The biggest screw-up in family law in a generation was corrected by the California Supreme Court yesterday, in the Marriage of LaMusga case. The court ruled that a long-distance moveaway by a custodial parent may not be in the child’s best interests, depending on all the circumstances. Now this doesn’t sound like much (it’s pretty much common sense, isn’t it?), but it has tremendous importance in light the standard that it replaces, the Burgess rule that the custodial parent has a presumptive right to move and that’s all there is to it. The feminist groups are screaming like pigs over it; mom’s attorney said “This is the worst day for children in the history of California;” notorious lobbyist and law professor Carol Bruch said “this is a tragic day for children, a tragic day for the rule of law and a tragic day for scholarship.”
Burgess was a dishonest opinion, denying the fact that a long-distance move is a “significant change of circumstance” in most cases, which it had to do in order to expand the moveway right practically to infinity (once made, custody orders remain in force until a “change of circumstance” takes place warranting a re-examination; Burgess took that possibility off the table.)
The author of Burgess was the now-deceased but then doddering old fool Stanley Mosk, who was replaced by the author of this opinion, Justice Carlos Moreno, the Gray Davis appointment. As checkered as Gray’s legacy is to California, he obviously did well in appointing Moreno, but then again, he had good help.
See Rough&Tumble for news accounts:
Child Custody Rights Refined — A divorced parent’s freedom to move away is limited. The state Supreme Court says a child’s welfare is paramount in disputes. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle Claire Cooper in the Sacramento Bee Michelle Quinn in the San Jose Mercury AP’s David Kravets in the Oakland Tribune — 4/30/04
and see the court’s opinion for all the details, including the saucy dissent by Justice Kennard, the drunk driver.