditions that limited his ability to care for the children, that Father failed to communicate effectively with her about the children, and that Father had engaged the children in inappropriate conversations about his health and about the custody dispute. Father withdrew his motion to dismiss in light on Mother's assurances that she would not seek to relitigate the matters already addressed by the Delaware court.
Counsel for Father, counsel for Mother, and the best-interest attorney each submitted written statements for a pretrial conference under Md. Rule 2-504.2. The pretrial statement on behalf of the children included extensive information gathered from the best-interest attorney's conversations with the children. Most notably, the attorney asserted that both children "expressed a desire to spend more time with their father and prefer to live with him during the school year." The attorney stated that the children felt "frustrated with some of their mother's recent actions," including her restrictions on their phone use; that they did not "feel[] like they have any privacy" in their mother's house; that they "complain[ed] that their mother's house is always cold"; that they did not "always get along well with their step-father"; that they were "frustrated with being asked to watch their younger siblings on a frequent basis"; and that they felt "that their youngersiblings are favored in their mother's house." By contrast, the attorney stated that the children enjoyed staying at Father's home in Delaware and interacting with the residential community that Father manages as part of a family business. The attorney also noted that Father's family is part of the Nanticoke tribe and that the children enjoyed exploring their Native American heritage.
Soon after the filing of the pretrial statement, the preferences of the older daughter, L., underwent an abrupt reversal. In April of 2018, L. decided that she no longer wanted to see Father and refused to travel to Father's home for weekend visits. According to Father, L. never explained to him the reasons for her decision to stop visiting him. The best-interest attorney offered no insight into the deterioration of L.'s relationship with Father. Moth...
To continue reading
Request your trial