Sinquefield v. Valentine
| Decision Date | 26 January 1931 |
| Docket Number | 29256 |
| Citation | 159 Miss. 144,132 So. 81 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | SINQUEFIELD v. VALENTINE et al |
1. PARENT AND CHILD. Father of child is entitled to custody thereof as against all persons except mother, unless he forfeits right by misconduct showing him unsuitable (Code 1930, section 1863).
Under section 1863, Code of 1930, chapter 266, Laws of 1922, the father of a child is entitled to its custody as against all persons except the mother, unless and until he has forfeited such right by misconduct showing him to be an unsuitable person to have such custody.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. Due process requires hearing before court on notice to parent, before depriving parent of child's custody (Code 1930, section 1863; Constitution U.S. Amend 14).
Before a parent can be deprived of the custody of his minor child there must be a hearing before a court of competent jurisdiction in which he has been served with process or entered an appearance, and no court has a right to deprive him of the custody or to judge him to be unfit for such custody without an opportunity for him to appear and be heard. To do so would be to deprive him of his legal rights without due process of law.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. Citizen may not be deprived without due process of right to contract, engage in common occupations and acquire useful knowledge; right of citizen to establish home and bring up and educate his children may not be withdrawn without due process (Const. U.S. Amend. 14).
Among the rights of a citizen, of which a state may not deprive him without due process of law, is the right of an individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to establish a home, to bring up his children, and to educate them in such manner as he deems best to secure their happiness and welfare, so long as such training and education do not result in, or tend to develop, tendencies or traits dangerous to society. Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070, 39 A. L. R. 468, cited.
4. APPEAL AND ERROR. Parent who was in actual custody of children could appeal from judgment denying his right to custody, where judgment was not shown to be avoided or entirely abandoned by opposite party.
Where the custody of children is denied to their parent and the parent has appealed from such decision, a plea in bar alleging that the parent then has custody of the children, without showing anything to avoid the judgment appealed from, or that such judgment is entirely abandoned by the party in whose favor it was rendered, is not sufficient to bar the appeal, as the parent will be entitled to a reversal of the judgment which denied his right to custody of the children.
APPEAL from circuit court of Jones county, Second district, HON. W. J. PACK, Judge.
Proceeding by H. B. Sinquefield, opposed by W. P. Valentine and another, for a writ of habeas corpus to secure the custody of petitioner's minor children. The county court granted petitioner relief, but the judgment was reversed on appeal to the circuit court, and petitioner appeals. Judgment of circuit court reversed, and that of county court affirmed, and cause remanded, with directions.
Reversed and remanded.
Collins & Collins, of Laurel, for appellant.
The guardian of the minor, whose father or mother is living, and a suitable person to have the custody of the minor, shall not be entitled, as against the parent to the custody of the ward.
Section 1970, Hemingway's Code of 1917.
The rights of no man shall be adjudicated in any court unless and until he has had the opportunity to be present and to be heard in behalf of these rights.
Griffith Chancery Practice, section 101.
In section 223 of Griffith's Chancery Practice the author says:
It is a cardinal principle in the administration of justice that no man can be condemned, or divested of his rights, until he has had an opportunity of being heard. He must, by service of process, by publication of notice or in some equivalent way, be brought into court, and if judgment be rendered against him before that is done, the proceedings will be as utterly void as though the court had undertaken to act where the subject-matter was not within its cognizance. The principle is universal that no judgment, order or decree is valid or binding upon a party who had had no notice of the proceedings against him. The court must not only have jurisdiction of the subject-matter, but also of the persons of the parties to give validity to its final judgments, orders and decrees, and it is not in the power of the legislature, under our constitution, to dispense with this notice, actual or constructive.
Boutwell v. Grayson, 118 Miss. 89; Browns v. Gartman, 29 Miss. 133; Lane v. Whellis, 46 Miss. 666.
