Kniepkamp v. Richards

16 S.E.2d 24, 192 Ga. 509, 1941 Ga. LEXIS 541
Supreme Court of Georgia·Decided July 8, 1941·No. 13782.·Published·Cited by 49 cases

Opinion

1. The supplemental certificates with respect to statement of counsel at the hearing, and certified by the trial judge more than twenty days after service of the bill of exceptions, can not be considered by this court, since they do not relate to any omitted "material evidence," and were not certified in the required time, so as to fall within the exception of the Code, § 6-810(1), to the general rule that, after signing the original certificate on a bill of exceptions, the judge is without power to make another certificate.

2. A permanent injunction should not be granted at an interlocutory hearing.

(a) Nor should a final decree be entered at such a hearing held during the first term, in the absence of a consent of the parties entered on the *Page 510 docket as required by the act of 1935 (Ga. L. 1935, pp. 481, 482; Ann. Code, § 81-1003).

(b) The present hearing by the judge, at the first term, out of the county where the suit for injunction involving the custody of a child was pending, and heard only on affidavits, must be treated as interlocutory.

3. Under the Code, superior-court judges are empowered to determine the custody of minor children both pending suits granting a divorce or suits granting alimony without a divorce and thereafter.

4. After acquiring equitable jurisdiction under the equitable averments and prayers of the petition, the court would retain jurisdiction to settle all related matters made by the pleadings, including the custody of the child. But the court was without authority at the interlocutory hearing to make any final award of custody.

5. Where, upon a fast writ of error, an award of the custody of a child has a direct bearing on the grant or refusal of an interlocutory injunction, this court will consider the ruling made as to custody.

6. In exercising a sound discretion as to the custody of a child, the court must look primarily to what is for the best interest, welfare, and happiness of the child.

(a) An award of custody made in a divorce decree is conclusive unless there has been a subsequent change of circumstances materially affecting the child's welfare.

(b) A like rule applies to an award of custody under a foreign divorce decree, especially where the foreign decree itself provides for a different award, either by the same court or a court of another jurisdiction, if such conditions have changed.

7. The answer and cross-petition of the defendant mother, being sufficiently verified by affidavit, was evidence of probative value, sustaining the judgment, which granted her an injunction and the custody of the child.

8. Although conditions before the divorce decree were irrelevant and should have been excluded, the subsequent marriage of the mother and the furnishing of a new happy home environment to the child, previously lacking, were pertinent. Likewise, the alleged strong anti-American sympathies of the naturalized, German-born father, as manifested in his alleged treatment of the child and mother before the divorce, might properly be deemed to have subsequently become more vitally important to the welfare of the child in view of subsequent Congressional legislation acutely affecting the relation of this country and Germany.

9. The overruling of special grounds of demurrer, relating to some irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible matters in the sworn answer, and the admission of such matters in evidence over objection, will not require a reversal of the interlocutory judgment.

10. Although, under the preceding rulings and the evidence, the grant of the injunction and award of custody of the child was not an abuse of discretion, the language of the order should be so modified as to operate only until the final hearing or further order of the court.

No. 13782. JULY 8, 1941.
Hans P. Kniepkamp, a non-resident, filed in Habersham superior court a sworn petition against his former wife, Pia Olga Richards, now remarried and residing in this State. He prayed for an injunction against her removal of their son of three years out of the jurisdiction of the court, and against her preventing him from having access to the child on such terms and conditions as the court might think proper, having regard for the best interest of the child; and prayed for general relief. He alleged, that, after the separation of the parties in the State of New York, a divorce decree was granted in Florida on July 27, 1940, upon petition of the wife, under which decree the custody of the child was awarded to her until May 31, 1941, and thereafter alternately to the plaintiff and the defendant during each six months until the child reached majority; that, immediately after the divorce, the defendant married her present husband and removed to Clarkesville, Georgia; that during the Christmas holidays, 1940, the plaintiff went there from New York with presents for the child, was allowed to see him about three hours on Christmas day, and denied that right thereafter; that while under the decree the defendant was allowed the custody, it was to the best interest of the child to associate with the plaintiff, in order not to make the changes in custody, provided by the decree, so abrupt as to endanger the child's health and welfare; and that under the facts as alleged, "there is manifest danger that the defendant will remove said child beyond the jurisdiction of [the] court, unless restrained from so doing."

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Kniepkamp v. Richards, 16 S.E.2d 24, 192 Ga. 509, 1941 Ga. LEXIS 541 (Ga. 1941).

16 S.E.2d 24 (Kniepkamp v. Richards) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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