## Facts

- Gwendolyn McCoy, an unwed minor, was the primary day-to-day caregiver for her infant son, Jonathan Conway McCoy.
- Michael Garska was Jonathan’s natural father; the parents were never married and did not live together as a family unit.
- During McCoy’s pregnancy, Garska provided no support; after birth he provided minimal support.
- McCoy’s grandparents sought to adopt Jonathan to secure medical insurance coverage for the child; McCoy signed a consent to adoption.
- After learning of the adoption plan, Garska visited the child for the first time, began sending small weekly money orders, and filed a habeas corpus petition seeking custody.
- The adoption petition and the habeas corpus custody proceeding were consolidated in circuit court.

## Issues

1. Whether, when both parents are legally fit, custody of a very young child should presumptively be placed with the child’s primary caretaker.
2. Whether the trial court erred by awarding custody to the father based on comparative education, intelligence, and financial resources rather than continuity of care and fitness.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed the custody award to the father and remanded with directions to award custody to the mother.
- The court adopted a presumption that the best interests of very young children are served by custody with their primary caretaker, if that parent is fit.
- The court concluded McCoy was the child’s primary caretaker based on her consistent hands-on caregiving and efforts to obtain medical care and resources for the child.
- The court rejected the trial court’s reliance on the father’s superior socio-economic circumstances where the mother was not found unfit.

## Legal Principles

- For very young children, custody is presumed to be in the child’s best interests when placed with the child’s primary caretaker, if fit.
- The “primary caretaker” is the parent who has been primarily responsible for the child’s daily care and nurturing up to the start of the custody dispute.
- Custody determinations must be gender-neutral and may not rest on sex-based presumptions.
- A parent’s greater wealth, education, or social status is not a proxy for “fitness” and cannot justify transferring custody from a fit primary caretaker.

## Conclusion

The court established a gender-neutral primary-caretaker presumption for custody of very young children and held that, absent unfitness, continuity of day-to-day caregiving controls over comparative socio-economic advantage.


Garska v. McCoy, 278 S.E.2d 357 (W. Va. 1981)