Corrie v. Corrie
| Decision Date | 20 January 1880 |
| Citation | 42 Mich. 509,4 N.W. 213 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | DANIEL T. CORRIE v. SARAH B. CORRIE. |
In proceedings between parents for the custody of a child, the interests of the child are the paramount consideration, and where an answer in proceedings by habeas corpus showed the petitioner an unfit person to have the custody of the child as prayed, which allegations were not denied, held, that mere failure of such answer to deny certain allegations in the petition was not sufficient to authorize a reversal of the action of the court below on such petition and answer refusing to shift the custody of the child to the petitioner. On certiorari to review habeas corpus proceedings, this court will not re-examine the evidence given on the hearing.
Certiorari to Wayne circuit court.
James W. Romeyn, for plaintiff.
John W McGrath, for defendant.
This is a certiorari to review certain proceedings had in the circuit court on habeas corpus between parents relative to the custody of their child.
The parents are in fact living apart, and the child, Fannie C Corrie, who is a little over seven years old, is with her mother in Detroit. The proceedings were instituted by the father, and the mother, at the hearing, exhibited her answer on oath, and the court declined to transfer the custody.
On the presentation of the answer the petitioner filed a general traverse, but without oath. He offered no sworn contradiction or explanation of the matters in the answer, and no evidence was adduced on either side.
He contends that such matters in his petition as were not particularly met by the answer were admitted, and that sufficient was then made out to entitle him to an order for the custody of the child. On the other hand the respondent claims that the facts set forth in the answer, to which no sworn denial has been attempted, and which, as is said, must therefore be taken as true for the purpose of this proceeding, are full to show the unfitness of the petitioner for the trust he seeks, and constitute a complete reply to the application.
In contests of this kind the opinion is now nearly universal that neither of the parties has any rights that can be allowed to seriously militate against the welfare of the child. The paramount consideration is what is really demanded by its best interests. It is doing no violence to what is taught by judicial experience to assume that the disputing part...
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