Spence v. Levi, 49824

• Decision Date: 02 December 1974
• Docket Number: No. 49824,No. 2,49824,2
• Citation: 211 S.E.2d 622,133 Ga.App. 581
• Parties: Gertrude B. SPENCE v. Susan LEVI
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 622

211 S.E.2d 622

133 Ga.App. 581

Gertrude B. SPENCE v. Susan LEVI.

No. 49824.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Dec. 2, 1974.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1974.

Syllabus by the Court

1. In a proceeding in juvenile court by the Department of Family and Children Services seeking termination of parental rights, the evidence was sufficient to support the relief sought.

2. Such an action severs the rights of inheritance of both parent and child from each other.

3. It was not error, appellant's counsel being present, to examine the 14-year-old minor in the absence of his mother whose rights were sought to be terminated.

This case is on appeal from the Juvenile Court of Fulton County which, after hearing, entered an order that appellant Gertrude Spence's rights in her minor child D.C.S. be terminated. The child was born in 1960; appellant, herself from a divided family and raised in institutional surroundings, was convicted of abandonment in 1961, the infant placed in a foster home, and she was ordered to pay $15 per week as child support (the father having vanished from the scene). Between then and 1966 the child spent a total of 14 months with the mother; the home placement failed and he was again placed under foster care. Although they are contradicted by some unsupported testimony on the part of the mother, the records of the petitioner Department of Family and Children Services reveals that no support payments were made, although the amount was reduced to $7.50 per week in 1961 and to $20 per month in 1974; that the child has been in four different foster homes, in the last of these for six years, has a good chance of adoption by his foster parents, and wishes to be adopted. There is expert testimony that his present status had been a source of insecurity and trauma, that he is apprehensive of being returned to his mother, primarily because on prior visits he lacked sufficient food but also because of a promised holiday visit when his mother had failed to come for him, that he had seen her only on short visits and those spaced a year or two apart, and his own testimony as well as that of case workers and the statements of his own guardian ad litem are clear that he does not and probably should not expect any sort of parental relationship with his natural parent if the present situation continues. Appellant shows a record of frequent removals from place to place as well as sporadic infringements of the law, and a complete absence of contact between the time she cancelled a visit to the child on May 19, 1972, and her relocation by the agency at the time of filing of the petition for termination. Her testimony at the hearing as to refusal of her tendered support payments by the authorities, and her gifts of money, food and clothing to the child, were denied by all concerned; her financial condition appears to be poor but not destitute, and her main stated reason for opposing the proceedings is that the child has the father's name and she wants to keep it that way.

Max B. Hardy, Jr., Rice & Hardy, Atlanta, for appellant.

Lucy S. McGough, Walter M. Henritze, Jr., Atlanta, for appellee.

DEEN, Judge.

1. This case represents the second instance of Georgia appellate review of a proceeding for termination of parental rights under Code Ann. § 24A-3201 et seq. See In re Levi, 131 Ga.App. 348, 206 S.E.2d 82. In that case, at page 352, at page 85 of 206 S.E.2d,...