PERRINE V. SLACK
| Decision Date | 30 November 1896 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The controversy in this case being between the mother and the testamentary guardian of infant children, each claiming the right to their custody and care, the matter in dispute is of such a nature as to be incapable of being reduced to any pecuniary standard of value, and for this, and for the reasons given in Chapman v. United States, ante, 164 U. S. 436, it is held that this Court has no jurisdiction to review judgments of the Court of Appeals under such circumstances.
The court also declines to pass upon the question whether the action of the Court of Appeals, after the writ of error had been granted, was or was not improvident.
The case is stated in the opinion.
This proceeding involves a controversy as to the custody of two children of tender years. Mrs. Perrine is the sister of the deceased father of the children, and her co-plaintiff in error is her husband. She had the custody of the children under their father's will. Mrs. Slack, defendant in error, is their mother, and filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to obtain custody of them. The writ was issued, and return made by plaintiffs in error, which was demurred to, the demurrer overruled, and the writ discharged. From this judgment Mrs. Slack appealed. From Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, which reversed the judgment, and remanded the case, with directions to sustain the demurrer to the return, and to proceed with the case in conformity with the opinion of the court. Thereupon a writ of error, to operate as a supersedeas upon the filing of a bond in the penal sum of ,000 was allowed, and the bond required was filed and approved. After this, an order was entered by the Court of Appeals (the Chief Justice dissenting, as he had from the judgment) directing the judge of the Supreme Court of the District, who had entered the order discharging the writ, to place the children in the custody of their mother, pending the prosecution of the writ of error, upon her giving satisfactory security. This order was entered and complied with, and the children were taken from their
aunt, their testamentary guardian, and placed in their mother's custody.
The situation being thus, application...
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