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495 So. 2d 452

Docket No. 56927.

Keely v. Keely

Calvin Lee KEELY v. Tamalia KEELY.

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided September 17, 1986.

Rehearing Denied October 29, 1986.

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1986-09-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“In custody battles involving a natural parent and a third party, it is presumed that a child's best interest will be served by placement in the custody of his or her natural parent, as against any third party. In order to overcome this presumption there must be a clear showing that the natural parent has 1) abandoned the child; 2) the conduct of the parent is so immoral as to be detrimental to the child; or 3) that the parent is unfit mentally or otherwise to have custody.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 932 So. 2d 760 - Jpm v. Tdm

“presumption that the best interest of the child will be served by remaining in the custody of his natural parents.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 761 So. 2d 956 - Ne v. Lh

Relies on 493 So. 2d 952 - Rutland v. Pridgen · Naveda v. Ahumada · 471 So. 2d 1228 - Stoker v. Huggins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1986-09-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently December 2013

9 state decisions

401986199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1William B. Jacob, Meridian, for appellant.

¶2Leon Mangum, Decatur, for appellee.

¶3Before WALKER, C.J., and SULLIVAN and ANDERSON, JJ.

¶4SULLIVAN, Justice, for the Court:

¶5Tamalia Keely filed suit for divorce and custody of Stephen Adam Keely, the only child of her marriage to Calvin Lee Keely. Calvin Lee Keely filed an answer and cross-claim for divorce and custody of Stephen Adam Keely.

¶6In the interim, a petition was brought in the Youth Court of Newton County, Mississippi, alleging that the minor child while in the custody of Tamalia Keely was a neglected child under the Youth Court Act. The Youth Court Referee found the child to be a neglected child and put him in the custody of Ed Buckley, the child's maternal grandfather, until further order of the Youth Court or of the Chancery Court of Newton County, Mississippi.

¶7The Chancery Court of Newton County, Mississippi, entered a temporary custody order granting Ed Buckley, the maternal grandfather, custody of the child until further order of the youth court which would *453 remain in full force and effect until the final hearing of the divorce in the Chancery Court of Newton County.

¶8On September 26, 1985, when this divorce came on to be heard the chancellor refused to hear any testimony as to the custody of the child, allowed the child to remain in the custody of Ed Buckley, and granted the divorce on irreconcilable differences.

¶9In Mississippi the general rule of law is that it is presumed that the best interest of a child will be served by that child being in the custody of his or her natural parent as against any third party. In order to overcome this presumption there must be a clear showing that the natural parent has (1) abandoned the child; (2) the conduct of the parent is so immoral as to be detrimental to the child; or (3) that the parent is unfit mentally or otherwise to have custody. Stoker v. Huggins,471 So.2d 1228 (Miss. 1985); Naveda v. Ahumada,381 So.2d 147 (Miss. 1980); Milam v. Milam,376 So.2d 1336 (Miss. 1979); Turner v. Turner,331 So.2d 903 (Miss. 1976).

¶10The chancellor was without authority to substitute the judgment of the Newton County Youth Court Referee in a hearing alleging child neglect and in so doing deprived Calvin Lee Keely, the natural father of the child, of his right to be heard on the custody of his son.

¶11This case is controlled by our decision in Rutland v. Pridgen,493 So.2d 952 (Miss. 1986).

¶12The chancellor's award of custody to Ed Buckley, maternal grandfather of Stephen Adam Keely, is reversed and custody is awarded here to Calvin Lee Keely, natural father of Stephen Adam Keely, without prejudice to a third party in a proper jurisdiction seeking to overcome the presumption that the best interest of the child will be served by the child remaining in the custody of his natural parent.

¶13REVERSED AND RENDERED.

¶14WALKER, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE and HAWKINS, P.J., and DAN M. LEE, PRATHER, ROBERTSON, ANDERSON and GRIFFIN, JJ., concur.

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