Davis v. Davis, 19155
| Decision Date | 09 January 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 19155,19155 |
| Citation | 212 Ga. 217,91 S.E.2d 487 |
| Parties | Charles R. DAVIS, Sr., et al. v. Jefferson Irwin DAVIS et al. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
The judgment of the court below in so far as it attempts to interfere with the right of the father of the minor child here involved to the custody and control of the said child was erroneous.
Jefferson Irwin Davis, Sr., and Mrs. Lois F. Davis brought this habeas corpus proceeding against Charles R. Davis, Sr. and Mrs. Edith Houston Davis, seeking to obtain custody of Charles R. Davis, Jr., a minor and the son and stepson respectively of the defendants and the grandson of the petitioners. Defendants filed their answer, the case came on for a hearing, and the court entered an order awarding custody of the minor child to Charles R. Davis, Sr., the father, and one of the defendants, with a provision that plaintiffs should have the right to visit the child and have the child visit them at reasonable times and intervals; and the order provided further that the plaintiffs, the grandparents, were to have custody of the child for one week during the Christmas holidays and for two months during the summer season, with the right of the father to visit the child and have the child visit him at reasonable times and intervals while the child was in the custody of the grandparents. To that portion of the judgment providing for visitation periods to and by the grandparents and providing that the plaintiffs should have custody of the child for one week at Christmas and for two months during the summer, the defendants excepted and assign the same as error.
Robert W. Reynolds, Albany, for plaintiffs in error.
Eugene C. Black, Louis A. Peacock, Albany, for defendants in error.
1. The plaintiffs in error contend that the evidence in the court below was insufficient to authorize the court to find that the defendant Charles R. Davis, Sr., the father of the child, had forfeited or lost his parental right to the custody and control of his minor child; and that, this being true, the court below was without authority to interfere with or restrict this right in any way.
The plaintiffs in the court below contended and undertook to show by their evidence that the defendant father had relinquished his right to custody and control of his minor child in two ways. The first was by voluntary contract. The evidence by the plaintiffs upon this question--which must be accepted as true for the purposes of this case, since, where there is any evidence to support the judgment of the trial court, that judgment will not be disturbed--was substantially as follows: In January, 1950, Charles R. Davis, Sr., and his then wife, since divorced, separated. Charles R. Davis, Sr. at that time came to live with the plaintiffs in the instant case, bringing with him Charles R. Davis, Jr., the child here involved. Jefferson Irwin Davis, Sr., one of the plaintiffs in the court below testified that, when the defendant father came into the house with the child, he said to Mrs. Davis, his wife and the other plaintiff in the court below, Mrs. Davis testified that the child was sick when brought to her house and that she looked after it. She also testified that Charles gave her the child. She testified that she was reluctant to undertake the responsibility of rearing another child, but that Charles said to her, She further testified that they did get a nurse who did nothing but look after the child, and that they kept her for two years until neither the plaintiffs nor the defendant father could afford to pay her; that she looked after the child, took him to kindergarten, signed his report card for a six months period until the defendant father remarried, and took him to his new home; that the father assured the plaintiffs on several occasions that he would never take the child away from them.
The evidence further showed that Charles R. Davis, Sr., had been lawfully awarded custody of the minor child by a decree of court in accordance with an agreement between the said defendant and his then wife, the mother of the child here involved.
If there is any contract by which the defendant father relinquished his parental right to custody and control of his minor child, it must be found in the facts and circumstances above set out. This court has held many times that a contract by which it is alleged that a father has relinquished his parental right to the custody and control of his minor child to a third person must be established by strong and clear evidence, and that the terms of the contract must be clear, definite, and unambiguous. S...
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Maxwell v. LeBlanc
...424, 164 So. 160 (1935); Lewis v. Lewis, 148 So.2d 420 (La.App. 1st Cir.1962), writ denied 150 So.2d 588 (La.1963). See Davis v. Davis, 212 Ga. 217, 91 S.E.2d 487 (1956); Note, A Father's Right to Visit His Illegitimate Child, 27 Ohio St.L.J. 738, 743 n. 46 (1966). Thus, rights to visitatio......
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Morris v. Morris.
...with this opinion. Judgment affirmed in part and vacated in part, and case remanded with direction. FN1. Davis v. Davis, 212 Ga. 217, 220(3), 91 S.E.2d 487 (1956). 2. See OCGA § 19–7–3(c) (“the court may grant any grandparent of the child reasonable visitation rights if the court finds the ......
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Spitz v. Holland, 34238
...Ga.App. 328, 235 S.E.2d 762 (1977). Prior to the 1976 statute, there was no right of visitation in grandparents. Davis v. Davis, 212 Ga. 217, 220(3), 91 S.E.2d 487 (1956). Since the appellants have no standing to bring the habeas corpus proceeding, no question of custody was before the cour......
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Brotherton v. Boothe, 13925
...appears that the parent has forfeited his rights in a manner recognized by law." 59 Am.Jur.2d, Parent and Child, § 17. Davis v. Davis, 212 Ga. 217, 91 S.E.2d 487 (1956). Being of the opinion that the law does not permit a court to decree such visitation rights to grandparents over the objec......