Succession of Reiss
| Decision Date | 01 March 1894 |
| Docket Number | 11,347 |
| Citation | 46 La.Ann. 347,15 So. 151 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | SUCCESSION OF LOUISE MARIE REISS, WIFE OF HENRY J. ROLLING, JR |
Rehearing refused.
APPEAL from the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Theard, J.
A. L Tissot, for Appellant.
Bernard McCloskey, for Appellant.
The father and tutor of two minor children, one eight and the other six years of age, is defendant in a rule issued at the instance of their maternal grandmother to compel him to send his children to visit her, at her residence and domicil, on such days and at such hours as the court may deem proper to determine.
She alleges that he arbitrarily, wantonly, maliciously and cruelly denies her the privilege of seeing her grandchildren thus abusing parental authority, controllable by the courts.
The defendant denies that he has refused to mover in rule the privilege of visiting his children, and avers that he is willing that she shall visit his children.
The judgment of the court a qua makes the rule absolute and orders the father to send the children to visit their grandmother, and further orders that the grandmother shall visit the children at their father's home in alternate weeks on such days as the parties may agree, provided the visits do not in any manner interfere with the schooling of the children.
Before this court the appellant asks that her rule be made absolute commanding the defendant to send the children to visit her without reference to any visit by her.
The appellee, in his answer to the appeal, prays for a dismissal of the rule.
The mother of these children has been dead about six years.
They live with the father.
The relations between the son-in-law and mother-in-law are not only strained but acrimonious.
More than three years have elapsed since he has sent his children to visit their grandmother.
She has requested him, she testifies, to send them, but he failed to comply with the request.
The defendant's household consists of his father and other members of his family. They and these children live at the same residence.
The relations of plaintiff with the members of the son-in-law's family are not, it seems, of the most pleasant character.
The plaintiff by her testimony creates the impression that the coolness and feeling existing would render the visit anything but pleasant.
Moments with her grandchildren while on such visits which, under other circumstances, would be highly enjoyed, at this time would possibly only cause irritation and bad blood.
Their differences are, we are led to believe, of an entirely personal character and have no reference to the standing of the parties, in regard to which there is not the most remote suggestion.
The plaintiff states as a witness that she does not entertain any objection on that score.
The witness testifies:
Q. "Have you visited those children at the house of their father?"
A. "No sir."
Q. "Why not?"
A.
Q. "Why not call upon these children at the home of their father to see them?"
A. "Because I thought it was proper to send them to me."
Q. "Is that they only reason?"
A. "That is my reason that I wish to give."
Q. "Do I understand you, then, as refusing to visit those children at the home of their father?"
A.
When examined as a witness the son-in-law, in answer to the question:
Q. "Don't you think that there is a law of nature that children should visit their grandparents?"
Answer. "I think that's right."
Manifestly the difference between these parties is inconsiderable, and would not be sufficient to arrest attention, were it not that it affects the good relation and intimacy that should prevail between these little children and their grandmother.
While we appreciate the affection that moves her to seek the occasional company of the offspring of her daughter, this court's jurisdiction does not include the cause pleaded.
The issue is not incidental to any other cause.
However disinclined we are to discountenance causes of action such as the one under consideration -- for they are inspired by a true and commendable impulse -- we find no authority in law to entertain jurisdiction of the issue presented. The question involved is res nova in this State.
In interpreting articles of the Civil Code in France, similar to ours on the subject, the courts and commentators greatly differ. There is respectable authority listed in favor of the precepts of Deuteronomy, Honora patrem tuum et matrem, embodied in the Civil Code as including also the grandfather and the grandmother.
They construe, under the articles of the Code, that the obligation involved in the case at bar, legal in so far as relates to the father a...
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Troxel et vir. v Granville
... ... Atkinson, Modern [530 U.S. 97] Child Custody Practice § 8.10 (1986). A case often cited as one of the earliest visitation decisions, Succession of Reiss, 46 La. Ann. 347, 353, 15 So. 151, 152 (1894), explained that "the obligation ordinarily to visit grandparents is moral and not legal" -- ... ...
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Mimkon v. Ford
... ... Fitzgerald, 185 A.2d 724 (D.C.Mun.Ct.App.1962)); Louisiana (Succession of Reiss, 46 La.Ann. 347, 15 So. 151 (La.1894)); New York (People ex rel. Sisson v. Sisson, 271 N.Y. 285, 2 N.E.2d 660 (N.Y.Ct.App.1936), Noll v ... ...
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Preston v. Mercieri
... ... Ford, 66 N.J. 426, 431, 332 A.2d 199, 201 (1975) (quoting Succession of Reiss, 46 La.Ann. 347, 353, 15 So. 151, 152 (1894)). Thus, at common law, ascendants were bound to grandchildren only by the links of love and ... ...
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In re E.N.C.
... ... The earliest reported case addressing the issue of grandparent visitation, Succession of Reiss, 46 La.Ann. 347, 15 So. 151 (1894), held that grandparent visitation was a moral, not legal obligation. See Blakely and Missouri's ... ...