[Indexed as: (Morgan case), “The Court Not Agreed – Mrs. Morgan of St. Louis Unable to Secure Her Child at Present,” The Kansas City Star (Mo.), Jan. 13, 1893]

ST. LOUIS, MO., Jan. 13 – In the habeas corpus suit brought by Mrs. H. H. Morgan, formerly Miss Edgerton of Kansas City, Kas., in the court of appeals to recover her child, Gladys, placed by its father in New York, a curious state of legal affairs has developed. The court, composed of three judges, handed down three different opinions, Judge Bond held that the court had jurisdiction even if the child was out of state, as the father, its nominal possessor, was in the state. Judge Biggs held that the court had jurisdiction, but as a divorce was pending in another court, that court should decide the question of legal custody. Judge Rombauer held that the appeals court had no jurisdiction so long as the divorce suit was pending in another court. The partial concurrence of Judges Biggs and Rombauer closed another chapter in the already detailed scandal.

NOTE

Activists and reformers are notably naieve about the fluidity, inconsistency and arbitrariness of judicial interpretation. This case in which a parent of three judges gives three different opinions regarding the crucial matter of jurisdiction in an interstate Parental Kidnapping case, serves as a potent example.