State ex rel. Tatum v. Ramey
| Decision Date | 11 January 1909 |
| Citation | 115 S.W. 458,134 Mo.App. 722 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. MRS. B. B. TATUM, Relator, v. HENRY M. RAMEY, Judge, etc., Respondent |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Writ made absolute.
James W. Boyd, Rusk & Stringfellow for relator.
Allen Gabbert & Mitchell for respondent.
This proceeding was instituted in this court to obtain a writ of prohibition against the respondent, who is a judge of the circuit court for Buchanan county, prohibiting him from interfering with the care and custody of relator's two minor children, who are now in her care and under her control. A temporary writ was issued returnable to the Court of Appeals to be in session on the 17th of December, 1908. On that day the respective parties were heard and we now proceed to dispose of the case.
It appears that relator and W. T. Davis were formerly husband and wife and that of their marriage was born the two children, the subject of the present controversy. One of these children is now between ten and eleven and the other between twelve and thirteen years old. In January, 1908 relator obtained a final decree of divorce from Davis, for his fault, with two hundred dollars per month alimony and the care, custody and control of the two children. After the term at which this decree was made had passed, viz.: on the 30th day of October, 1908, Davis made application to the circuit court of which respondent is the judge, for a modification of that part of the decree relating to the care and custody of the children.
Prior to this application to modify, relator had intermarried with B. B. Tatum and at the time the application was made they were residing, with the children, at the Baltimore Hotel in Kansas City, Mo. The application was set down for hearing on the 7th of November, 1908. On that day relator asked and obtained a continuance until the 30th of that month. On the latter day she filed her written application for a continuance, which was granted and the application continued to the January term, 1909. The action taken by the court in connection with granting this continuance is the cause of the present controversy, and is the foundation upon which the temporary writ of prohibition was issued.
It appears from statements in the application for continuance that relator was seriously ill and confined to her rooms in the hotel at Kansas City and that she probably would be under the necessity of a serious surgical operation. It appears that the court in making the order of continuance, which, ordinarily, is a short and formal entry, coupled with it and as part of it, a lengthy order, with reasons therefor, as to the care of the children, in which their care and custody was changed from the relator to W. T. Davis' father, living in Buchanan county.
Passing by any criticism on the effort made by the applicant to take from the mother at this particular time, in her dire distress and serious sickness, her two daughters, old enough to encourage her despondent situation and minister to her...
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