This is your sister?
They kidnapped my son.
- No. - No, ma'am.
My kid was kidnapped. You took my kid from me.
You kidnapped my son. No matter what...
Just take a breath for a moment.
I want my son to come home.
[announcer] This is Judy Justice.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] Mary Farve and Jason Stockton are suing Mary's brother,
Michael Manry, for medical bills and personal belongings.
[bailiff] Court, come to order. All rise.
Have a seat, please.
Hello, Judge. Case 2117, Farve/Stockton versus Manry.
- - - Thank you, Kevin. - You're welcome.
Mr. Manry, this is your sister?
Correct.
[Judy] And that is her...?
Fiancé.
And you have a son who is 19?
Yes, Your Honor.
[Judy] How many other children do you have?
- I have three altogether. - How old?
One is almost 30, the other one is 18,
and then I got the 19-year-old which ain't here.
Okay. And your son who is now 19 is the subject of this case.
Who had custody of the children?
I got custody of Dakota now.
When did you get custody of the children?
[Michael] When he was 18 years old.
[Judy] Do you have those papers, sir?
Yes, I do.
[Judy] May I see them, please?
Okay. So this grants you, sir, legal and physical custody
of Dakota Manry until further order of the court.
So what this case is about now, and I assume from what I've read
that Dakota has certain special needs.
Yes, ma'am.
And because of his special needs, he is unemployed.
Did he finish any sort of a high school? Any...
He graduated.
- [Judy] He graduated from high school? - Yes. Yes.
[Judy] Did he go to a special school?
He went to a regular school, but he was in special education.
And when he graduated,
did he graduate when he was living with you?
Yes.
[Judy] Okay. So this is what your case is about.
At some point, according to you, you have a niece,
and your niece wanted to have Dakota come and stay with her
for a couple of days.
You were at the time, according to your answer,
sort of in between residences.
You were evicted from one place and going someplace else?
I was in the process of moving.
I got my niece to go with me to, you know...
I asked her if she'll bring me to go get Dakota at my cousin's house.
And she said, "Sure."
Okay. Dakota went to live for a few days at least at your niece's house?
No, not live there. No, not live there. No, ma'am.
Well, he was there overnight.
He was over there overnight.
[Judy] How many nights was he there overnight?
I think about maybe a week.
- [Judy] Okay. - Or three days.
- [Judy] So he was there... - Yeah.
[Judy] During that time, you, who are his aunt...
Yes, ma'am.
[Judy] ...went to your niece's house and you saw Dakota there?
Yes, ma'am.
[Judy] And according to you, became concerned because,
according to you, it looked like he hadn't showered in a week.
He was in dirty clothes. He just looked awful.
[Judy] So you decided to take him to live with you.
I asked him, I said, "Do you want to come to the house to stay,
you know, a little while?"
You know, where he can eat,
because he looked like he hadn't ate either.
Okay. Well, this is what your case is about.
You decided to take him, didn't discuss it with his father.
During the time he was with you, he had some expenses.
You want his father to be responsible for those expenses,
and you want his father to return certain of his personal property.
That's what the case is about.
- Yes, ma'am. - [Judy] Okay.
First, let me deal with all things legal.
I have an order here dated January 21st, 2021,
which grants physical and legal custody of Dakota to his father.
Do you have any subsequent order granting you custody or guardianship?
is my question.
I have power of attorney.
That is not the same thing. Can I see what they have?
[Michael] How can she have power of attorney
when I didn't give her permission?
Shh. Shh.
Okay.
Okay. This was signed by Dakota.
So he's giving you legal power to act on his behalf?
Yes, ma'am.
[Judy] Now, Dakota, by signing this power of attorney,
he's saying that "I am a whole person, and I give you the right
to make medical decisions for me," if he can't do them.
It's a general power of attorney in case he becomes unable
to make decisions on his own.
This is an order of custody. You have power of attorney.
Power of attorney suggests to me
that Dakota wants to emancipate himself from his father,
wants someone else to act on his behalf.
It becomes a complex question because if Dakota has special needs
and if he can't act on his own
and a court has already ruled that his father should have custody of him,
either you have a power of attorney and he's emancipated,
in which case his father's not responsible for any of his medical bills,
or this is invalid because he can't sign a power of attorney
because he doesn't have the mental capacity to understand
all of the implications of this power of attorney.
Now, your nephew was in special classes.
Yes, ma'am.
And do you know what the nature of his disabilities are?
Fetal alcohol syndrome.
Is that his diagnosis, sir?
Yes, Your Honor.
[Judy] He had, according to you, after you took him from your niece's house
and you do acknowledge you took him without his father's permission?
- Yes, ma'am. - Yes, ma'am.
We was not talking, me and him.
Well, it doesn't make any difference if you were talking or not.
