Case Name: STATE v. BROCKNER
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1944-12-11
Citations: 21 So. 2d 499
Docket Number: No. 37701
Parties: STATE v. BROCKNER.
Judges: HIGGINS, J., concurs in decree.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 21
Pages: 499–510

Head Matter:
207 La. 465
STATE v. BROCKNER.
No. 37701.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Dec. 11, 1944.
On Rehearing Feb. 19, 1945.
Arthur Landry, and Nicholas G. Carbajal, both of New Orleans, for relator.

Opinion:
HAMITER, Justice!
In an application filed on October 19, 1944, invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of this court, relatrix, Mrs. Lorell Smith Brockner, made the following narrated factual allegations.
She is a widow by divorce, is sixteen years of age and a resident of New Orleans, and is the mother of an infant child, Bertha Ann Matheny Brockner, born June 24, 1943. She kept the child with her in New Orleans until June 18, 1944, when, because of having secured employment, she placed it with Mrs. Joseph Jacobi, whose home is in Madisonville, St. Tammany Parish, agreeing to pay the sum of $15 bi-weekly for its care and support. Several times thereafter she demanded of Mrs. Jacobi, at the latter's home, the return of the child, but on each occasion this was refused and bodily harm to her was threatened if she did not depart. Neither Mrs. Jacobi nor Mr. Jacobi is related to her or her child by blood or affinity. On August 11, 1944, Monroe Simmons, Probation Officer of St. Tammany Parish, made and filed in the Juvenile Court of that parish an affidavit charging that her daughter was a neglected child.
Determined to obtain possession of her offspring, she further alleged, she and an escort went to the Jacobi home on October 7, 1944, and, after a scuffle with Mr. and Mrs. Jacobi, she secured that possession and brought the child to the City of New Orleans. While engaged in the undertaking, she produced a pistol in an effort to protect herself from the Jacobi dog; but she did not discharge the weapon because Mrs. Jacobi stood between her and the dog.
On October 9, 1944, relatrix was arrested in New Orleans, under a charge of attempting to kill made .against her in the District Court of St. Tammany Parish, and was incarcerated in the St. Tammany Parish jail. There she remained until October 17, 1944, when she was released on bond.
The child, on October 16, 1944, while residing at the premises No. 1410 Evelina Street in the Algiers section of New Orleans, was seized and taken by certain officers of the law to Covington, St. Tammany Parish.
On being released from jail on bond, relatrix was served with an order to appear in the Juvenile Court of St. Tammany Parish on October 20, 1944, and there show cause why her daughter should not be adjudged a neglected child for the reasons set out in the affidavit filed on October 16, 1944.
After making the recited allegations, re-latrix .prayed for the issuance by us of a writ of prohibition, forbidding the Judge and the Probation Officer of the Juvenile Court of St. Tammany Parish from proceeding further with the case involving her child. Additionally, she prayed that those officials, as well as the St. Tammany Parish Welfare Department, be directed, under a writ of habeas corpus, to produce the child before this court and that, after due hearing, her daughter "be at once released and restored to liberty, with full power to return to the care and keeping of her mother if: if: »
The theory underlying the demand of relatrix is that the Juvenile Court of St. Tammany Parish is without jurisdiction of the matter, she emphasizing that her domicile, as well as that of the child, is in the Parish of Orleans and that the child was actually in such parish when the officers seized it.
On the showing made, we ordered, through the writ of certiorari, the filing here of the record of the proceeding of which complaint is made. Further, we caused the issuance of a rule nisi, accompanied by a stay order, directing the St. Tammany Parish Juvenile Judge and Probation Officer, and the Department of Public Welfare of Louisiana, to show cause why the relief prayed for by relatrix should not be granted.
In his return to the rule, the respondent judge stated as follows:
"That based on the affidavit filed against the minor, named Bertha Ann Brockner, in Juvenile Court of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, on October 16, 1944, and the information therein presented, he executed an order providing for the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of such child, placing the temporary custody of said child with the St. Tammany Parish Welfare Department until trial of such case, and further providing for the issuance of an order to mother of said child to show cause on October 20, 1944, at 10 o'clock A. M. why the custody of such child should not be de termined. Said order being dated October 16, 1944.
"That furthermore he issued a warrant for arrest of said child and same was duly executed and child placed with St. Tammany Welfare Department.
"Such case has never been tried or submitted to court and respondent has no information with regard to the facts of such case or the jurisdiction of this _ Juvenile Court other than those disclosed by the affidavit filed by the Probation Officer; and your respondent respectfully submits the matter to your Honorable Court.
