My colleague Aaron Weems reported this case on April 12. In the spirit of our U.S. Supreme Court, I offer the following concurrence with his blog but spirited dissent from what the Superior Court ruled.

In this published decision, a panel led by former President Judge Bender decides that so long as a reference is made in the pleading to custody modification it does not matter how the pleading is captioned. The problems presented by such precedent are worth some examination.

Contempt in custody is a statutory creature. 23 Pa.C.S. 5323(g). It offers five very specific remedies, none of which involve modification, In many Pennsylvania counties, the procedure for contempt is entirely different than that for custody modification. Scheduling is also handled in a very different way because the issues are typically quite limited.  The Court personnel who schedule these matters do not customarily read beyond the caption of the petition to gather what the petitioner really wants.  So it would be fairly common for a court administrator to direct a contempt petition to a hearing list where several matters are scheduled for disposition in a single day.  A custody modification requires a pretrial statement under Rule 1910.4-3.  Request modification under the contempt rules and you can skip that step.

The next question involves what goes on in the Courtroom. Most judges are going to look at a petition such as the one in this case and tell the petitioner that he or she will hear the contempt but not the modification. But pity the poor litigant who finds himself defending a contempt with a request for modification in a setting where the judge has the time to hear a custody case.  That litigant better walk into contempt court ready to try a modification and to cover the sixteen factors that must be evaluated under 23 Pa C.S. 5328. See S.W.D. v. S.A.R. 2014 Pa. Super. 146 (2014). In the case decided here, the case was remanded because the contempt court failed to cover all of the enumerated factors.

So what have we accomplished? A party can effectively sandbag the opponent if the trial judge permits it.  Both bench and bar face the prospect of stepping into court not knowing what issues will be tried on the date that a “contempt” hearing is scheduled.  Obviously a judge can stop this but it seems clear, that is not required.

The opinion correctly observes that the right to due process was not wholly violated. As the opinion notes, the request for a change in custody was written into the petition filed by the Father. But both the legislature and the judiciary have made it very clear that child custody matters require a full exposition of the facts before any modification is made.  The idea that modification can be “bootstrapped” into a petition premised upon violation of an existing order works against the very principles both the laws and the rules espouse to promote.  And the defense that contempt can be a springboard for a wholesale modification of custody because it is in the “best interests of the child” to do so, is not a strong one.  The opinion goes to some length to describe “signals” that the trial was going to be addressing modification and not merely a contempt petition. The difficulties presented, especially to pro se litigants by reliance on signals rather than the plain caption of the pleadings presents its own problems.  We have published volumes of statutes and rules intended to make clear what judicial avenue a court is taking.  We reported a decision in November, 2012 where a panel of the Superior Court affirmed the concept that modification was a distinct proceeding from contempt.  See P.H.D. v. R.H.D. The idea that a parent suffered a significant change in custody of a child where there are clearly marked legal procedures which distinguish contempt from modification and where there was a “right” way to go about it which was not heeded, creates a disturbing trend.  Moreover, it opens the door to more appeals where the Superior Court will be asked whether the notice of intention to change custody pursuant to contempt powers is “enough”.  This will be fertile ground for appeal but not productive ground. Ironically, from the opinion it appears that the contempt that had been filed was never disposed of, which begs the question of whether this case was appealable in the first instance.

In sum, we have an opinion where substance triumphed over procedure, leaving procedure badly mauled and wondering “What next?”

2016 Pa. Super. 40 (2/18/2016)