Melton v. Connolly, 145

• Decision Date: 18 February 1959
• Docket Number: No. 145,145
• Parties: Clifford MELTON and Mary Melton, his wife, v. James E. L. CONNOLLY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 184

219 Md. 184

148 A.2d 387

Clifford MELTON and Mary Melton, his wife, v. James E. L. CONNOLLY.

No. 145.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 18, 1959.

J. Lee Smith, Baltimore, for appellants.

Sidney Blum, Baltimore (Jacob Blum and Charles Yumkas, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ.

HAMMOND, Judge.

Foster parents are appealing from an order giving custody of a five-year-old girl who had been in their home for four and a half years to her father.

The father and mother of the little girl Stephanie married in 1952, after they had lived together for four years, and had two other children, one born in 1949, the other in 1951. Stephanie was born in July 1953. In 1955 the mother sued for divorce and, although she was denied relief, was, in 1957, officially given custody of the children, two of whom had been with her for several years (Stephanie was with the foster parents). Several months later she committed suicide.

In 1953 when Stephanie was four months old, the mother had to enter a tuberculosis sanitarium. A few days before she was to go in, she insisted that her sister Mrs. Clifford Melton take Stephanie while she was in the sanitarium, a request in which the father joined. The child has been with the Meltons ever since. Mr. and Mrs. Melton have been married twenty-four years and have two children of their own, a married daughter and a teen-age son who lives with them. Their home, in an outlying section of Baltimore, is conceded to be attractively and comfortably furnished and to be clean and well-cared for. Stephanie is loved and treated as their own child and she knows and loves Mr. and Mrs. Melton as her father and mother and her cousin as her brother. She has known no other father and mother. Mr. Melton refused advantageous employment out of town because under the court's restrictions the little girl could not leave Baltimore. Stephanie is a healthy, happy, normal and well-adjusted child. Mrs. Melton is a Roman Catholic and Stephanie was baptized in that faith and attends church regularly. She has her own room in the Melton household. She sees her father from time to time and likes to play with her brother and sister.

The father, if given her custody, intends to take Stephanie to live at his mother's house in the Walbrook area. The house was described by the probation officer as 'miserably dirty, both inside and outside. The stench of dogs which permeates the house is overwhelming. It is difficult to see how the present occupants of the home can tolerate such a situation.' There are indications in the record that neighbors not only fully agree with the conclusions quoted but feel that the standards of the occupants of the house are no higher than its physical state. It was in this house that the father and mother stayed much of the time they were living together before they were married, with his mother, Stephanie's grandmother. Now living in the house are the grandmother, the father, his son by a prior marriage (which ended in divorce), his sister and her son (she is separated or divorced), and Stephanie's siblings whose custody recently was given to the father, and as to whom no appeal was taken.

It may be said without unfairness that the record discloses the father to be a generally well-meaning but an unstable and weak man who is far more prone than the average to misfortune and ineptness. His ethical and moral standards must be rated below par. Neither he nor the grandmother have had any religious affiliation for years, and none of the children in their household receive religious training. The grandmother, who has been divorced for over twenty years, is sixty-five years old and has undergone serious operations. She could take Stephanie only if a servant were provided and needs one even though Stephanie should not join the family. The father has promised to provide a servant but has yet not done so.

The evidence was somewhat conflicting as to the intensity and genuineness of the father's desire to have his children, particularly Stephanie. He claims to have always wanted them. Under court order he paid his wife, with fair regularity, $17.50 a week while she had custody. None of this went to the Meltons, who had Stephanie. On the other hand, there was evidence that, while their mother was alive, he sought custody only to hurt her and that he has never shown any real desire for the children.

The chancellor did not decide the case immediately after the hearing ended, but waited for a report from a child psychiatrist, and seems to have based his decision and decree largely on the recommendations of that report. The psychiatrist said: 'The more I postponed my report to you, the more difficult in became to make an unequivocal recommendation'; and continued, speaking of...