Court Opinion

ID: 9654756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:49:41.96792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:13.175438
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Justice (dissenting). In my dissenting opinion in the case of Nutt v. Nutt, 214 Ark. 24, 214 S. W. 2d 366, 1 stated my views and expressed my feelings in a child custody case wherein the facts, in most determinating respects, were similar to the facts that exist in the case at bar. The views expressed in the Nutt case impel my dissent in the present case. I summarize my views in the present case: (1) The Chancellor saw the parties and heard the testimony. He concluded that the little girl would be better cared for if left with the grandparents. We have only the cold print before us, and I am unwilling to reverse his findings. (2) There had been a previous hearing in this case on July 23, 1951, wherein the custody was awarded to the grandparents. The present hearing was on February 6, 1952; and the Chancellor evidently found a lack of bona fides in the alleged change of circumstances. I believe he was correct. (3) When a mother leaves her small child with grandparents and goes off with another husband, the mother necessarily expects the love of the child to go to the grandparents. In such a situation, the mother, having abandoned her claim of priority, should not be allowed to again reassert it. In reversing the Chancellor, the majority is accomplishing such a result.