GEORGIA MOM VOLUNTARILY SURRENDERS CHILD, LOSES CUSTODY

Cheri Christensen

LA265 Unit 7

Family Law Legal Info Blogspot

Carr-MacArthur v.Carr, 764 S.E.2d 840 – Ga: Supreme Court 2014

The Georgia Supreme Court held in 2014 that a mother surrendering her child constituted a material change, and that that was sufficient to justify granting primary physical custody of the child to the father. Additionally, they held that the trial court erred when they modified the child support because they didn’t provide a written findings explaining or detailing why they made the changes.

Annie Carr-MacArthur and Christopher Carr were married in 2004 and divorced in 2009. Their only child was born in 2005. In the divorce settlement, both parents were granted joint custody, with primary physical custody granted to Mrs. Carr-MacArthur, who had just moved to Florida.  Mr. Carr, who was in the Air Force, remained in Georgia where he was based at the time. At the time of divorce, Mrs. Carr-MacArthur had some mental and health issues. Mr. Carr was aware, and he believed they were manageable.


In 2010, the Florida Department of Family and Child Services determined that Mrs. Carr-MacArthur’s home was unsafe – moldy food, trash on the floor, barely room to walk in the rooms, cat food on the floor and kitchen table, etc. – and Mrs. Carr-MacArthur surrendered the child to Mr. Carr. When she asked to have the child returned, Mr. Carr filed a petition for deprivation. (Deprivation means the child has been abandoned or insufficiently supervised or cared for, according to the definition found at Barton Center website: A Reference Manual For Department Of Family And Children Services Case Managers, 2004, retrieved at http://bartoncenter.net/work/childwelfare/Representation-and-the-Right-to-Counsel/DFCS_Manual1.html .) Mr. Carr later filed a petition for modification of custody, and three years later the trial court modified custody and gave Mr. Carr primary physical custody of the child, and made changes in child support.

Mrs. Carr-MacArthur attempted to argue that her various conditions and issues were unchanged, and that the court erred in giving custody to Mr. Carr because they could only do that if something had changed. But the supreme court ruled that her surrendering custody could constitute material change, and that court upheld the trial court’s ruling.

The supreme court, however, did find that the trial court erred when they made the changes in the child support because they did not “provide written findings detailing why they were granting the deviation."