Peterson v. McEnroe

448 S.W.2d 212, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2791
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 29, 1969
DocketNos. 294, 319, 328
StatusPublished

This text of 448 S.W.2d 212 (Peterson v. McEnroe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Peterson v. McEnroe, 448 S.W.2d 212, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2791 (Tex. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

Original Proceeding

TUNKS, Chief Justice.

In 1964, Kenneth and Catherine McEnroe were divorced by judgment of the 9th Judicial District Court of Waller County, Texas. By that judgment the maternal grandparents were given custody of the McEnroes’ two minor children, a boy and a girl. Much bitter controversy between the McEnroes followed that 1964 divorce decree. The listing of some of the court proceedings growing out of that controversy will show the origin of the issues presented by the matters before this Court.

By August of 1967, Kenneth McEnroe, hereinafter called “the father” had become [214]*214a resident of the State of Arkansas. His minor daughter was living with him and her custody does not seem to be in dispute. At that date Catherine McEnroe, hereinafter called “the mother” was a resident of McLennan County, Texas. The minor son, named Michael Ray McEnroe, and hereinafter referred to as “the child” was living with her. The mother was remarried and is now named Catherine McEnroe Peterson.

On August 23, 1967, the father filed in the 9th Judicial District Court in Waller County an “Application for Readjudication of Custody’,’ by which he asked that he be given custody of his son. The grandmother, to whom the court originally had given custody, and the mother, were named as parties to that proceeding (the grandfather apparently had died at that time). The mother and the grandmother filed pleas of privilege to be sued in McLennan County. On December 21, 1967, the father’s application came on for hearing. The trial judge overruled the pleas of privilege of the mother and the grandmother. The judge did not, however, pass on the question of custody at that time. That matter was reset for August 15, 1968, with the expectation that some amicable settlement might be made by that date.

No settlement had been reached by August 15, 1968. On August 16, 1968, after hearing evidence, the trial court rendered judgment awarding custody of the child to the father. Thirty days passed without any motion for new trial having been filed or any appeal perfected so that the award of custody, to the extent that such an award can do so, became a final judgment.

The child was not brought to Waller County at the time of the custody hearing, but remained in McLénnan County. Following the custody hearing and decree the mother returned to McLennan County and failed to deliver the child to his father. The father thereupon filed in Waller County District Court a motion to adjudge the mother in contempt for refusal to comply with the court’s judgment and order. On October 14, after due notice, a hearing was held on that motion to hold the mother in contempt. The mother appeared with her lawyers but did not bring the child with her. On that occasion the parties agreed, in the presence of and with the approval of the court, that the mother would deliver the child to the father at 2:00 o’clock p.m. on the following Sunday, October 20th. The delivery was, by the agreement, to take place at Waco, Texas, at the office of Mr. W. V. Dunnam, one of the mother’s attorneys who had participated in the making of the agreement before the court. The judge, in reliance on such agreement, made by the mother and her attorneys, did not hold the mother in contempt.

After the mother and her attorneys had returned to Waco Mr. Dunnam called the father’s attorney and arranged to change the date for the delivery of the child from Sunday, October 20th, to Saturday, October 19th, at 2:00 p. m. The father appeared at Dunnam’s office in Waco at the appointed time. Dunnam brought the child into the waiting room of his office and turned him over to the father. Dunnam asked the father to leave at once so that there would be no trouble. As the father stepped through the outer door of the office he was confronted by two McLennan County deputy sheriffs. The sheriffs took the child from the father and turned it over to Mrs. H. G. Buchanan, the child’s aunt, who was also present. The sheriff served the father with a citation to appear in a case filed in the McLennan County District Court, an ex parte restraining order restraining the father from taking the child out of McLennan County, and an order to appear and show cause why he should not be temporarily enjoined from so removing the child. The father’s protestations to Dunnam that the October 14th agreement be complied with were in vain.

It developed that on October 18th, the day before the event at Dunnam’s office, Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Buchanan, hereinafter called the “Buchanans,” the child’s aunt [215]*215and uncle, had filed suit in the 74th District Court of McLennan County, asking that they be given custody of the child who was the subject of this controversy. In that suit they named both the child’s father and his mother as defendants. They alleged that there had been such a change of circumstances since the August 16, 1968 judgment of the Waller County District Court as to warrant their having present custody of the child. It was pursuant to their petition that the judge of the 74th District Court issued the ex parte restraining order served on the father at Dun-nam’s office. The petition filed by the Buchanans was signed by Mr. David Copeland, a Waco attorney, who had not been an attorney of record for any of the parties participating in the agreement before the 9th District Court in Waller County on October 14th.

On October 22, 1968, the mother filed an answer and a cross-action in the Mc-Lennan County suit. By her cross-action the mother asked that she be given temporary and permanent custody of the child and that the father be temporarily enjoined from taking the child from McLennan County. The mother’s cross-petition was signed by Mr. Charles M. McDonald, another Waco attorney, who also had not been an attorney of record in the Waller County proceedings up to that time.

On October 25, 1968, the 74th District Court of McLennan County, after hearing, awarded the mother temporary custody of the child and temporarily enjoined the father from taking the child out of the county. The father had not, up to the time of the ancillary hearing, filed any pleadings in the McLennan County case, but had been served, appeared with his attorney and participated in the hearing. In such proceeding he was represented by Mr. Lynn Coker, an attorney of Conroe, Texas, who had represented him throughout this protracted controversy.

The father perfected his appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals for the 10th Supreme Judicial District of Texas, sitting at Waco, from the 74th District Court’s order temporarily enjoining him from removing the child from McLennan County. On January 16, 1969, the trial court’s judgment granting that temporary injunction was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals 438 S.W.2d 125 (Tex.Civ.App.) no writ hist. In that opinion the Court of Civil Appeals held that the 74th District Court of Mc-Lennan County had acquired jurisdiction of the custody controversy and that the judge had not abused his discretion in ordering the temporary injunction. No application for writ of error from that opinion was filed by the father. The case in the 74th District Court has not yet been tried on the merits and is still pending.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Fletcher v. Fletcher
404 S.W.2d 866 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1966)
Ex Parte Peterson
444 S.W.2d 286 (Texas Supreme Court, 1969)
Knollhoff v. Norris
256 S.W.2d 79 (Texas Supreme Court, 1953)
Ex Parte Eaton
252 S.W.2d 557 (Texas Supreme Court, 1952)
Ex Parte McDonald
441 S.W.2d 828 (Texas Supreme Court, 1969)
Ex Parte Godeke
355 S.W.2d 701 (Texas Supreme Court, 1962)
Cleveland v. Ward
285 S.W. 1063 (Texas Supreme Court, 1926)
Goldsmith v. Salkey
112 S.W.2d 165 (Texas Supreme Court, 1938)
City of Houston v. City of Palestine
267 S.W. 663 (Texas Supreme Court, 1924)
Bogle v. Landa
94 S.W.2d 154 (Texas Supreme Court, 1936)
Lakey v. McCarroll
134 S.W.2d 1016 (Texas Supreme Court, 1940)
Morrow v. Corbin
62 S.W.2d 641 (Texas Supreme Court, 1933)
Cook v. Gregg
226 S.W.2d 146 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1949)
Peterson v. Coker
436 S.W.2d 232 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1968)
McEnroe v. McEnroe
438 S.W.2d 125 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1969)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
448 S.W.2d 212, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2791, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peterson-v-mcenroe-texapp-1969.