"And in obedience the writ herein issued there is attached hereto a certified copy of the record in these proceedings including the warrant so issued."
The Probation Officer, in his original answer, made the following averments:
At the time of the filing of his affidavit of August 11, 1944 (the first one charging neglect), the child was physically in St. Tammany Parish and had been there for about two months. The affidavit was based on what he considered reliable information. On the evening of September 17, 1944, when relatrix called to see him about the child, he informed her of the filing of the neglect charge and also of his having requested the St. Tammany Welfare Department, a state agency, to make a full and complete investigation of the facts surrounding the case. Further, he remarked that if the results of such investigation were favorable to her he would cause a discontinuance of the proceedings. With this proposal, on her leaving, he believed her to be fully satisfied. After his learning of the occurrence of October 7, 1944, which resulted in the child's removal from the Jacobi home to New Orleans and the incarceration of relatrix, and on his being further informed that the child was being neglected, he filed the second affidavit of date October 16, 1944, this also charging neglect. On this affidavit he procured the issuance of the court order and the warrant required for obtaining custody of the child. After seizing the child in New Orleans, the officers placed it with the St. Tammany Parish Welfare Department, which is using Mrs. Jacobi as personal custodian pending trial of the proceedings. No plea to the jurisdiction of the St. Tammany Parish Juvenile Court has been filed or tendered there, and the jurisdictional question concerning that court is raised here for the first time.
In the return or answer of the State Department of Public Welfare, that agency disclaims all knowledge of the proceedings respecting the custody of the infant child of relatrix. However, the respondent Probation Officer, in a supplemental answer, shows that Miss Worth Dinwiddie, head of the agency's St. Tammany Parish unit, was and is fully informed about the matter.
It is with the application of relatrix and the returns of the several respondents that the present consideration deals; and involved is only the issue of the Juvenile Court's jurisdiction.
Ordinarily we will not interfere with the proceedings of an inferior court because of its lack of jurisdiction until after a plea asserting the jurisdictional deficiency has been presented to and overruled by that court. That this is the general rule is clearly recognized and stated in our jurisprudence. State v. City of New Orleans et al., 149 La. 788, 90 So. 196; In Re Sherill, 204 La. 1096, 16 So.2d 885.
The Sherill case, a controversy strikingly similar to the instant one, involved the question of the custody of a minor child in a Juvenile Court proceeding predicated on an affidavit charging it with being neglected. There, as here, the mother of the child applied to this court for a writ of prohibition, contending that the Juvenile Court was without jurisdiction ratione personae. But, since she had failed to raise that issue in the inferior court and secure a ruling thereon (just as relatrix herein has failed to do), we declined to grant the relief requested.
Of course, a difference to be noticed between the Sherill case and this cause is that here relatrix, besides asking for the writ of prohibition, has made application for the writ of habeas corpus. This court, it is true, has the authority to issue the writ of habeas corpus in behalf of any person in actual custody. Article VII, Section 2 of the Louisiana Constitution. But, as pointed out in previous decisions, we shall abstain from granting this extraordinary order where it may well be done in competent lower courts, unless there exist special circumstances in a case making immediate, direct action or intervention necessary or expedient, or when prompt and adequate relief is not otherwise available. State ex rel Baumann v. Langridge, Sheriff, 44 La.Ann. 1014, 11 So. 541; State v. Woods, 154 La. 631, 98 So. 47; State ex rel. Haas v. Sisters of the Convent of the Good Shepherd, 181 La. 628, 160 So. 121. No special circumstances are disclosed by thé record in the instant matter warranting our issuing this writ and preventing the Juvenile Judge from performing the duty, legally his under the well-recognized general rule, of passing upon the challenge made to his court's jurisdiction. Obviously, we can not assume that he will act arbitrarily and capriciously in the discharge of that duty. To the contrary, the presumption is, and we certainly believe, that he will give fair and impartial consideration to a jurisdictional plea when it is tendered.
If, after the attack is made, relatrix is unsuccessful in her efforts, the court's ruling can then be reviewed by us. Should, on the other hand, the plea be sustained, the child will be restored to her custody and her purpose completely accomplished. In the meantime, the daughter will be in the care of Mrs. Jacobi, under the supervision of the St. Tammany Parish Unit of the Department of Public Welfare, to whom relatrix herself originally entrusted it and in whom, as shown by that act, she possessed confidence as being a proper and suitable person for its safe keeping.
For the reasons assigned the rule to show cause is recalled, the granting of the writs of prohibition and habeas corpus is refused, and the relief prayed for by relatrix is denied.
HIGGINS, J., concurs in decree.