Court Opinion

ID: 9851843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:20:29.822974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:16.661960
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
In the motion for rehearing of the appellee (the husband) it is strongly urged that a judgment granting custody of minor children should not be reversed merely because hearsay evidence was admitted. It is further urged that the trial judge has a broad discretion in determining the right of custody as between parents, *182which should not be controlled unless the facts and circumstances show an abuse of it. Both of these contentions are abstractly correct, but the facts of this particular case show, unmistakably, that the custody award was based, at least in part, on incompetent evidence.
The husband brought his divorce action originally on the ground of adultery, but concedes that he could not prove his case on that ground because there was a condonation of the alleged adultery. The trial judge allowed evidence tending to show the wife’s adultery, but only on the issue of the custody of the minor children. In this connection he allowed hearsay statements of the husband, made to a physician, to be admitted on the issue of custody, over the objection that it was hearsay. This was not inconsequential testimony, but may have been the testimony on which the award of custody was made to the husband.
In Gray v. Gray, 226 Ga. 767 (177 SE2d 575), cited in the motion for rehearing, this court held: "The trial judge stated that he would not consider inadmissible testimony, and in the absence of any statement in his judgment to the contrary, we must assume that he selected the legal testimony from that which was incompetent.” In the Gray case we were reviewing a temporary order. The present case decides the permanent custody of minor children. We can not make the assumption in this case that the trial judge did not consider the incompetent evidence, since he made a specific ruling that the evidence was admissible as a patient’s history to his physician, and we must assume that he considered this incompetent evidence in making the award of custody.
The discretion vested in the trial judge to award the custody of minor children must be based on competent evidence. The evidence in the present case did not demand a finding that the husband should have the custody of the children, and the consideration of the incompetent evidence was not harmless error.

Judgment adhered to on motions for rehearing.

All the Justices concur.