Mitchell v. Mitchell, 38607
| Decision Date | 08 June 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 38607,38607 |
| Parties | MITCHELL v. MITCHELL. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Gordon & Gordon, Liberty, for appellant.
E. H. Ratcliff, Natchez, for appellee.
The proceedings below originated on a bill for divorce filed by appellee. Appellant answered and filed his cross- bill, asking for a divorce from appellee. Each party prayed for custody of the only child of the marriage. By the final decree the chancellor denied appellee's prayer for a divorce, granted appellant's prayer for divorce on one of the two grounds of divorce which he had alleged in the cross-bill, and awarded to appellee custody of the child 'for the present time because of said child's very tender years.' The court then made provision for payment of monthly support money for the child by appellant, granted to appellant the right to visit the child at all reasonable times, and expressly retained complete jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter 'in order that further orders may be given herein relative to custody and support of said child, Ronnie Mitchell, if and when such orders are necessary and proper.' Appellant, the father of the child, has appealed to this Court, assigning as the only ground of error the awarding of the custody of the child to appellee.
We have reviewed the record in this case, which contains a considerable amount of evidence bearing on the fitness of appellee to have custody of the child and on the question of what will be for the best interest of the child. It is sufficient to comment that the record contains many points of testimony which strongly indicate that the best interest of the child will be served by allowing the father, the appellant, to have its custody, but that appellee has denied generally the charges of misconduct made against her.
In this situation we cannot say that the court below was manifestly wrong in granting temporary custody of the child to appellee, his mother. At the time of the trial, the child was approximately nineteen months of age, and appears to be nearly three years old at the present time. It seems clear that the chancellor, in granting temporary custody to the mother 'because of said child's very tender years' and in expressly retaining jurisdiction for further orders relative to custody, was not undertaking to make a finding and adjudication with respect to the matter of permanent custody, but was giving effect to the rule noted in Winfield v. Winfield, ...
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Anderson v. Watkins
...476, 119 So. 581 (1929); Cox v. Cox, 183 So.2d 921 (Miss.1966); Duncan v. Duncan, 119 Miss. 271, 80 So. 697 (1919); Mitchell v. Mitchell, 218 Miss. 37, 65 So.2d 265 (1953). There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. One well known exception is where the children are of tender years of a......
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Albright v. Albright, 54289
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