Since the father is the natural guardian of his child and the law recognizes him to be such, and nature has placed upon him the responsibility and the law recognizes and enforces that responsibility, to say that the parent could be deprived of this right without notice would be worse than anarchy. We submit that no court would ever hold that a parent could be divested of this right without notice.
T. Webber Wilson, Roy P. Noble, and Ellis B. Cooper, all of Laurel, for appellees.
A writ of habeas corpus is not the proper procedure in a case of this character and that appellant had a full and complete remedy in the chancery court which had already undertaken to act and which remedy was just as speedy as the one herein sought.
Herndon v. Bonner, 52 So. 513, 97 Miss. 328.
Letters of guardianship may be issued under the laws of this state without notice to the next of kin; it being purely an ex parte proceeding.
Kelly v. Edwards, 38 Mich. 210; Farror v. Olmstead, 24 Vt. 123; State v. Bazille, 81 Minn. 370, 84 N.W. 120.
The appellant, H. B. Sinquefield, filed a petition in the county court of Jones county for the custody of his two children, H. B. Sinquefield, Jr., aged five years, and Mary Elizabeth Sinquefield, aged four years, alleging that W. P. Valentine and Mrs. W. P. Valentine, grandparents of the children, unlawfully detained said children from the custody of their father without his consent, that petitioner had made demand upon W. P. and Mrs. W. P. Valentine to deliver said children to him, but they had refused to do so, and that they were depriving him of the custody of said children, and he prayed for a writ of habeas corpus to have said children produced and that they be turned over to him. The writ was duly issued and served, and the defendants filed answer admitting that W. P. Valentine had custody of said children, but alleging that the custody of said children was lawfully vested in W. P. Valentine by virtue of a decree of the chancery court of Jones county, and it was alleged that, upon filing of the decree, a bond, as guardian, was entered into as directed thereby, copy of which was filed with the answer; and it was alleged that, by reason thereof, said W. P. Valentine was in lawful custody of the children under a decree of the chancery court, and that the relief prayed for should be denied.
On the hearing it appeared that on September 10, 1930, W. P. Valentine presented a petition to the chancellor of the district in vacation without notice to the appellant, H. B. Sinquefield, in which petition it was alleged that said Sinquefield was an unsuitable person to have the custody and control of his children. It was admitted that no service of summons or any notice was given to Sinquefield of the hearing before the chancellor. The chancellor granted the relief prayed for without the appellant, Sinquefield, being present or having had an opportunity to be heard.
The judge of the county court granted the relief prayed for in the habeas corpus proceeding, from which Valentine appealed to the circuit court, where the judgment of the county court was reversed and the case remanded to the county court, with directions to dismiss the petition. An order was entered in accordance with the directions dismissing the petition, from which Sinquefield again appealed to the circuit court, and from there to this court.
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...cannot dispense with notice, where notice and hearing are necessary to afford constitutional due process. Sinquefield v. Valentine, 159 Miss. 144, 132 So. 81, 76 A.L.R. 238 (1931). It seems clear to us that a natural father has standing to challenge a proposed change of name of his minor ch......
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...cannot be deprived of the custody of his or her child without notice and an opportunity to be heard. See Sinquefield v. Valentine, 159 Miss. 144, 132 So. 81, 83 (Miss.1931) ; see also Miss.Code Ann. § 93–15–105 (Rev.2013). Moreover, trial courts have the authority to appoint counsel for ind......
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Howard v. Wilbur
...an exception seems to have been recognized in Kaufman v. Mastin, 66 W.Va. 99, 66 S.E. 92, 25 L.R.A.,N.S., 855; Sinquefield v. Valentine, 159 Miss. 144, 132 So. 81, 76 A.L.R. 238. Appellant's counsel apparently attempts to bring this appeal within that exception by the statement in the respo......
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Weigand v. Houghton
...training and education do not result in, or tend to develop, tendencies or traits dangerous to society." See Sinquefield v. Valentine, 159 Miss. 144, 151, 132 So. 81, 83 (1931). ¶ 45. In the instant case, Machelle and Paul's stepfather are breaching the "high duty" required by the Constitut......