INTERSTATE RECOGNITION OF CUSTODY DECREES: LAW AND REASON V. THE RESTATEMENT

Authors

Albert A. Ehrenzweig, University of California School of Law, BerkeleyFollow

Abstract

After days of bitter contest, a weary judge dissolves the marriage bond and, lacking Solomon's sword, allots the child to his mother. Thus the stage is set for the second act of the tragedy. Craving a new life for herself and her child, the mother moves to another state, and the father, seeing his right of visitation thus put in jeopardy, pleads the mother's removal in the original court which, loyal to the more faithful citizen, now awards custody to him. Should a judge of the mother's new home state heed this change? And again, what should be done if the father, disappointed by the original court, uses the first visit to acquire "possession" and himself removes the child to another state? What is any judge to do when faced with vivid descriptions of a child's plight caused by the alleged misdeeds of an absent parent or the "error" of a distant court? Is he to give "full faith and credit" or "comity" to the foreign court's decree and refuse to re-examine the merits of the first award, or should he follow his own discretion in caring for the welfare of the child now within his territory?

Recommended Citation

Albert A. Ehrenzweig, INTERSTATE RECOGNITION OF CUSTODY DECREES: LAW AND REASON V. THE RESTATEMENT, 51 Mich. L. Rev. 345 (1953).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol51/iss3/3