Crump v. Montgomery

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. An infant boy, Johnnie, who, for the first eighteen months of his life had been cared for by foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Crump of Montgomery County, was suddenly taken from their home by the Welfare Board of that county and, unknown to them, sent to Wicomico County to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Montgomery of Salisbury, who planned to adopt the boy. The Crumps had been most anxious to adopt Johnnie and had been arbitrarily rebuffed by the Montgomery County Board. The day after the child was taken from them the ⁴⁷² Crumps filed a petition for his adoption in Montgomery County, which later was dismissed by the court.

The Montgomerys promptly petitioned the Circuit Court for Wicomico County for the adoption of Johnnie and the Crumps, after their Montgomery County action had been dismissed, intervened in the Wicomico County case. The court, Judges Henry, Duer and Taylor sitting, dismissed the Crumps’ petition and allowed the Montgomerys to adopt the child. On appeal from this decision, reported as Crump v. Montgomery, 220 Md. 515, 525 , we remanded without affirmance or reversal because “the Chancellors adopted the decision and judgment of the Montgomery Board as to which family would better subserve the welfare and best interests of Johnnie by his adoption, and made no actual finding of their own upon the subject * * * and this duty and obligation cannot be abnegated in favor of any board or person.” After remand the three judges met with counsel for the Crumps, the Montgomerys, and the Welfare Board of Montgomery County and appointed a committee of three, consisting of the Chief Probation Officer of the Juvenile Courts for the First Circuit and the Directors of the Somerset and Dorchester County Welfare Boards to make a complete study of, and report to the court on, the “home situations” of the potential adoptive couples. The court instructed the committee in detail on the day of this pre-trial conference and these instructions were included in a stipulation then prepared.

The committee