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211 Ga. 785

Hansen v. Carpenter

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided September 12, 1955

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1955-09-12

Relies on Hill v. Rivers · Durden v. Johnson · Sessions v. Oliver

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1955-09-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 2012

3 state decisions

101955196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Duckworth, Chief Justice.

¶11. Except as to controversies between the father and mother, until majority a child shall remain under the control of the father, unless parental control be lost. See Code § 74-108; Durden v. Johnson, 194 Ga. 689 (22 S. E. 2d 514).

¶22. Where, as here, the mother released her custody and control to the father and agreed that he might remove their children to his home in Kansas, she did not thereby waive any future rights to said children as *786to third parties. Thereafter, when the father voluntarily, by contract, released one of these children to third parties, the prima facie right of custody of this child automatically vested in the mother. See Hill v. Rivers, 200 Ga. 354, 357 (37 S. E. 2d 386); Sessions v. Oliver, 204 Ga. 425 (50 S. E. 2d 54).

Submitted June 14, 1955Decided September 12, 1955.Irwin B. Kimzey, Kimzey & Kimzey, Herbert B. Kimzey, for plaintiff in error.Ellard & Frankum, Glenn W. Ellard, Stephen D. Frankum, contra.

¶33. While the evidence at the hearing disclosed that the mother left the child for long periods of time, it also showed that the child was left in the care of the grandmother, and this evidence fails to prove any neglect of the child; nor was there any evidence from which it could be found that the mother had lost parental power under Code § 74-108. The evidence that she was seen with a married man is totally insufficient to prove any immorality on her part. It follows that, the father having by contract released custody to third persons, the mother had the legal right to custody of this child, and the court erred in awarding custody to third persons. See Watkins v. Terrell, 196 Ga. 651 (27 S. E. 2d 329).

¶4Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur.
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