# Davis v. Collinsworth

> Kentucky Supreme Court · June 8, 1989 · 771 S.W.2d 329

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9641817

## Case

- **Full name:** Avie DAVIS, Movant, v. Linda Davis COLLINSWORTH, Respondent
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** June 8, 1989
- **Citations:** 771 S.W.2d 329; 1989 Ky. LEXIS 42; 1989 WL 60204
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Vance
- **Judges:** Gant, Stephens, Lambert, Leibson, Combs, Vance, Wintersheimer
- **Cited by:** 31 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9641817

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that '‘[t]he United States Supreme court has recognized that parents have fundamental, basic and constitutionally protected rights to raise their own children and that any attack by third persons (and we would include grandparents in that category) seeking to abrogate t…

## Opinion text

VANCE, Justice
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because the trial judge in his findings of fact and conclusions of law determined that the respondent, the natural mother, was not a fit or proper person to have the custody of her minor children. He recited the facts upon which he based his determination.
The Court of Appeals reversed his decision because, in its view, the trial judge was required to find such a degree of unfitness as would justify a termination of the mother’s parental rights before he could grant custody to the grandmother. There is dicta to that effect in Boatwright v. Walker, Ky.App., 715 S.W.2d 237, 244 (1986). The majority opinion does not discuss the propriety of the Boatwright standard for determination of unfitness, but seemingly establishes a lesser standard, *331 and holds that the evidence of unfitness of the natural mother was insufficient to deprive her of custody.
In my opinion, the findings of the trial judge were not clearly erroneous, nor did his judgment constitute an abuse of discretion. For that reason I would reinstate the judgment of the trial court.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9641817. Public record. Not legal advice.