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29 N.C. App. 380

224 S.E.2d 270

Hunt v. Hunt

Court of Appeals of North Carolina · decided 1976-05-05

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““. . . when the court fails to find facts so that this Court can determine that the order is adequately supported by competent evidence and the welfare of the child subserved, then the order entered thereon must be vacated and the case remanded for detailed findings of fact.””

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Dyer v. Roten, 37 N.C. App. 364 - Matter of Kowalzek

“4. That both [the Mother] and [the Father] have provided a suitable environment that is conducive to the best interest and welfare of the minor child. 5. That both [the Mother] and [the Father] are fit and proper people to have the care, custody and control of the minor child and it would be in the child's best interest and welfare that her custody be placed jointly physically and legally, with both parents. 6. However, in the interest of keeping the minor child in one place during the school year, the physical custody of the minor child shall be with [the Mother] during the school year.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Dyer v. Roten

Relies on 25 N.C. App. 695 - Powell v. Powell · 20 N.C. App. 433 - Darden v. Darden

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1976-05-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently May 2018

8 state decisions

4019761980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

MORRIS, Judge.

¶1 Plaintiff contends, inter alia, that the trial court erred in refusing to allow evidence of defendant’s purported adultery. We agree.

¶2 As our Court has stated previously, a trial court commits “ . . . prejudicial error in refusing to allow plaintiff to introduce evidence of defendant’s adultery. While evidence of adul *383 tery does not impel a finding of unfitness of the adulterous parent, ‘[e]vidence of adulterous conduct, like evidence of other conduct, is relevant upon an inquiry of fitness of a person for the purpose of awarding custody of minor children to him or to her.’ ” Darden v. Darden, 20 N.C. App. 433, 435, 201 S.E. 2d 538 (1974). (Citation omitted.)

¶3 Essentially, plaintiff also contends that the trial court’s “findings of fact” fail to detail with sufficient particularity the question of fitness and fail to support the conclusions of law. We again find merit to plaintiff’s position. See Powell v. Powell, 25 N.C. App. 695, 214 S.E. 2d 808 (1975).

¶4 In his findings of fact the trial court merely stated that it would be in the child’s best interest for custody to be placed with the defendant and further found that the defendant was a fit and proper person to have the care, custody and control of the minor child. These findings fail as a matter of law in that we have no substantive factual basis for an adequate review of the matters resolved below. As we have stated previously

“ ‘ . when the court fails to find facts so that this Court can determine that the order is adequately supported by competent evidence and the welfare of the child subserved, then the order entered thereon must be vacated and the case remanded for detailed findings of fact.’ ” (Citations omitted.) Powell v. Powell, supra, at 698.

¶5 The order is vacated and the cause remanded.

Judges Hedrick and Arnold concur.
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