Court Opinion

ID: 9637312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:03:04.754907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:57.929365
License: Public Domain

HOOD,
Associate Judge (dissenting).
It appears to me that the reversal of the order of the trial court is based on the proposition that appellant, the natural mother, has a preferential right to custody of her child, and that such right cannot be denied her without a finding that she is presently unfit to have custody. Of course I recognize the preferential right of a natural parent to custody of his or her child, but I believe that in the present case the mother lost that right.
According to the mother’s own testimony, when the child was two years old she decided to return to work because of financial problems and because “I felt that a diversion was well in order.” The child was placed with the Fredericks and stayed there five or six months. The result was not good for the child. He was nervous and continually under a doctor’s care. But, according to the mother, “it was out of the question as far as my quitting my job and staying at home to care for him,” so the child was then placed with the Jurneys and left with them for nearly seven years. After the child had been with the Jurneys about three years the parents signed the agreement vesting in the Jurneys “full and absolute right for the care and custody of the child.” When the mother obtained her Reno divorce she had this agreement approved and ratified. She then took up her home with her second husband, lived here for about nine months, and then went with him to Europe for two and one-half years. And so it was that she made no demand for custody of her child from January 1951 until October 1957.
Whether we use the word “abandon” or not, I believe the mother’s conduct was such that the trial court could properly conclude that the mother was definitely more interested in her own personal life than in the welfare of the child, that she *852was not willing to make the personal sacrifice necessary for the daily care of her small child, and sought its custody only when it best suited her convenience; and by such conduct the mother had lost her preferential status. Under these circumstances, I do not think the denial of custody to her required a finding that she is presently not a fit person. I think the real question was the child’s welfare. The court found that to take the child from the Jurneys and return him to his mother would be “unnecessarily cruel and painful” to the child and that its welfare would be best served by awarding custody to the Jur-neys. I think such finding ought not to be disturbed.
In my view the present case is distinguishable from Bell v. Leonard, 102 U.S. App.D.C. 179, 251 F.2d 890, because of the reference in that case to the “mother’s persistent efforts to obtain her child.” There were no such persistent efforts here. The same applies to the case cited and relied upon in the Bell case, namely, People ex rel. Kropp v. Shepsky, 305 N.Y. 465, 113 N.E.2d 801, where there is the same reference to the mother’s “persistent efforts to regain its custody.” And I think we should note that in People ex rel. Portnoy v. Strasser, 303 N.Y. 539, 104 N.E.2d 895, 896, also cited and relied upon in the Bell case, the court made the significant statement: “Nor is this a case where a parent has left a child with relatives for a long time, then seeks it back.”
Cases involving custody of children place an awful responsibility on the trial judge, and where the case has been fully and fairly heard and a decision reached, I do not believe we should disturb that decision unless it clearly appears that it resulted from an error of law. I see no such error in this case and I would affirm.