Case Name: Ellen JACKSON v. Joseph RATLIFF et al.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1955-05-23
Citations: 84 So. 2d 103
Docket Number: No. 20431
Parties: Ellen JACKSON v. Joseph RATLIFF et al.
Judges: REGAN, J., dissents with written opinion.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 84
Pages: 103–109

Head Matter:
Ellen JACKSON v. Joseph RATLIFF et al.
No. 20431.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana. Orleans.
May 23, 1955.
On Rehearing Jan. 3, 1956.
Girard J. Fernandez, New Orleans, for defendants-appellants.
McGiehan, Bagot & Phillips, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellee.

Opinion:
HENRY B. CURTIS, Judge ad hoc.
The main question in this case is the responsibility of the father for the wrongful act of a minor unemancipated child who was not living with the parent at the time of the commission of the tort.
In the alternative, we are called upon to decide if there is any liability on the part of the maternal grandmother in whose custody and control the minor child had been placed.
The facts are not disputed. Plaintiff is Ellen Jackson, a colored woman, aged 54, who was attacked with intent to rape by an eighteen year old Negro boy, Joseph Ratliff, Jr. Defendants are Joseph Ratliff, Sr., the father, and Alice Harrison, the maternal grandmother, with whom the boy was living at the time of the assault.
There was judgment in favor of plaintiff for $500 against Joseph Ratliff, Sr., and a further judgment dismissing her suit against Alice Harrison.
Defendant Ratliff appealed from the judgment - against him, and plaintiff appealed from the judgment dismissing her suit against Alice Harrison. In her brief in this Court plaintiff by way of answer to the appeal of Joseph Ratliff, Sr., prayed for an increase in the award.
In the view which we take of this case, it is not necessary for us to consider whether this was a valid answer to the appeal or even to consider the question of quantum at all because in our opinion neither the father nor the maternal grandmother is liable for the wrongful action of Joseph Ratliff, Jr-
The question of the liability of the grandmother can be easily decided. There is nothing in our Civil Code or statutory law which imposes such liability on the grandmother unless she were the tutrix of the minor which was not here the case.
On the question of the father's liability, Article 2318 of the LSA-Civil Code reads:
"The father, or after his decease, the mother, are responsible for the damage occasioned by their minor or unemanci-pated children, residing with them, or placed by them under the care of other persons, reserving to them recourse against those persons.
"The same responsibility attaches to the tutors of minors."
In the case of Toca v. Rojas, 152 La. 317, 93 So. 108, 111, the Supreme Court said:
"Of course the parental authority may be suspended and interrupted, and even taken away altogether by the force and effect of the law. As, for instance, when the state, in the exercise of its sovereign right and power, takes the child away from the parents for the betterment of its condition; when by judgment of court the child is given over into the custody and care of another; where the minor is called into the service of his state or his country, or is summoned into a posse comitatus. In all such instances, the paternal authority is interrupted or terminated, and likewise the paternal responsibility.
" 'When the law, ex propria vigore, destroys or suspends the paternal authority over the minor, it, at the same time, destroys or suspends the paternal responsibility.' Coats v. Roberts, 35 La.Ann. 891."
The facts in this case áre that shortly after the birth of Joseph Ratliff, Jr., the parents separated and the mother went to stay with the grandmother taking the child with her. The child remained with his grandmother and was living with her at the time of the offense. In 1942, the father, Joseph Ratliff, Sr., sued' for divorce alleging two years separation from his wife. In his petition he made the following allegation concerning the child:
"That there is one child issue of the marriage named Joseph Ratliff, Jr., now aged 8 years, the child is now and has been in the custody and control of Alice Jackson, its grandmother; that he asks the Court to give the custody and control to the grandmother, who has had the child for many years."
It thus appears that the minor was neither living with his father at the time of the offense nor had he been placed by him under the care of another person, since the evidence shows that the child's mother took him to live with the grandmother. The decree in the divorce suit provided that the minor child should be placed in the custody and control of his grandmother.
The father's petition in the divorce suit merely recognized that fact and asked the Court to confirm same in its judgment. Once the Court so decreed, the father lost whatever right of custody or control he might have had over the child, at least unless and until the decree awarding the custody to the grandmother was set aside.
In our opinion the father's.parental authority was taken away by the judgment of court which gave the custody and control of the minor to the grandmother. Toca v. Rojas, supra.
The case of La Rue v. Adam, La.App., 59 So.2d 839 is not in conflict with this holding because there the father had voluntarily placed his minor children in the care of his oldest daughter and this Court held that the parental authority was not thereby interrupted or lost, the person in whose hands the children were placed being merely the father's agent. In this case it cannot he said that the father placed the child under the care of the grandmother. At the most he merely recognized that she did have such custody and asked the Court to confirm same. Certainly after the Court had rendered such an order, the father could not have exercised any control whatsoever unless and until the Court's order was set aside.
The plight of the innocent plaintiff of this attack is distressing, but, as was said by this Court in Maloney v. Goelz, 12 La.App. 31, 124 So. 606, 607:
"The question of the liability of the father who is not present has been many times discussed by our courts, which have always held that the codal provision, making the parent liable for the torts of the minor, is in derogation of common right, and therefore should be strictly construed. "
We therefore conclude that the judgment against Joseph Ratliff, Sr., should be reversed. j
It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment appealed from in favor of plaintiff and against defendant, Joseph Ratliff, Sr., be and the same is reversed and set aside and plaintiff's suit is dismissed at her cost.
It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment in favor of Alice Harrison be -affirmed.
Affirmed in part and'reversed in part.
REGAN, J., dissents with written opinion.