Bukovich v. Bukovich, 7457
| Decision Date | 26 April 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 7457,7457 |
| Parties | Joseph J. BUKOVICH, Appellant, v. Sally A. BUKOVICH, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Neal, Hazlewood & Wolfram, Amarillo, for appellant.
Clayton, Kolander, Moser & Templeton, Amarillo, for appellee.
The subject matter of this suit involves an appeal by Joseph J. Bukovich from a judgment based upon a jury verdict in a case which originated by the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus against Sally Bukovich in the 108th District Court resulting in an instanter hearing in which said court issued temporary orders preserving the status quo until Sally Bukovich could secure counsel. The case was then transferred to the Court of Domestic Relations for trial.
The case involves the custody of Mark Bukovich, a four-year old child of a former marriage of the named parties.
The record shows the minor child was two years of age at the time the divorce was granted in the State of Indiana in June of 1962, and that his mother was awarded custody of him with provision that she could not leave the state.
Appellee testified in effect that her husband had employed detectives to follow her ever since she received custody of the child, that she had been brought into court on four different occasions on charges that were not true and that each time she received custody of the child. She did not appear in court at the time the custody was changed.
Appellee testified that she left the little town in Indiana where she lived and went over to Oak Lawn, Illinois, on December 3, 1963, after she heard the Indiana court had changed the custody of the child from her to its father, which would appear to be the fifth time he had sought to change custody. She acknowledged that she was scared. 'I did not want them to pick up Mark.'
The case was tried in the court below on the pleadings of appellee, Sally Bukovich, to the effect that circumstances, conditions and the financial position of Sally Bukovich since the second day of December 1963 have so substantially changed as to render her the fit, proper and suitable person with whom the custody of such child should be lodged for the welfare and benefit of such child.
Appellant's appeal is based upon points of no evidence and insufficient evidence to support the judgment based upon the jury's verdict that since the last Indiana decree there was occurred such a material change of conditions that the best interests of the minor child require a change of custody to its mother and that the court abused its discretion in refusing to grant application for writ of habeas corpus for the return of the child to its father.
We hold there is an abundance of evidence to support the jury verdict.
There is not any probative evidence that even tends to show a lack of good morals on the part of appellee, and her friends who testified in her behalf show from the record to be people with substantially responsible positions and wives of such type people.
At the time the custody judgment was awarded in favor of appellant the record shows appellee was only temporarily employed and was having difficulty finding enough work in the little village where she lived to sustain hereself and the child and the court judgment awarding her custody had prohibited her from leaving the state to go where she testified she could have found positions that would have supported them.
For seven years before her marriage and up to the very day before her marriage she had worked as a bankteller in Oak Lawn, Illinois, just a few miles from the village where she lived in Indiana. She has learned since December 3, 1963, that such a position is available for her. She was corroborated in this testimony by Stanley C. Dawson, an owner of two appliance stores with his brother in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who is a former engineer in Detroit and presently a director of a bank in Oak Lawn, Illinois. He testified he checked with the bank before the left Illinois to come to Texas to testify and that he learned appellee had been a very dependable employee and that a position was availabe for her that would pay from $280 to $310 per month. His father, Stanley H. Dawson, who is executive vice-president of a forging fabricating plant in Chicago, who has 220 people under his supervision, who is trained in mechanical and metallurgical engineering, who was former vice-president and general manager of the forging plant of the American Brake Shoe Company, former general manager of the Ford Motor Company Forging Plant, and former...
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People ex rel. Bukovich v. Bukovich
...resulted in a finding for the mother. This judgment was appealed by plaintiff, sustained by the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, Bukovich v. Bukovich, 391 S.W.2d 189, but reversed in January, 1966, by the Supreme Court of Texas, 399 S.W.2d 528. During the pendency of the Texas appeals the defe......
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Bukovich v. Bukovich
...required a change of custody to the mother. The judgment of the trial court based thereon was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 391 S.W.2d 189. We granted Petitioner's application for writ of error upon points of error asserting, in effect, that there was no evidence to support the ju......