Title: Swindle v. Bradley

State: arkansas

Issuer: Arkansas Supreme Court

Document:

403 S.W.2d 63 (1966) Valerie M. SWINDLE, Petitioner, v. Gene BRADLEY, Chancellor, et al., Respondents. No. 5-3941. Supreme Court of Arkansas. May 23, 1966. Rehearing Denied June 6, 1966. Ray A. Goodwin, Kirsch, Cathey & Brown, Paragould, for petitioner. No brief filed for respondents. McFADDIN, Justice. This is a petition for a writ of certiorari to quash, as void ab initio, an order made by the Greene Chancery Court on August 9, 1965, awarding temporary custody of a child to its father. The petition is a further effort of Mrs. Valerie M. Swindle to obtain from Gerald M. Swindle the custody and possession of the daughter of the said Swindles. While the case is styled Swindle v. Bradley, Chancellor, the father of the child is also named as a respondent. Service of the brief on Mr. Swindle is questionable; but the other named respondents were served, so we may dispose of the case on its merits. Mr. and Mrs. Swindle were married in the British Isles in April 1962, and their daughter Sharon was born in 1963. The Swindles separated in St. Louis, Missouri, in April 1964 and Mrs. Swindle returned to her home in England and took the little girl with her. On May 28, 1965, Mr. Swindle obtained a decree of divorce in the Chancery Court of Greene County, Arkansas (in which County he was then living). Mrs. Swindle had entered her appearance to such divorce proceeding; and said decree found: The decree ordered that Mrs. Swindle "be and is hereby given care and custody of the said minor child, with reasonable visitation rights to the plaintiff, including the right *64 to have the child visit with him in this country; * * *." On August 9, 1965, Mr. Swindle filed in the Greene Chancery Court (the same Court that had granted the divorce and awarded custody of the child) a petition to modify the custody provision of the said decree. The petition was duly verified and stated, inter alia: "In keeping with his rights under the decree of May 28, 1965, plaintiff has brought the minor child from England back to Arkansas and the jurisdiction of this Court. * * * The Court should enter a temporary order awarding plaintiff custody of the child * * * pending a hearing on the merits of this cause." Based on the foregoing petition to modify the decree, and to allow him the temporary custody of his minor daughter pending a hearing on the merits, the Greene Chancery Court (Hon. Gene Bradley, Chancellor), after hearing evidence not now before us, entered an order on August 9, 1965, that Mr. Swindle be temporarily "awarded the custody of the minor child," and that Mrs. Swindle be entitled to a hearing on the matter at any reasonable time. It is the said order of August 9, 1965, that is here assailed as being void ab initio. Mrs. Swindle appeared on November 1, 1965, and there was a hearing; and on that date the Court cancelled the temporary custody that had been awarded Mr. Swindle in the order of August 9th; but in the meantime Mr. Swindle had taken the child and gone to California and has never subsequently appeared in the Greene Chancery Court. By order of November 1, 1965, the Greene Chancery Court revoked the right of Mr. Swindle to have the child; but the Chancery Court refused to set aside the order of August 9th as void ab initio; and the present petition for writ of certiorari is asking us to hold that the Chancery Court of Greene County, Arkansas, had no jurisdiction to make its order of August 9, 1965, awarding temporary custody of the child to the father, pending a further hearing. Petitioner lists four points in her brief filed in this Court: As much as we may personally sympathize with this mother, who is seeking to recover the custody of her little girl from a father who has taken the child beyond our jurisdiction and who refuses to return to have a hearing on the custody of the child, nevertheless we cannot hold that the Chancery Court of Greene County, Arkansas, was without jurisdiction to make the order of August 9, 1965, concerning the temporary custody of the child then before the Court. We have a long line of cases, all holding that the Chancery Court has the jurisdiction to make proper orders concerning the care and custody of minors before it. As evidence of such holdings, we quote the following language from cases wherein the facts may have been dissimilar from those in the case at bar, but in which the same rule of law was applicable. In Kirk v. Jones, 178 Ark. 583, 12 S.W. 2d 879: *65 In Crenshaw v. Crenshaw, 203 Ark. 1086, 160 S.W.2d 37: In Kimberling v. Rogers, 223 Ark. 348, 265 S.W.2d 952: In Holt v. Holt, 228 Ark. 22, 305 S.W. 2d 545: In Edwards v. Martin, 231 Ark. 528, 331 S.W.2d 97, we quoted from the earlier case of Myrick v. Jacks, 33 Ark. 425: So the Chancery Court of Greene County had the jurisdiction on August 9, 1965, to make a temporary custody order for the child before it; and that is the issue before us. Mrs. Swindle's counsel frankly state in the brief filed in this Court that unless the order of August 9, 1965, is set aside as void ab initio, she cannot obtain the services of the Prosecuting Attorney and other law enforcement officials to proceed criminally against Mr. Swindle for taking the child beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and that she is without funds to go to California to recover the custody of the child from Mr. Swindle in that jurisdiction. All of this causes personal sympathy for Mrs. Swindle; but we cannot make shipwreck of the law just because of such personal sympathy. The petition for writ of certiorari is therefore denied.