Murga v. Petersen

Opinion

KAUFMAN, Acting P. J. Janice Lee (Murga) Petersen (mother) appeals from an order modifying the child visitation provisions in the interlocutory and final judgments dissolving the marriage of the parties.

At the time of the dissolution, in December 1974, custody of Brian Murga (hereafter the child), then age three, was awarded to the mother. The father, Anthony Murga, was given visitation rights, including the right to visit with the child on alternate weekends and specified holidays, as well as for one week each summer and one week prior to Christmas Eve. In July 1978, the father sought a modification of his visitation rights because he was going to move to Pensacola, Florida, for at least three years and the mother had refused to agree to any period of visitation in Florida longer than a week. The mother opposed the requested modification of visitation rights and, in addition, requested that the father be restrained from: (1) requiring the child to engage in any religious activity except as approved by the mother; (2) “[sjermonizing, evangelizing, instructing, discoursing with, and/or attempting to indoctrinate” the child on any religious subject without her prior approval; and (3) removing the child from the seven southern counties of California without her consent.

The hearing on the motion was held on August 21, 1978. The trial court granted the father visitation with the child for one 2-week period each year until 1980. In 1980, the period of visitation would be increased to three weeks, and in 1981, to four weeks. It permitted the father to phone the child once a week—on condition that he refrain from discussing any “religious or biblical activities.” Otherwise, the court refused to grant the religious restrictions requested by the mother.

On appeal the mother contends that the court abused its discretion in modifying the visitation order and in refusing to issue the requested restraining orders pertaining to religious activities.

The evidence disclosed that, since dissolution of the marriage, the father has exercised his visitation rights fairly regularly. The child becomes extremely anxious prior to his father’s arrival and begs his [502]mother to let him stay with her; when his father arrives to pick him up for the weekend, he sometimes has a fit of temper. However, these tantrums last only as long as the child is in his mother’s presence, and, according to the father, once father and son are alone they enjoy a normal relationship. The child gets along well with the father’s present wife and their daughter.