Krebs v. Krebs

Smith, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. We are here concerned with the propriety of an order passed granting custody to the mother of a girl now 12' years of age and of a boy now 9 years of age. We shall remand the proceeding without affirmance or reversal. ²⁶⁵ The parties were divorced on August 11, 1964. Custody of the children at that time was changed from the mother to the father. “War” between the mother and the father then began in earnest.

The docket entries subsequent to the divorce printed in the record extract fill almost five pages. The mother sought immediately to have the custody order revised. The attitude of the parents may be demonstrated by the fact that the father had the mother cited for contempt for her alleged refusal to obey the first custody order and the mother sued out a writ of habeas corpus when she claimed the father refused to comply with the last custody order. The mother had the father enjoined from taking the children outside the jurisdiction of the state.

A year later she consented to the father’s motion to dissolve the injunction. The father then took the children to Germany for a visit without notification to the mother. Judge Moorman in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County heard the original divorce and custody proceeding. He sat in the hearings on both petitions of the mother for modification of the custody decree as well as in the hearing on the mother’s petition for placement in a foster home.

He ordered and received a number of reports from the Department of Parole and Probation relative to the children. He had before him 24 depositions. The last custody hearing consumed three days. The chancellor on October 15, 1968, filed an opinion in which he said that it was the court’s view “that the best interest of the pubescent daughter and her brother would best be served in the custody of their mother” and signed a decree accordingly.

Pursuant to that decree the children have been in the custody of the mother for approximately one year. No useful purpose would be served by a review of all the facts brought before the chancellor. It appears that both homes are proper homes. The father urges upon us the reasoning of Winter v. Crowley, 231 Md. 323 , 190 A. 2d 87 (1963), and Glick v. Glick, 232 Md. 244 , 192 A. 2d 791 (1963),