Adams v. Heffernan, 21409
| Decision Date | 09 November 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 21409,21409 |
| Citation | 122 S.E.2d 735,217 Ga. 404 |
| Parties | Shirley K. ADAMS v. William J. HEFFERNAN, Jr. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
The trial judge did not abuse his discretion in finding that the evidence showed new and material conditions and circumstances substantially affecting the interest and welfare of the minor children whose custody was involved in the present case.
Cumming, Nixon, Eve, Waller & Capers, Jos. B. Cumming, Augusta, for plaintiff in error.
John F. Hardin, Henry J. Heffernan, Carl E. Sanders, augusta, for defendant in error.
Shirley K. Adams, formerly Shirley Koontz Heffernan, filed her petition for the writ of habeas corpus to require her former husband, William J. Heffernan, Jr., to surrender to her the custody of Deborah Cushing Heffernan, Lydia Rathbone Heffernan, and Kevin Joseph Heffernan, minor children of the parties, whose custody had been awarded to her in a divorce decree. The father by his response contended that there had been a change in material conditions and circumstances affecting the interest and welfare of the children since the date of the decree awarding custody of the children to the mother. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial judge awarded the custody of the children to the father, with visitation rights to the mother. The exception is to this judgment.
Willingham v. Willingham, 192 Ga. 405, 406, 15 S.E.2d 514, 515; Waller v. Waller, 202 Ga. 535, 538, 43 S.E.2d 535; Young v. Young, 216 Ga. 521, 118 S.E.2d 82.
The evidence showed that, since the rendition of the divorce decree, the mother has married Eddie J. Adams, a sergeant in the United States Army, and after their marriage they made their home at the noncommissioned officers' quarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The mother took the three children to this home, and the three children of Sergeant Adams by a previous marriage also resided in the same household. The children of the parties came to the home of the father for a visit during the year preceding the hearing, and they were living in the home of the father at the time of the hearing. The father has legal custody of two sons of the parties. The mother at the time of the hearing was in Monterey, California, and she and her husband expected to return to Fort Bragg after the completion by her husband of a course of instruction.
The father testified that the children appeared to be happy in his home. Dr. Peter G. Cranford, a Clinical Psychologist, testified that he had examined the three children individually, out of the presence of their father, that they each seemed to be upset about the situation with their mother and stepfather and preferred to be with their father, and that it was his opinion that it would not be good for them to return to their former situation. Deborah Cushing Heffernan (whose age does not appear) testified that she and her brother and sister did not get along well with the children of Sergeant Adams, that they had to be separated in their rooms, they fought and fussed, and that Sergeant Adams 'was sort...
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Jackson v. Sanders
...226 Ga. 742, 743, 177 S.E.2d 255 (1970) ; accord Danner v. Robertson, 221 Ga. 516, 517(1), 145 S.E.2d 554 (1965) ; Adams v. Heffernan, 217 Ga. 404, 405, 122 S.E.2d 735 (1961).52 Danner, 221 Ga. at 517–518(1), 145 S.E.2d 554 (punctuation omitted); see Fox v. Korucu, 315 Ga.App. 851, 854, 729......
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...child particularly unpersuasive "because aging is an inexorable progression prevalent in all custodial contests." Id. Adams v. Heffernan, 217 Ga. 404, 122 S.E.2d 735 (1961), was a habeas corpus proceeding involving the custody of minor children. The Supreme Court of Georgia held it to be "s......
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