{
  "id": 1478747,
  "name": "McLendon v. Pelt",
  "name_abbreviation": "McLendon v. Pelt",
  "decision_date": "1945-03-12",
  "docket_number": "4-7551",
  "first_page": "287",
  "last_page": "289",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "208 Ark. 287"
    },
    {
      "type": "parallel",
      "cite": "185 S.W.2d 931"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ark.",
    "id": 8808,
    "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 34,
    "name_long": "Arkansas",
    "name": "Ark."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 296,
    "char_count": 3282,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.531,
    "sha256": "c030a336bf9f53a624fc4e2efdeacf50108663c88684b16ed19fc6e407369ca5",
    "simhash": "1:cdcd8879dd6b286e",
    "word_count": 557
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:02:19.909104+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "The Chancellor correctly granted the writ."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "McLendon v. Pelt."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Griffin Smith, Chief Justice.\nIn consequence of relations with a young man who had been her boyhood sweetheart\u2014intimacies occurring at a time when she was slightly more than sixteen years of age\u2014a baby girl was born to Marilyn McLendon November 7, 1942. It was named Donna Jeanne. The unmarried mother was then one month past seventeen. In her distraught condition Marilyn came to Little Rock and was cared for at Florence Crittenton Home, where she spent three months with the baby. Even in her confused status, mother love prevailed over physical inconvenience and economic adversity, and Marilyn resisted proposals that Donna be placed with unidentified adoptive parents. Marilyn\u2019s father did not want the baby taken to. his home. His thought was that its identity should be \u2018 \u2018 wiped out. \u2019 \u2019\nThe mother consented that three friends of the family act as arbitrators. In circumstances indicating assent by all parties Donna Jeanne w;as placed with Wiley Mc-Lendon and his wife, Alda. Wiley is Marilyn\u2019s father\u2019s brother. He and Alda had been married ten years, and were childless. They thought the arrangement was permanent.\nIn January, 1944, Marilyn married Alvin M. Pelt, a soldier on leave. He had known Marilyn since she was nine years of age, having been reared in the same county, \u201cjust across the river.\u201d The child\u2019s existence and circumstances preceding its birth were fully revealed by Marilyn prior to her marriage. The couple first went to California, then to Washington at Walla Walla. Alvin is a' supervising army mechanic and has a substantial income.\nResponding to Marilyn\u2019s desire for her baby, then twenty months of age, Alvin joined his wife in requesting that they be allowed to take it. The McLendons had formed a deep attachment for Donna Jeanne and refused to part with her; whereupon the writ of habeas corpus 'was invoked. From an order, directing that the baby be surrendered to Marilyn and Alvin, the McLendons have appealed. \u25a0 \u2022\nWe are not insensible to the grief McL\u00e9ndon and his wife will experience through enforcement of the order. They no doubt believed that the baby would in effect and in affection be theirs. Their generous conduct in taking the infant at a time when its own maternal grandfather would not receive it bespeaks for them a high degree of kindness, and goodliness of rare quality. But the baby was born to Marilyn. She herself was little more than a child when the mystery was unfolded. Though what she did, and the things she said to the arbitrators and others, caused all concerned to believe that the problem of care had been forever settled, it cannot be said that the young-mother was a free agent, or that she appreciated the full import or ultimate consequence of what was being done. She was a minor in fact and in law.\nMarilyn\u2019s husband earnestly insists that he will give Donna Jeanne a father\u2019s care, that the child will be regularly adopted, and that it will share in any estate he may have. Alvin is shown to be of excellent character; and his willingness to assist in a delicate situation is praiseworthy.\nThe Chancellor correctly granted the writ.\nDecree affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Griffin Smith, Chief Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "W. C. Medley and L. B. Srnead, for appellant.",
      "C. M. Martin, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "McLendon v. Pelt.\n4-7551\n185 S. W. 2d 931\nOpinion delivered March 12, 1945.\nW. C. Medley and L. B. Srnead, for appellant.\nC. M. Martin, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0287-01",
  "first_page_order": 305,
  "last_page_order": 307
}