Court Opinion

ID: 9642645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:05:09.497851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:50.387443
License: Public Domain

SPAIN, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent, as I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals. In a well-reasoned opinion, the majority of the panel upheld the trial court’s award of permanent custody of Nathaniel Greathouse Shreve, now ten-year-old son of the appellant, Bobby Dwayne Greathouse, and appel-lee, Sookie Jane Shreve. Adopting the recommendation of the Domestic Relations Commissioner, Circuit Judge J. David Francis ordered that the natural mother, Sookie Shreve, and her mother, the appellee Nancy Ellen Shreve, would have joint custody of Nathaniel, who had lived with his grandmother, Nancy Ellen, since birth. The grandmother was designated as the primary custodian as she has been the child’s primary caregiver all his life.
The Court of Appeals, in my opinion, correctly applied “the best interests of the child” standard in this case, since the natural father, Bobby Dwayne, who was never married to the child’s mother, clearly acquiesced for an extended period in Nathaniel’s remaining with and being reared by his maternal grandmother. I have expressed my views on *392this waiver doctrine at some length in my opinion concurring in result in a similar case, Shifflet v. Shifflet, 891 S.W. 392, which will have the same rendition date as this opinion.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins this dissenting opinion.