In Butler v Hess, 85 A.D.3d 1689 (4th Dept. 2011), petitioner father filed a petition seeking to modify the parties’ existing joint custodial arrangement. Specifically, respondent mother had primary physical residence and the father had visitation. The father sought to prevent the mother from relocating with the child to Pennsylvania and sought sole custody of the child.
The mother filed a cross petition seeking permission for the child to relocate with her to Pennsylvania. The trial court denied mother’s application and prohibited her from relocating to Pennsylvania. The Appellate Division agreed with mother’s contentions that Family Court erred in denying her cross petition.
The Appellate Division found that the record established that, pursuant to the existing arrangement, the father had regularly scheduled visitation with the child. The mother remarried in December 2003, when the child was six years old, and the mother and the child began living with the mother’s husband at that time. In December 2006, the mother lost her job as a result of budget cutbacks and, in July 2007, the mother’s husband lost his job after his position was eliminated. The mother’s husband accepted a job in Pennsylvania in October 2007, which was the basis for the mother’s cross petition seeking permission to relocate with the child to Pennsylvania to join her husband. The Court concluded that the mother established by the requisite preponderance of the evidence that the proposed relocation would serve the child’s best interests”. Tropea v. Tropea, 87 N.Y.2d 727, 741 (1996). The Court of Appeals in Tropea held that economic necessity may present a particularly persuasive ground for permitting the proposed move. According to the Appellate Division, the record reflected that the trial court did not adequately, if at all, consider the financial considerations underlying the requested relocation. The mother requested permission to relocate because she and her husband lost their jobs within a relatively short period of time. The mother’s husband testified that both his health insurance, which also covered the mother and the child, and his severance pay ran out in August 2007. After the mother’s husband lost his job, he and the mother depleted their savings and their house was placed into foreclosure. The mother and her husband testified that they unsuccessfully attempted to locate jobs in Western New York and that the mother’s husband accepted the job in Pennsylvania out of financial necessity.
The trial court based its determination primarily on its conclusion that the relocation would “qualitatively affect” the child’s relationship with the father. The Appellate Division held that this was erroneous because the need to give appropriate weight to the feasibility of preserving the relationship between the parent without primary physical custody and [the child through suitable visitation arrangements does not take precedence over the need to give appropriate weight to the economic necessity for the relocation. Further, the record established that the proposed relocation would not have a substantial impact on the visitation schedule. The mother and the husband testified that they would transport the child to and from Pennsylvania every other weekend, and they offered to pay for a hotel for the father in Pennsylvania on his off-weekends so that he could exercise additional access with the child. The mother further testified that the holiday access schedule would remain the same because she and her husband would be returning to Western New York at those times to visit with their respective families, who resided there. In addition, the mother’s husband purchased video conferencing equipment for his household and the father’s household to enable the father and the child to communicate during the week and on the father’s off-weekends.
Thus, the mother established “the feasibility of preserving the relationship between the [father] and child through suitable visitation arrangements” Tropea, 87 N.Y.2d at 741. Therefore, the Appellate Division reversed the lower court and permitted relocation.
While the appellate court recognized the mother’s need to relocate, it is unfortunate that it took a situation where the mother and her husband both lost their job and exhausted all of their financial resources and their house went into foreclosure. In my opinion, it would be appropriate for the court to consider the parties’ economic circumstances well before they become dire. It today’s economy, it is likely that we will see these issues addressed by the courts time and time again.