Spitzer v. Lewark, 19
Decision Date | 06 March 1963 |
Docket Number | No. 19,19 |
Citation | 259 N.C. 50,129 S.E.2d 620 |
Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Parties | Gilbert SPITZER and wife, Barbara O'Neal Spitzer v. Claude H. LEWARK and wife, Margaret Blades Spitzer Lewark. |
Russell E. Twiford and Gerald F. White of Aydlett & White, Elizabeth City, for respondent appellants.
No counsel for petitioners.
Respondents assign as error Judge Bundy's second finding of fact on the ground that there is no competent evidence in the record to support it. This assignment of error is overruled.
The second finding of fact finds support in the joint affidavit of Lindsey and Alma Swindell, the affidavit of Roxana O'Neal, mother of feme petitioner, and in the reports of Dr. Walter A. Sikes, superintendent of Dorothea Dix Hospital, of Dr. Ben E. Britt, clinical director of Dorothea Dix Hospital, and of Emma J. Edwards, director of public welfare of Pasquotank County, to Judge Bundy. There was no objection to this evidence by respondents. Dr. Walter A. Sikes wrote to Judge Bundy on 30 November 1962: There is in the Record what is termed 'Outpatient Clinical Notes' in respect to the feme petitioner from Dorothea Dix Hospital, dated 13 December 1962, which states in part:
On 2 December 1962 Emma J. Edwards, director of public welfare of Pasquotank County, wrote to Judge Bundy as follows:
The second finding of fact by Judge Bundy is supported by competent evidence, and is conclusive on appeal. In re Kimel, 253 N.C. 508, 117 S.E.2d 409.
Respondents next assign as error the entry of the judgment. This presents the question whether the facts found support the judgment, and is there error of law apparent on the face of the record. Strong, Supplement to Vol. 1 of N.C. Index, Appeal and Error, section 21.
Judge Bundy awarded the custody of Katrine Anne to her father and mother--not to her mother alone. The appellants are the paternal grandmother of Katrine Anne and her paternal step-grandfather. This is not a proceeding to determine rights of parents inter sese as to the custody of their child.
As a general rule at common law, and in this State, parents have the natural and legal right to the custody, companionship, control, and bringing up of their infant children, and the same being a natural and substantive right may not lightly be denied or...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Sauls, In re, 538
...§ 17--39.1.' The court could 'treat the complaint as a petition for writ of habeas corpus and proceed accordingly.'); Spitzer v. Lewark, 259 N.C. 50, 129 S.E.2d 620 (dispute between the parents of an infant and its paternal grandparents); Lennon v. Lennon, 252 N.C. 659, 114 S.E.2d 571 (disp......
- Estate of Belk by and through Belk v. Boise Cascade Wood Prods., L. L.C.
-
Kowalzek, Matter of
...should not be deprived of custody merely because the child could be better cared for in a material sense. See e. g., Spitzer v. Lewark, 259 N.C. 50, 129 S.E.2d 620 (1963); In re Wehunt, 23 N.C.App. 113, 208 S.E.2d 280 (1974). In Spence v. Durham, 283 N.C. 671, 687, 198 S.E.2d 537, 547 (1973......
-
Long, In re
...parent's right to bring up a child as he or she so chooses, yet this parental authority is not viewed as absolute. In Spitzer v. Lewark, 259 N.C. 50, 129 S.E.2d 620 (1963), the Court said, 'As a general rule at common law, and in this State, parents have the natural and legal right to the c......