Montwid v. Montwid, 238.

• Decision Date: 25 July 1933
• Docket Number: No. 238.,238.
• Parties: MONTWID v. MONTWID et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

167 A. 761

MONTWID

v. MONTWID et al.

No. 238.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

July 25, 1933

Certiorari by Anna Montwid to review an order of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Essex County, Joseph Siegler, Judge, entered on the complaint of Grace Montwid, requiring the prosecutor to pay $4 a week for the support of her grandchild.

Order affirmed.

Argued January term, 1933, before PARKER, LLOYD, and HEHER, JJ.

Child & Shipman, of Newark, for prosecutor.

Robert E. Kiernan, of Newark, for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

In this review we are asked to set aside an order of the domestic relations court of Essex county requiring the prosecutor to pay $4 a week for the support of her grandchild.

The return of the writ discloses that the prosecutor, upon the complaint of one Grace Montwid, was required to make payment in the first instance of $6 per week, which sum was paid for a number of weeks when on application of the prosecutor the order was reduced to $4 per week.

The proceedings were taken in pursuance of the authority conferred by chapter 157 of the Laws of 1929 (Comp. St. Supp. § 53—215b (1) et seq.), establishing a juvenile and domestic relations court. The purpose of this statute, among others, is to protect the growing youth of the country which shall not have attained the age of sixteen years, and upon the court is conferred jurisdiction to deal with the domestic relations of such children and the responsibility for their care and support, and in doing so it is authorized to hear and determine these relations in summary manner in cases where the gravamen of the complaint is failure to provide support.

This the court, from the return, appears to have done in the present case. In the absence of invalidity appearing upon the return or otherwise properly presented to us, the order of the court below will not be disturbed upon legal grounds.

The testimony taken on the trial is not before us, although the prosecutor has presented in her brief excerpts from what purports to be a considerable amount of testimony taken at that time. If such testimony was presented and it was deemed essential, it should have been made a part of the return. If, however, we are to examine this purported proof, we think the court was justified in imposing the order which is sought to be reversed.

The contention of the prosecutor that under such cases as Ackerman v. Ackerman, 55 N. J. Law, 422, 27 A. 807, no personal right for support arises under the poor laws...