Title: Ex Parte Phillips
Citation: 95 So. 2d 77
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 9, 1957

95 So. 2d 77 (1957)
Ex parte Patsy Ruth PHILLIPS.
4 Div. 905.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 9, 1957.
*78 Robt. E. Coburn, Jr., Montgomery, for Petitioner.
Jackson W. Stokes, Elba, for respondent.
MERRILL, Justice.
Petition for mandamus to review a ruling of the Honorable Eris F. Paul, as Judge of the Circuit Court of Coffee County, in Equity, dated November 21, 1956, which awarded the custody of two minor children to their father, and ordered the sheriff of Montgomery County to take the children into his custody and deliver them to the sheriff of Coffee County or to their father. We issued the rule nisi and the cause is here on the petition, exhibits thereto, the writ, and the answer of the respondent.
We state the necessary facts from the answer of respondent, because the rule is that where the circuit judge's answer to the writ is not controverted, and is well pleaded, it will be taken as true and conclusive. Ex parte Mullins, 258 Ala. 665, 64 So. 2d 829, 14 Ala.Dig., Mandamus.
On September 10, 1955, George Calvin Phillips filed a suit for divorce in the Circuit Court of Coffee County, in Equity, against his wife, Patsy Ruth Phillips, on the ground of cruelty, and asked for the custody of their two small sons. The divorce and custody, as prayed, were granted on October 12, 1955. Shortly thereafter, Phillips moved his family to Haines City, Florida, and took a job. Patsy Ruth Phillips soon arrived there and on December 10, 1955, they remarried.
In January, 1956, the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and the parents separated again on July 22, 1956. Phillips moved from Montgomery to Elba and filed a bill for divorce. Patsy Ruth filed a plea in abatement, which was sustained, and the bill of complaint was dismissed.
On November 12, 1956, Phillips petitioned the Circuit Court of Coffee County, in Equity, to award the custody of their two minor sons to him, they being at that time with their mother in Montgomery. A plea in abatement was filed to this petition. The court held the plea insufficient and granted the prayer of the petition on the authority of the following statement in Exparte Ingalls, 256 Ala. 305, 54 So. 2d 288, 290:
It is the theory of respondent that since the custody of the children was decided in the original divorce decree of October 12, 1955, jurisdiction over the minors was retained. Petitioner's theory is that remarriage of the parents with each other annuls the divorce and nullifies the provisions of the decree as to the custody of the children.
This question has not been previously presented to an appellate court in this state. It has arisen in other jurisdictions and there seems to be a unanimity among the appellate *79 courts of other states supporting the position taken here by petitioner. We quote, with approval, from Lockard v. Lockard, Ohio Com.Pl., 102 N.E.2d 747: (The words "remarry" and "remarriage," as used, mean the remarriage of divorced parents to each other.)
Other cases than the Georgia and Texas cases cited in the Lockard case reaching the same result are: Jenkins v. Followell, Okl., 262 P.2d 880; Oliphant v. Oliphant, 177 Ark. 613, 7 S.W.2d 783; Dunlap v. Dunlap, 88 Okl. 200, 212 P. 608; Cain v. Garner, 169 Ky. 633, 185 S.W. 122, L.R.A.1916E, 682, Ann.Cas.1918B, 824; Lowe v. Lowe, 53 Wash. 50,101 P. 704.
There is a clear distinction between these cases and the sentence quoted from Ex parte Ingalls, supra, on which the trial court relied. Other courts hold in accord with the expression in Ex parte Ingalls. The summary in 27 C.J.S. Divorce § 314, p. 1180, reads in part:
The jurisdiction referred to in Ex parte Ingalls relates to a situation where the parents are divorced, and does not, and was never intended to apply to instances where the divorced parents remarried each other.
In brief filed here on behalf of respondent, the following paragraph appears:
The posed question is answered in Miller v. Powell, Tex.Civ.App., 212 S.W.2d 876, and Ex parte Heilman, 176 Kan. 5, 269 P.2d 459, 461. In the latter case it was said:
It follows that the respondent should have dismissed the petition of the father for custody of the minor children, because the Circuit Court of Coffee County in Equity, lacked jurisdiction. Unless that court vacates the order of November 21, 1956, upon being advised of this ruling, the peremptory writ of mandamus will be issued.
Writ awarded conditionally.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON, SIMPSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.