Sanchez v. Walker County Department of Family & Children Services

225 S.E.2d 441, 138 Ga. App. 49, 1976 Ga. App. LEXIS 2051
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedFebruary 12, 1976
Docket50545
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 225 S.E.2d 441 (Sanchez v. Walker County Department of Family & Children Services) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sanchez v. Walker County Department of Family & Children Services, 225 S.E.2d 441, 138 Ga. App. 49, 1976 Ga. App. LEXIS 2051 (Ga. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

Clark, Judge.

This appeal is by the mother of an illegitimate child who seeks to reverse a juvenile court judgment wherein the court ruled that the evidence warranted a finding that her 2 1/2-year-old son was a "deprived child” and awarded temporary custody to the Walker County Department of Family and Children Services.

The case resulted from doctors’ reports that the son showed symptoms of the "battered child syndrome.” This nomenclature is a modern development defined in medical testimony as "a combination of factors that we see [50]*50that lead us to believe that a child is physically abused by a grown up, some adult.” (T. 21). The appeal is based on eighteen enumerations of error with which we will deal in four sections categorized according to the type of legal problem presented.

I. Jurisdictional Questions

1. The petition was filed on June 11, 1974. The hearing was set for June 27,1974. Appellant asserts that this hearing date failed to comply with Code Ann. § 24A-1701 which requires the hearing date to be set not later than ten days after the filing of the petition "if the child is in detention.” Where the child is not in detention, then the hearing date shall be not later than sixty days.

Pretermitting the question as to whether the status of the child was that of "detention,” we are of the opinion that a violation of this statutory mandate would not deprive the court of jurisdiction that would otherwise exist. We recognize the importance of statutory time requirements but here this establishment of a trial date was procedural and did not affect the juvenile tribunal’s jurisdiction. If the child was not in detention then the sixteen days interval instead of ten was well within the sixty days period. Moreover, it should be noted that after this point had been raised below, the case was continued until August 8, 1974, "by agreement of the attorneys.” Thus, if error, it would not be ground for reversal and new trial. " '[I]njury as well as error must be shown before a new trial will be granted.’ ” Christian v. State, 41 Ga. App. 565, 566 (153 SE 780).

2. Appellant contends the juvenile court had no legal jurisdiction to conduct the hearing "because appellant’s child, N. D. M., was illegally taken into custody and later kidnapped from T. C. Thompson Childrens Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, without any order of any court in the State of Tennessee, but pursuant to a null and void Order of the Juvenile Court of Walker County, Georgia, which had no extraterritorial force or effect in that State.”

The petition had been filed by the Walker County Department of Family and Children Services. Thereafter, the welfare worker proceeded across the state line to Chattanooga, obtained possession of the child, and then returned with the child to Walker County. Although [51]*51appellant argues that there was a "detention” of the child so that there was a failure to comply with certain procedural directives contained in our Juvenile Court Code, we do not find it necessary to decide whether or not the child was in "detention.”

The Georgia court’s order did not have extra-territorial enforcement to the extent performed by the well-intentioned welfare worker. Nevertheless, we are of the opinion that there is no merit to this enumeration of error. As the child was illegitimate, its domicile was that of its mother. Code Ann. § 79-404. The mother’s legal residence was in Walker County. Code Ann. § 24A-1101 provides that proceedings may be commenced in the county in which the child resides. Service was had upon the mother in Walker County. This was sufficient to give the Georgia court jurisdiction over both the mother and the 2 1/2-year-old child regardless of whether there was a "detention” of the child.

The situation here is analogous to Ker v. Illinois, 119 U. S. 436 (7 SC 225, 30 LE 421) and Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U. S. 519 (72 SC 509, 96 LE 541). In those cases the United States Supreme Court ruled that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by the fact that he had been brought within the court’s jurisdiction by reason of a "forcible abduction.” Although a juvenile court proceeding is not to be labeled "criminal,” the same reasoning of and logic of the United States Supreme Court cases would apply here because the child and its mother were entitled to have all decisions concerning their welfare rendered in the county of their residence, the locus of the instant trial.

3. The next point is a contention that the court erred in assuming jurisdiction because the venue requirement of Code Ann. § 24A-1101 was not satisfied. This contention is based on the fact that the child was not personally present within the boundaries of Walker County, Georgia, on the date of the filing of the petition but was in a Chattanooga hospital. This contention is without merit.

"A proceeding under this Code [Title 24A] may be commenced in the county in which the child resides.” Thus reads the first sentence of § 24A-1101. Thereafter [52]*52the same section gives an alternative in permitting action to be taken in another county when deprivation is alleged. That alternative permits action in the county in which the child is present when the petition is filed. The commentators under this section noted: "the Code takes the practical approach that the counties with interest either in the child or his conduct may proceed.” Since Walker County was the residence of the child and of his mother, venue properly existed there.

4. We find no merit in the next attack upon jurisdiction which relies upon the provision of Code Ann. § 24A-1603 (d). This statutory directive deals with what must be pleaded in the petition alleging delinquency, deprivation or unruliness of a child. Paragraph (d) upon which appellant relies states that the petition should allege "if the child is in custody and if so, the place of his detention and the time he was taken into custody.” If jurisdiction otherwise exists, such as here, where the action is brought in the county of the residence of both mother and son, then this particular requirement has no relevancy to the right of the trial court to handle the case.

5. The fifth and twelfth enumerations claim lack of jurisdiction and deprivation of right to counsel in that the provisions of § 24A-1701 (d) require that the summons shall state the entitlement of party to counsel including the right of court-appointed counsel for indigents. We do not regard this requirement as being jurisdictional, but do not have to deal with it in view of the present state of the record. After the enumerations of error had been filed, a supplement to the record was forwarded to this court. This supplement contained certain provisions which were printed on the back of the summons served upon the mother. This portipn was erroneously omitted from the record when originally filed. The language of this supplemental record conforms to the statute with reference to advising parties as to their rights to representation by a lawyer.

6. The next enumeration attacks jurisdiction on the basis that the order and judgment of the juvenile court "failed to recite, on their face, the facts upon which the jurisdiction of the court was based.” The court accepted jurisdiction initially on the fact pleaded in the petition [53]

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293 S.E.2d 366 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1982)
In the Interest of M. A. C.
261 S.E.2d 590 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1979)
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257 S.E.2d 35 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1979)
Sanchez v. Walker County Department of Family & Children Services
230 S.E.2d 139 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)
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229 S.E.2d 66 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1976)
J. B. H. v. State
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228 S.E.2d 189 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1976)

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Bluebook (online)
225 S.E.2d 441, 138 Ga. App. 49, 1976 Ga. App. LEXIS 2051, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanchez-v-walker-county-department-of-family-children-services-gactapp-1976.