Kenworthy v. Kenworthy
| Decision Date | 19 November 1946 |
| Docket Number | 32132. |
| Parties | KENWORTHY v. KENWORTHY. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Oklahoma County; Lewis R. Morris, Judge.
Suit between Kenneth Kenworthy and Anne Kenworthy wherein a divorce decree was entered and Kenneth Kenworth thereafter made a motion to modify decree respecting custody of minor child of the parties. From the order entered, Kenneth Kenworthy appeals.
Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. In a proceedings involving the custody of a child of divorced parents the primary object is to determine what is for the best interest of the child.
2. The jurisdiction of a district court with respect to the custody of a child of divorced parents is continuing, and is not lost by its order permitting the removal of the child to a foreign jurisdiction.
3. The district court may award the custody of a child of divorced parents to a person coupled with express permission to take the child to another state.
Stanley B. Catlett, of Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.
Priest & Belisle, of Oklahoma City, for defendant in error.
Kenneth Kenworthy appeals from the order of the district court of Oklahoma County modifying a prior order of that court respecting the custody of a minor child of Kenneth and Anne Kenworthy, his divorced wife. The divorce decree in favor of the wife gave the custody to the mother and father in turn for six months. At the conclusion of the father's six months term the mother wished to turn the child to her mother, who is a resident of Denver, Colorado, to be kept during the ensuing six months. This could not be done because of the objections of the father, and he thereupon filed a motion to modify the decree, insofar as it provided for the custody of the child, to give him exclusive custody of the child. He procured a restraining order forbidding the removal of the child from Oklahoma pending the further order of the court. The mother filed a response to the motion to modify seeking to have her mother given the exclusive custody of the child. The maternal grandmother filed her written consent to receiving the exclusive custody of the child under the order of the court. On these issues the matter was heard.
The evidence conclusively showed, and the trial court was amply justified in finding, that the father and mother of this child were unfit and improper persons to have the care and custody of the child. There is no occasion to recite that evidence herein.
The trial court found from ample evidence that the respective grandparents of this child were fit persons to have the custody of the child, and ordered that the maternal grandmother (her husband at the time of the trial, who has since died, being the stepfather of Anne Kenworthy) have the custody of the child nine months of the year, with the privilege of taking the child to her home in Denver Colorado, and that the paternal grandparents have its custody during June, July, and August of each year. There are other details relating to support money and suit money and transportation costs that are not contested separately from the attack made on the custodial part of the order and we do not recite them or comment on them.
The father contends (1) the court erred in awarding part time custody to the maternal grandmother, and (2) erred in providing that she might take the child from Oklahoma without giving bond for the return of the child as ordered by the court or as may hereafter be ordered by the court. The mother does not directly contest the division of custody between her mother and the paternal grandparents, although she does call attention to...
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