Tanner v. Tanner, 3919
| Decision Date | 19 March 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 3919,3919 |
| Citation | 482 P.2d 443 |
| Parties | Steven K. TANNER, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. Opal Jean TANNER, Appellee (Defendant below). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Lawrence A. Marty, of Marty & Clark, Green River, for appellant.
Robert H. Johnson, Rock Springs, for appellee.
Before McINTYRE, C. J., and PARKER, McEWAN and GRAY, JJ.
This is an appeal from an order modifying a divorce decree as it related to the custody and support of the three-year-old son of the parties, who by the decree had been placed in the care, custody, and control of the father, subject to the right of the mother to see and visit with the child at all reasonable times and places. The divorce action was filed by the husband, and the property settlement as well as the child custody was in accordance with a stipulation and agreement between the parties, which was ratified and approved by the court. Almost immediately following the divorce the mother was remarried and some four months thereafter she filed a motion, supported by affidavit, seeking to modify the decree, stating among other things as grounds that plaintiff had failed since obtaining custody to provide the child with suitable care, had left the boy with strangers for undue lengths of time, had denied her reasonable rights of visitation, and that the conditions affecting the interest and welfare of the child had substantially changed since the divorce decree.
On April 21, 1969, the court entered an order concerning defendant's visitation rights prior to hearing. After various other preliminaries, including the granting of a request for change of judge, the matter was set down for hearing some seven months after the divorce had been granted and a number of witnesses were called. On July 7, 1969, shortly following the hearing, the court entered an order finding:
'That the court should reserve its decicision * * * and should at this time rule neither for nor against the Motion to Modify Decree filed herein; that custody of the minor child of the parties hereto should be retained as provided in the decree of divorce made and entered herein, modified so as to provide each party visitation rights with the said minor child on alternate months for the next six months, with provisions for child support payments by plaintiff during those months in which defendant has visitation rights; that the order to be entered herein should not be a final order and that this court should retain jurisdiction of this cause and review the matter at another hearing at the end of six months * * *,'
and in decretal portion directing that the plaintiff and defendant would each have the child on alternate months, plaintiff to pay support money during the months that defendant had the child. 1
On June 10, 1970, some eleven months later, the court without a further hearing entered an Order Modifying Decree, the first paragraph thereof stating:
'Pursuant to temporary orders of this Court dated April 21, 1969, and July 7, 1969, concerning the visitation rights of the parties to the minor child, Justin Travis Tanner, born October 10, 1966, and by verbal stipulation 2 and consent of the Court, which extended the monthly alternating arrangement for such visitations, to end June 30, 1970, and after consulting counsel, Lawrence A. Marty for the plaintiff and Robert H. Johnson for the defendant, the Court finds that both parties have remarried and that there are no additional reasons requiring a further hearing on this matter.'
The order, without findings except as stated, provided that the custody of the minor child be divided, plaintiff to have custody for six months of...
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