McKee v. Murrow

40 N.W.2d 924, 241 Iowa 434, 1950 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 401
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedFebruary 7, 1950
Docket47546
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 40 N.W.2d 924 (McKee v. Murrow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McKee v. Murrow, 40 N.W.2d 924, 241 Iowa 434, 1950 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 401 (iowa 1950).

Opinion

MulroNEY, J.

This ease involves further proceedings had after our opinion in McKee v. McKee, 239 Iowa 1093, 32 N.W. 2d 379. This former opinion will serve as a statement of the factual background up to the time of the present controversy. On September 30, 1948, a few days after procedendo had issued in the above case, Lorraine McKee, the plaintiff in the divorce action, filed, in said action, her application for modification “of the former decrees, judgments and orders regarding the custody of Mary Lou McKee,” alleging a change of circumstances and conditions relating to the custody of Mary Lou McKee and praying that the exclusive care, custody and control of Mary Lou *436 McKee be placed in tbe plaintiff in said divorce action. Tlie trial court on the same day made an order setting the application down for hearing on October 25, 1948. Thereafter on October 4, 1948, a supplemental deerée was entered pursuant to the said procedendo which dismissed the early application for modification filed by plaintiff, Lorraine (which was the subject of our former opinion), and, in accordance with our former opinion, the custodial provisions of the Texas decree in favor of defendant in the divorce action, Silas McKee, were carried into the said supplemental decree. Thereafter Silas McKee filed his answer and resistance to the September 30 application for modification and by said answer and amendment thereto denied the change of conditions and asserted the “court has no jurisdiction of the subject matter of' this proceeding, namely the custody of Mary Lou McKee” because of the Texas decree awarding custody to .Silas and the former opinion of this court which awarded full faith and credit to that decree, and the supplemental decree of October 4, 1948, entered in accordance with that opinion. The answer and resistance also alleged the court was without jurisdiction because “the domicile of said minor child, as a matter of law, is now in the State of Texas, said state being the stale of domicile of defendant [Silas] herein.” The trial court (Judge Tom K. Murrow) reserved ruling on the legal question as to jurisdiction, and after trial on the fact'question as to change of conditions, the trial court held it did have jurisdiction and found that there had been a “material and substantial change” in the conditions since the earlier decree, appealed from in the former case. Thereafter the trial court entered a modification of the decree of October 4, 1948, holding it “had jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter, including the minor child” and that plaintiff, Lorraine, had established by a preponderance of the evidence that there had been a substantial change and improvement in the home of plaintiff “which has been of direct benefit to the minor child, Mary Lou McKee, and such as to make it expedient that she be kept in the home of plaintiff and that she remain in the exclusive care, custody and control of her mother.” The decree placed the exclusive custody in Lorraine and gave Silas rights to visit the child at reasonable times and rendered *437 judgment against Silas of $25 a month for support of the child, commencing July 1, 1949.

The defendant, Silas McKee, did not appeal from the above decree but he filed his petition in this court for a writ of cer-tiorari, asserting Judge Murrow exceeded his jurisdiction in entering such decree. We granted his preliminary writ and the case is now here for review only on the jurisdictional question. The record before us, which is the respondent’s return to the preliminary writ, does not contain the testimony bearing on the fact question of a change of circumstances and conditions, and we are not asked to review the court’s conclusion in this regard. The petitioner, Silas McKee, in his brief states: “whether or not there has been a substantial and material change in circumstances surrounding the custody of the child since the time of the Texas decree is not a matter before this court, and should not be taken into consideration by the court, for the reason that the Texas court, and not the Iowa court, has jurisdiction to pass upon these propositions * ® In other words, it is petitioner’s argument that even if there be such a change of circumstances and conditions as to the custody of Mary Lou which would warrant the Iowa court in concluding it expedient to make a change, still the Iowa court would be without jurisdiction because Texas has the sole jurisdiction to pass upon such change of circumstances and conditions.

In Silas McKee’s brief six propositions are relied upon to sustain the writ but thes*- are more or less argued together and we think they can be stated in the 1wo propositions urged in the answer and resistance filed below, namely: (1) the court was without jurisdiction because of the Texas decree and our former opinion granting to it full faith and credit, and (2) the court Avas without jurisdiction because the domicile of the child was that of its father in Texas. There does not seem to be much point made in the arguments that the modification of decree was a modification of a supplemental decree that xvas entered October 4, 1948, after the original application for modification Avas filed. There was an amendment to the original application filed after October 4,1948, and of course the supplemental decree of October 4, 1948, merely reinstated the Texas decree of August 29, 1946, as to custodial provisions.

*438 1. At the outset we must bear in mind that this is still the divorce action of Lorraine McKee v. Silas McKee bearing number 29119 in the district court of Polk County, Iowa. In this divorce action, which was contested, the plaintiff, Lorraine, was granted a divorce and the permanent custody of the child, Mary Lou, by a decree dated January 16, 1946. Silas was given the right to have the child one month in July or August and judgment was rendered against him for support of the child in the sum of $25 a month. Mary Lou, who was born April 7, 1944, has always lived with her mother in Iowa except for about thirty-seven days when she was with her father, as shown in the former opinion.

The complete answer, to the narrow jurisdictional question now before us is the statute giving the trial court the jurisdiction to make subsequent changes in custody orders in divorce actions. Section 598.14, Code, 1946, provides:

“When a divorce is decreed, the court may make such order in relation to the children, property, parties, and the maintenance of the parties as shall be right.

“Subsequent changes may be made by it in these respects when circumstances render them expedient.”

The father’s entire argument that the above statute does not apply is that the Iowa court, in some manner, lost all further jurisdiction as to the custody of Mary Lou when the Texas court rendered its decree in habeas corpus in August of 1946. It is rather interesting to note that the Texas decree stated in part as follows:

“It further appearing to the court from the pleadings and the evidence heard that the change of .conditions and circumstances with reference to the care and custody of the minor child, Mary Lou McKee, since February 21, 1946 warrants this court to award the exclusive custody of such child, Mary Lou McKee, to the plaintiff, Silas Franklin McKee, as against Lorraine McKee Kuhns.”

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Bluebook (online)
40 N.W.2d 924, 241 Iowa 434, 1950 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 401, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mckee-v-murrow-iowa-1950.