Court Opinion

ID: 9671900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:44:49.949238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.918324
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant for the first time asserts the lack of any justiciable interest on part of the Pollans in a controversy involving custody of this minor child as against the natural mother, under the rule of decision followed in Prock v. Morgan, Tex.Civ.App., 291 S.W.2d 489, 492, that:
"Where an outsider wishes to bring a suit to take a child from the custody of its parent and have it awarded to him or some other outsider, he must bring such suit under the provisions of Arts. 2330 and 2331, and must be prepared to prove that the child is a dependent or neglected child, or that the parent or parents having its custody are unfit persons to have such custody. Until this is shown the law presumes that the custody of the natural parent is best for the child.”
According to Mrs. Pollan, following the 1950 "boarding arrangement” whereby they obtained physical possession of the child, the father, Howard Snead, had ceased making the $10 weekly payments ■after about one year; appellees then vol■untarily assuming responsibility for the ■child’s care and maintenance, treating her ■as their own, with bestowal of love and .affection that appears to have been reciprocated. Such being the state of the evidence, we have regarded appellees as persons in loco parentis (foster parents) with •existing justiciable interest, rather than as “outsiders”. “ * * * one who through 'kindness or charity or other motive has received into his family and treats a child -as a member thereof, stands in loco par-entis (in the place of a parent) so long as the child remains in his family.” 31 Tex. Jur., p. 1282.
Applicable here, in our opinion, is the rule stated in Duckworth v. Thompson, Tex.Com.App., 37 S.W.2d 731, syl. 3, that:
“In proceeding between father (or mother) and foster parents for child’s custody, interest of child is paramount question.”
Appellants’ motion for rehearing is overruled.