Fields v. Deming

Citations

• 56 Wash. 259
• 105 P. 466
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 886

Syllabus

<p>Adoption — Abandoned Child — Good Faith — Evidence — Competency. Evidence of an attempted adoption of a child by a foundling hospital is competent to show the intention and good faith of foster parents receiving the child from the hospital and adopting it.</p> <p>Adoption — Abandoned Child — Evidence—Sufficiency. Evidence of a founder of a foundling hospital and of the superintendent, that a child brought there by the mother was1 abandoned and a written release signed, is sufficient, although contradicted, to sustain findings that the child was abandoned by the mother.</p> <p>Same — Abandonment—Evidence—Sufficiency. An abandonment of a child is shown where habeas-corpus proceedings by the mother to secure possession of the child were voluntarily dismissed in 1898, and the child was left in the possession of adoptive parents for ten years.</p> <p>Parent and Child — Right to Custody — Adoption. In deciding the right to a child as between a mother who had abandoned it, and adoptive parents, the pecuniary standing of the parties is not to be considered; but the welfare of the child is of grave importance and máy be made controlling.</p> <p>Same — Evidence—Sufficiency. A mother is not entitled to the custody of her boy, and the same should be left in the custody of foster parents, where it appears that the child was illegitimate and had been abandoned in infancy to a foundling hospital and a release signed; that habeas corpus proceedings by the mother to secure possession were abandoned by her, and nothing done for ten years, during which time the child had been brought up by foster parents and an attachment and environment created distinctly different from what would be the case in a change of guardianship, and the mother was unable to give him as good a home or attention as he now had.</p>