I didn't have his number and I asked Dakota,
I said, "Text your daddy to let him know you're coming with me."
Dakota said, and he showed me where he texted Michael.
Now, I don't know if it was on a different Facebook page.
No. It's your responsibility to notify his guardian who has custody
that you have taken physical custody of him.
Right.
[Judy] And when did you take physical custody of him?
Give me the month, day, and year.
May 20th of this year, 2022.
[Judy] Now, while you had physical custody of Dakota,
you indicate that he had surgery.
Yes, ma'am.
And part of what you want Mr. Manry to pay for is the ambulance bill.
What kind of surgery did he have?
A brain surgery.
And he had a feeding tube put in him.
[Judy] Just a second.
What caused you to take him to a hospital or to a doctor?
[Mary] His...
Your Honor, when he arrived at the house on the 20th,
he had very bad slurred speech
and his balance was completely off.
He was falling over.
Your Honor, it was like it was... he was a drunken man.
[Judy] Let me go back to you for a second, sir.
While Dakota was with you in the months just prior to May,
did you notice Dakota having difficulty in his gait?
Not like he explained. Now, that's going overboard.
- [Judy] No. Did you... - But his balance was off. Okay.
Did you inquire? Did you take him to the doctor?
Yes, I did. I took him actually right after I got him.
[Judy] So you saw that balance was off a while ago?
When I noticed that he had headaches, all right?
'Cause his dream, thanks to me, was wrestling.
- He loves wrestling. - Wrestling.
[Michael] I put him in wrestling.
I talked to the promoters and I did that for him.
But when I seen they was telling me he got body slammed,
you know, and this and that, I had to take him out of it.
I got concerned 'cause he was complaining of headaches.
So I made him an appointment and I waited for a referral.
Well, when the referral came in, my kid was kidnapped.
[Judy] So he never actually saw the second doctor?
- No. - [Judy] Okay. Do you have any records?
Well, I couldn't get the records. I tried to get them.
What if something went wrong and my kid died during surgery?
I couldn't even be there for him? You know, anything could've happened.
[Judy] Just a second, I'm following you, sir.
Now, when did him take him for this brain surgery?
[Mary] I took him the first week of June.
I took him to do a CAT scan and as soon as she did that,
we went to the hospital.
We didn't leave the hospital.
They put him in the ER and from the ER we went to to Florence, Alabama,
and then the surgeons there couldn't do it because it was so big.
What was so big?
- The brain. - Your Honor, they found a mass
the size of a grapefruit.
The first week Dakota came to stay with us
after we noticed the balance issues and the slurred speech,
she took him to Doctor...
who diagnosed him being severely malnutritioned.
Your Honor, when he came to my house...
- He's a liar. - No, no, no, no, no.
Okay, I'm sorry. Your Honor, I'm sorry, my apologies.
His leg was no bigger round than my wrist.
I got it. Mr. Manry, everything has to be put in perspective.
You had a lot of things going on and if Mr. Stockton's reporting to me
is accurate, even though there might be some bad feeling of the way your sister
and her fiancé took physical custody of Dakota,
you really have to be in a position to say thank you to them.
Because you, for whatever reason, not for lack of trying,
nobody is suggesting for lack of trying, you did try to take him to a doctor,
you did see that there were things wrong with him.
I understand that it's not always that easy to get the right specialist
to get involved in this kind of surgery.
But you really have to take a breath.
And I assume it's accurate because I cannot assume that anybody
would perform brain surgery on a child that was not necessary.
- That they... - Your Honor, why she couldn't call me
- instead of calling her mother when... - [Judy] Just a second. Just a second.
Your sister should have called you and told you that Dakota
was going into the hospital to have surgery.
That would have been the nice thing to do.
- [Jason] Your Honor, she did. - Did you do that?
- She did. - No, she did not.
- She called their mother. - I called my mama.
Well, calling your mother...
His phone was disconnected.
I did not have the new number
until he called me or texted me with a bunch of drama.
That's when I got his number.
Drama? You took my kid from me. You kidnapped my son. No matter what...
[Judy] Mr. Manry. Mr. Manry.
What I want you to do is just take a breath for a moment.
Yes, ma'am.
[theme music playing]
Dakota kept texting me, you know.
He kept on, like, video chatting me and everything.
And then all of a sudden, like a light switch,
he changed and everything.
The boy's mind has been poisoned by Mary and Jason.
- No. - So far, Mr. Manry,
you're not losing this case.
So I don't know what you're agitated about.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] Mary Farve and Jason Stockton claim Mary's brother,
Michael Manry, owes for medical bills and personal belongings.
Michael is countersuing, saying they illegally took his son
from his custody.
Mr. Manry, Dakota was only at your niece's house for a short while.
You already told me that when he came to you, his gait was off.
