State ex rel. Griffin v. Stansberry

• Decision Date: 07 November 1955
• Docket Number: No. 42475,42475
• Citation: 228 La. 655,83 So.2d 890
• Parties: STATE ex rel. Louise Stansberry GRIFFIN v. Jack STANSBERRY, et al.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 890

83 So.2d 890

228 La. 655

STATE ex rel. Louise Stansberry GRIFFIN v. Jack STANSBERRY, et al.

No. 42475.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Nov. 7, 1955.

Kenneth G. Burgess, Shreveport, for relator-applicant.

Helm, Simon & Gordy, New Iberia, for respondents.

FOURNET, Chief Justice.

The relatrix, Louise Stansberry Griffin, a resident of Caddo Parish during the period of these proceedings, having been adjudged in contempt of the Sixteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Iberia, for failure to comply with the judgment of that Court ordering her to deliver her minor child, Jeanette Latiolais, to the care and custody of the parents of relatrix, Jack and Anna F. Stansberry, and upon the showing made by her that the judgment forming the basis of the contempt proceeding is a nullity, we granted a writ of certiorari directing the respondent judge to transmit to this court the record of the proceedings complained of in order that their validity might be ascertained, and further ordering that meanwhile the proceedings against relatrix should be stayed and suspended.

The record shows that on November 22, 1954, the relatrix petitioned the Sixteenth Judicial District Court, Iberia Parish, for writs of habeas corpus directed to Jack Stansberry, her father, and Anna F. Stansberry, her mother, residents of New Iberia, alleging that they were refusing to allow her to have the custody of her minor daughter, Jeanette Latiolais, born on January 8, 1943; that she and her daughter had previously resided with her parents but that after her marriage to W. P. Griffin she and her husband had moved to Shreveport, leaving the child with respondents in order that she might complete preparation for her First Communion and finish the school term. The trial judge issued a rule on the respondents to show cause, returnable on the 15th day of December, 1954. On that date their answer was filed, consisting of a general denial, the prayer being simply that 'the writ issued herein be recalled and vacated and that there be judgment dismissing plaintiff's suit at her costs.'

The trial of the case did not take place on December 15, having been postponed by mutual consent, with approval of the court, because of the absence of relatrix' husband. On that day the relatrix took her child and, without notifying anyone of her intention, departed for Shreveport where she has since remained. ¹ Counsel now representing her ² contend that the proceedings that followed, ³ culminating in a judgment on the merits dated March 11, 1955, recalling the writs and awarding custody of the child to the respondents, is a nullity, and the judge was therefore without authority to issue his subsequent Order of May 10, 1955, ordering the relatrix to produce the child in order to enforce that illegal judgment, and she could not be in contempt of court for having failed and refused to comply with such order.

On the other hand, it is contended by counsel for respondents that they have followed the orderly process of the law as approved and outlined in the case of State ex rel. Steen v. Wade, 207 La. 177, 20 So.2d 747; that under the jurisprudence of this Court the subject child became a ward of the Sixteenth Judicial District Court when the relatrix filed habeas corpus proceedings there, and she did not defeat the court's jurisdiction by surreptitiously removing the child to Shreveport.

Counsel for respondents are in error in their argument, for it is clear that the only legal judgment possible under the circumstances--the mother having regained the care and keeping of her child, which is all that she sought, and the respondents having failed, either in their prayer or in their pleadings, to seek to be awarded its custody--was one dismissing the suit, because any judgment rendered beyond the pleadings is a nullity. See Succession of Addison, 212 La. 846, 33 So.2d 658; Mente & Co. v. Roane Sugars, Inc., 199 La. 686, 6 So.2d 731; Hope v. Madison, 192 La. 593, 188 So. 711; Peters v. Norris, 191 La. 436, 185 So. 461; Derbes v. Rogers, 162 La. 49, 110 So. 84; Succession of Dauphin, 112 La. 103, 36 So. 287; McAdam v. Soria, 31 La.Ann. 862; see, also, Rogers v. Southern Fiber Co., 119 La. 714,...