DocketNumber: Appeal, 176
Judges: Keller, Baldrige, Stadteeld, Rhodes, Hirt, Kenworthey
Filed Date: 12/14/1942
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
Argued December 14, 1942. Habeas corpus proceeding. Before EGAN, J.
Order entered awarding custody of child to relator. Respondents appealed. A petition for writ of habeas corpus was filed on September 18, 1941 by the relator, Joseph Keenan, to obtain from the respondents, Lloyd Thomas and Emma Thomas, his wife, the custody and possession of his daughter, Barbara Jo Keenan, a child sixteen and a half months old. The child had been left in the care of Mrs. Thomas by the relator on November 2, 1940, when she was six months old, because of the tuberculosis of her mother, relator's wife — who had been ordered to go to a sanitarium and who died a month and a half thereafter — and his own infection with the same disease. *Page 133 The relator has married again and his wife is desirous of having the child returned to her husband and herself. He also contended that he had fully recovered his health.
After several hearings and a number of postponements in order to determine the physical condition of the relator and whether he had an infectious tubercular condition, which might be a source of danger to the child, it was determined that he had not, and on October 16, 1942 the court awarded the custody of the child to her father, the relator. The respondents appealed.
The Act of July 11, 1917, P.L. 817, authorizing appeals to this court in habeas corpus proceedings involving the custody of children, provides that we "shall consider the testimony and make such order upon the merits of the case, either in affirmance, reversal or modification of the order appealed from, as to right and justice shall belong."
We have given the testimony the consideration that a matter of such importance deserves and are of opinion that the best interests of the child — which is the rule by which we are to be guided — call for the affirmance of the order.
Commonwealth ex rel. Miller v. Barclay et ux.,
These governing principles were repeated by us in Com. ex rel.Fell v. Brown,
The respondents, Mrs. Thomas and her husband are worthy, estimable people, who have given this child a good home, and are in every way able and willing to continue the loving care they have bestowed upon her. But we are of opinion that the natural tie between parent and child is such that in the absence of stronger reasons than are present in this case, the law presumes that it is to the interest and benefit of the child to be under the nurture and care of its natural protector, its parent, both for maintenance and education.
The assignment of error is overruled and the order is affirmed. Costs to be paid by appellants.
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Ganster v. McGee Et Ux. ( 1931 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Fell v. Brown ( 1930 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Cummings v. Nearhoof Et Ux. ( 1940 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Reese v. Mellors Et Ux. ( 1943 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Children's Aid Society v. Gard ( 1947 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Shelton v. Bush Et Ux. ( 1943 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. McTighe v. Lindsay ( 1944 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Self v. Self ( 1943 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. McDonald v. Smith ( 1952 )
Commonwealth Ex Rel. Lees v. Lees ( 1961 )