## Facts

- Morris A. Chapsky, the father of a minor daughter, allowed the child to live with Joseph H. Wood and his wife, maternal relatives who assumed physical custody.
- The Woods provided the child a settled, affectionate home, and the child formed strong emotional attachments to them over time.
- Chapsky later sought to reclaim the child based on his status as the natural guardian.
- The dispute was brought as an original habeas corpus proceeding seeking an order transferring the child from the Woods to the father.
- The case required weighing the father’s parental claim against the child’s established living situation and future welfare.

## Issues

1. Whether a father’s prima facie right to custody of a minor child is absolute, allowing him to retake the child at will from third parties to whom he previously entrusted custody.
2. Whether custody in habeas corpus must be determined solely by parental right or instead by the child’s welfare and best interests.

## Decision

- The court denied habeas corpus relief and left the child in the custody of the Woods.
- The court recognized the father as the natural guardian with a prima facie entitlement to custody.
- The court held that the father’s entitlement was not conclusive where the child’s welfare would be better served by remaining in a stable home with third-party caretakers.
- The court rejected treating custody as a property-like right subject to absolute transfer by private gift or contract.

## Legal Principles

- A father is the natural guardian and is prima facie entitled to custody, grounded in the duty of support and the natural parent-child bond.
- A child is not chattel; custody is not governed as an absolute and irrevocable gift or private contract.
- Parental custody rights, though strong, are not absolute and may yield when the child’s welfare materially favors remaining with others.
- In custody disputes resolved through habeas corpus, the controlling consideration is the child’s present and future welfare rather than formal legal entitlement alone.

## Conclusion

The court held that a father’s prima facie right to custody can be overcome when the child’s best interests require maintaining an established, beneficial placement with third-party caretakers, and it therefore denied the father’s request to remove the child from the Woods’ home.


Chapsky v. Wood, 26 Kan. 650 (1881)