C.A.J. v. D.S.M. A Mixed Due Process Message

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