Griggs v. Barnes

Decided January 3, 1952

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1952-01-03

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““ * * * the decree of the Circuit Court, in Equity, be reversed and annulled, and this Court proceeding to render the decree that the Circuit Court, in Equity, should have rendered, Doth Order, Adjudge, and Decree that the custody, care, and control, of the minor child, Earl Wendell Griggs, be and the same are hereby awarded to his mother, Barbara Jean Griggs, and the cause is remanded to1 the Circuit Court, in Equity, with instructions to carry out the terms of the decree here rendered.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Griggs v. Barnes

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1952-01-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently May 1972

7 state decisions

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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PER CURIAM.

¶1■The case is fully presented in the dissenting opinion of Justice Simpson, infra: It is our opinion, however, that under the presumption attending the right of - the natural parent to custody of a child and the lack of evidence of appellant’s positive unfitness, she should have been awarded custody in this habeas corpus proceeding.

¶2The decree below is therefore reversed and one is here rendered to the effect stated, and the cause is remanded to the lower court to carry out the terms of the decree here rendered.

¶3Reversed, rendered and remanded with instructions.

LIVINGSTON, C. J., and FOSTER, LAWSON, STAKELY, and GOODWYN, JJ., concur.BROWN and SIMPSON, JJ., dissent.