Court Opinion

ID: 9826348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:47:39.923134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:57.771337
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Fraser.
I dissent. First. The record .shows that the appellants applied to the probate Court for an appointment as guardians of the infant in dispute; that there was an order that the petitioner show cause why the appointment should not be made permanent. This rule seems to have been ignored. This the petitioner had no right to do. If authority for this is deemed necessary, it will be found in Ruling Case Raw, vol. VII, p. 1067, where it is said:
“It is a familiar principle that, when a Court of competent jurisdiction acquires jurisdiction of the subject matter of a case, its authority continues, subject duly to the appellate authority, until the matter is finally and completely disposed of, and no Court of co-ordinate authority is at liberty to interfere with its action. This is applicable both to civil cases and to criminal prosecutions.”
In Ex parte Townes, 97 S. C. 56, 81 S. E. 278, it was held that it is the duty of a citizen to heed the mandate of *43a Court even where the Court was without jurisdiction of the person of the defendant. I do not think the petitioner had the right to ignore the mandate of the probate Court, or that this Court should entertain these proceedings.
Second. I do not think a Court should determine so important a question as the permanent guardian of an infant on habeas corpus proceedings. In these proceedings the evidence is by affidavit, and in this very case the petitioner in her argument feels the handicap, and asks this Court to make allowances for it. The Courts are slow to fix any permanent rights on affidavits. How much more careful should they be in fixing the physical, intellectual, nd moral environment of a child at its most impressionable period.
Unquestionably habeas corpus is a proceeding at law. The appointment of a guardian is the highest prerogative of the Court of chancery, and the shorthand proceeding at law should not be allowed to oust the jurisdiction of chancery.
In Ex parte Richards, 2 Brev. 376, it was said that by legislative act the Courts of Common Pleas, then a Court of law only, was given concurrent jurisdiction of appointment of guardians with Courts of equity.
Third. On the merits. Much has been said in this case about the hardship of depriving the parties to this proceeding of the custody of the child. That has nothing to do with this case. The respondent seeks by this proceeding to have the presence of this child in her house. She, however, is not in supreme control of her home. Her husband, William Gill, is the head of .that houshold, not only in law, but in fact. There is testimony against William Gill as to drunkenness, violence of disposition, ..and general crookedness. This Court should not find against him on either charge from this record, nor by any number of affidavits. There is no word of testimony to show that the environment *44at the home of the grandparents would endanger the person or morals of the infant. The infant may go to one of two places; one is safe, the other at least doubtful. In this condition of affairs, I do not think this Court should hesitate for a minute to send the child to the safe place. The proof is not conclusive, but it may be that William Gill does get drunk on liquor, not allowed by law, and is a man of violence and in his rage, drunk or sober, does beat his wife and pursue her with a shotgun, when in his tantrums. If these things are true and the Court has been warned of them, then William Gill’s house is not a safe place for that child. Mattie Ree Meeks is not the child of William Gill, nor is she blood kin to him. William Gill may be all he ought to be. There is evidence that he is not, and evidence enough to, warn me not to take the risk.
There is evidence that William Gill has said that he would relinquish all claim to the child for $300. That may not be true, either. Unless I can know that it is not true, I cannot consent to commit the child to what is really his custody.
Fourth. To my mind there is another objection to the appointment of the petitioner that is insuperable. Mattie Ree Meeks has no brother and only one sister, and this sister is to remain with her grandparents. In my judgment the appointment of the petitioner as guardian separates these two sisters. I do not take the view that the separation will be only nominal. The appellants, it appears, did hot take a deed to Mattie, because they thought it treated their granddaughter as a chattel. If this is an index to their characters, then they will not feel at liberty to visit at the house of a son-in-law. whom they and their affidavits have denounced as dangerous and unworthy, because they must be, to the head of the house, unwelcome guests. I. fully concur in the finding that from what appeared in Court there is no antagonism between t&e appellants and the respond- ■ *45ent. There is ill feeling in the case on the part of William, and I think the separation of these two children will be even more complete than if they lived farther apart.
In my view the appointment of the petitioner is manifest error.
For these reasons I dissent.