Farve v. Medders
| Decision Date | 24 April 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 41817,41817 |
| Citation | 128 So.2d 877,241 Miss. 75 |
| Parties | Mr. and Mrs. Willie B. FARVE v. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Edward MEDDERS. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Simrall, Aultman & Pope, Hattiesburg, Colin L. Stockdale, Jackson, for appellants.
Scales & Scales, Jackson, for appellees.
This is a child custody case, involving an appeal from a decree in a habeas corpus proceeding, in which petitioners (appellees) were awarded custody of a ten-month-old baby girl.
The child, Kathleen Allison Medders, was born on October 2, 1959. Her parents were Vardaman J. Medders and Mrs. Imogene Kuhn Medders. At the time of her birth, the parents were separated. On June 6, 1960, the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County entered a decree in a divorce action filed by the father, with a cross-bill by the mother, in which he denied both of them a divorce. However, the decree awarded temporary custody of their four children to the paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Edward Medders, with a minor exception.
On June 10 appellees, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Edward Medders, filed in the Chancery Court of Lamar County a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The petition averred that, after the birth of Kathleen, 'the mother gave consent and permission for the defendants (Mr. and Mrs. Willie B. Farve, appellants) to have the child in their possession'; and the father has attempted to get the child from defendants' possession, but without success. Petitioners averred they were the paternal grandparents of the child and had been awarded her temporary custody by the decree of June 6, 1960, of the Chancery Court of Hinds County. Resting on that decree, appellees, the paternal grandparents, sought custody.
The defendants, Mr. and Mrs. Willie B. Farve, answered, asserting they were not bound by the Hinds County decree, since neither they nor petitioners were parties to that action. Defendants stated that the child's father had deserted the mother during pregnancy, and the mother requested defendants to take and care for her; that since her birth they had done so, and they stood in loco parentis. Defendants denied that petitioners had ever contributed to or offered to provide anything for Kathleen, who had lived with them since her birth. They averred that all persons related to the child by blood had abandoned her, and its best welfare demanded that she remain with defendants, who were morally and financially able to care for Kathleen.
A bill of exceptions reflects that at the hearing, before the Chancery Court of Lamar County, petitioners offered in evidence the decree of the Chancery Court of Hinds County, in the divorce proceedings. Defendants' objections to it were overruled, and the trial court held that the Hinds County decree vested exclusive jurisdiction with respect to Kathleen's custody in that court, no change of conditions was shown since June 6, and the court was obligated to enforce the custody provisions of the Hinds County decree.
Defendants made a detailed tender of testimony by a number of witnesses. In summary, it would show that defendants are morally fit and financially responsible citizens of Lamar County, who are able to care for Kathleen. They love the child and want to adopt her. The mother, Mrs. Imogene Medders, told them in September 1959 that she was expectant with child and was destitute. She urged defendants to take the child when born, care for her and adopt her. The mother has agreed to the adoption. After Kathleen's birth, the mother and child came to defendants' home in Lamar County, where defendants took care of them. The child has lived with defendants all of her life, from the day she left the hospital around October 6, 1959, to the date of the bill of exceptions, August 18, 1960. The father had left the mother and child in destitute circumstances, and wilfully abandoned them.
The tender of proof by defendants further showed that, in November 1959, with the consent of the mother, defendants had adoption papers prepared by an attorney, who forwarded them to Bruce Aultman, an attorney of Hattiesburg, for filing and handling the suit. However, the next day Aultman was seriously injured in an automobile accident, and incapacitated for several months. Hence the petition of the Farves for adoption of Kathleen was not filed until May 9, 1960, in the Chancery Court of Lamar County. A copy of the petition for adoption was attached to the defendants' answer, along with a consent by Kathleen's mother to the adoption. The father, Vardaman J. Medders, is a defendant in the adoption suit.
Since he concluded that the Hinds County decree was binding, the chancellor sustained objections to the evidence tendered.
The final decree of the Chancery Court of Lamar County, from which this appeal was taken, adjudicated that the decree of the Hinds County Chancery Court of June 6, 1960, was binding on it; no evidence showed any change in circumstances since that date; and petitioners were entitled to the relief sought, custody of the child. The trial court allowed an appeal but denied supersedeas.
The decree of the Hinds County Chancery Court of June 6, 1960, in the divorce proceedings, is not binding upon the appellants. Neither they nor appellees were parties to that decree, and could not have been. That was a suit between the mother and father, with both seeking and being denied a divorce. However, the court awarded therein temporary custody to appellees, the paternal grandparents. For purposes of this appeal, we must assume the tender of proof by appellants to be correct. If so, the child was in their custody in Lamar County since her birth, and at the time of the Hinds County decree of June 6, 1960. The child was not at that time within the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court of Hinds County. She was with the Farves in Lamar County....
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Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation v. Neuman, Civ. A. No. 3833.
...exists is certainly a matter of intention and of fact to be deducted from the circumstances of a particular case. Farve v. Medders, 241 Miss. 75, 128 So. 2d 877 (1961). Although this Court is of the opinion that the evidence in this case more strongly supports a finding that the minors here......
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J.P.M. v. T.D.M., 2005-CA-00320-SCT.
...from Pell and the present case. ¶ 72. To better understand the substance of in loco parentis, we need only look to Farve v. Medders, 241 Miss. 75, 128 So.2d 877 (1961), cited in both Worley and Owens. In Farve this Court held that a person acting in loco parentis is one who assumes the stat......
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First Colony Life Ins. Co. v. Sanford
...exists is a matter of intention and of fact to be deduced from the circumstances of the particular case. Farve v. Medders, 241 Miss. 75, 128 So.2d 877, 879 (1961). "A person stands in loco parentis to a child only when the person intends to assume toward the child the status of a parent." W......
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RB ex rel. VD v. State, No. 2001-CA-00361-SCT.
...duties, and liabilities of one standing in loco parentis, in fact, are the same as those of a natural parent. Farve v. Medders, 241 Miss. 75, 81, 128 So.2d 877, 879 (1961). Though, unlike other jurisdictions, see Ga. Code Ann. § 15-11-112(a)(1)(c) ( 1999); Mo Ann. Stat. § 188.028 (1996); N.......