So right before he went to stay for a couple of days
at your niece's house, was his speech slurring?
No. He always had a speech impairment because of the disability,
but his speech was not slurred at all.
That is a lie.
Him having the skinny arms and all that, that's all lies.
[Judy] Okay. I'm not talking about skinny arms.
I'm talking about his slurred speech.
What I was saying to, Mr. Manry, is that I don't think
there are any bad guys here.
I don't think that you're a bad guy.
And I don't think that your sister and her fiancé meant any harm
when they saw a situation that they thought was dangerous.
And as it turned out, they were able to get him
seriously needed medical care.
That doesn't mean it was all done right.
But what you're asking for is
to be compensated by the defendant
for the cost of the ambulance bill that you incurred.
Now, this power of attorney was signed by Dakota,
if, in fact, he had capacity to sign this power of attorney.
It was done two weeks after his first surgery.
So up until that time, even if I could construe this as a valid document,
his father had legal and physical custody of Dakota.
And I assume that's because he has special needs
and is unable to live on his own.
Is your son able to live on his own?
No. He never will.
Okay. So that's what I assume as a result of this order.
If you want this order changed,
you have to go back to the court in Mississippi.
You have to be declared his guardian.
Your Honor, we did not want to be declared his guardian.
The reason the POA came about to start with during the entire surgical...
Your Honor, can I say something?
The father was aware of it. So was the mother.
The mother was actually present at most all of the appointments.
[Judy] It doesn't matter. The mother doesn't have custody, legal or physical.
But we were under the impression and were told she did,
that he only had a temporary custody.
So she showed up to say she had to sign all the documents,
she was gonna do this, she was gonna do this, she was gonna do this.
[Judy] Did she sign the documents?
She signed some, then under social services' directions,
Mary was informed she should go after a power of attorney.
It was discussed with both Dakota and her. She could make the...
It may be. It may be. That's not a lawyer. That's bad advice.
Now, just before I get to the issue of clothing, property,
whatever he has that's at your house and where it should go from here,
your first stop is to go back to the court in Mississippi that issued this order.
[Mary] Yes, ma'am.
And say to them, "I need Dakota's law guardian."
He'll be appointed a guardian for himself, independent of you,
and they will interview him and they will do certain evaluations
of him and determine where it is that he wants to live.
But you have to do that in court.
You can't do that ad hoc because you relied on his mother's statements
that she had the authority to sign off on these things.
She did not until this is changed.
And if you wanna change it, you are free to go in and try
and then Dakota will be interviewed
and seen by a psychologist or a psychiatrist
and he'll have a medical evaluation and determine
whether or not he is a person who actually requires guardianship.
And if he requires guardianship, you can petition for that and you'll have a trial.
This is not that trial.
Yes, ma'am.
Did Dakota have Medicare?
- [Mary] Medicaid. - [Jason] Medicaid.
He had Medicaid.
That would pay for the ambulance ride.
[Judy] Yeah, I just wanna know if he had Medicaid. He did.
I did give them the Medicaid number and they keep sending me a bill
and I called them and they said because it's a different state,
it's not covered.
It doesn't matter. Tell them to send their bills to his father.
Tell them that you do not have custody or guardianship of this child.
His father has custody guardianship and this bill is not yours.
[Jason] The bill is going to Dakota.
They're going after Dakota for it 'cause Medicaid didn't pay for it.
They may be going after Dakota for it.
They will be very smart seeking payment from people who can pay them,
which is his parents.
Right now you're not legally responsible to pay for his ambulance bill.
The only person who might be legally responsible for it is his father.
And that will be up to the ambulance company to do.
That's not your responsibility at all.
So discount the ambulance bill.
Next are Dakota's things.
You want property that he has at his father's house.
So let me go back to you with regard to my statement to you four minutes ago.
You have to have this custody order modified.
You have to go back to the same court
that issued a legal and physical custody order of Dakota to his father
and say, "We would like guardianship of him.
He wants to stay with us. He's 19 years old."
He will be interviewed. He'll be analyzed.
And if at the end of the day you get guardianship of Dakota,
then his father may or may not turn over whatever property he has.
Dakota's never worked, so whatever property he has
was either purchased or given to him by either his mother or his father
or other relatives.
A lot of it was his mom that paid for the stuff.
[Judy] I don't know that.
Well, the bottom line is, the bottom line is,
what all this boils down to, Your Honor...
So far, Mr. Manry, you're not losing this case.
So I don't know what you're agitated about.
You're not losing. You're not losing.
What I'm telling the plaintiffs is that if they think
that they can provide a more pleasant, stable environment for Dakota,
they have the right to petition for guardianship of him.
Now, it would be in Dakota's best interest long-term if he were to have contact
- with both his mother and his father. - [Jason] He does.
Contact. I'm not saying live with.
Mother, father, and his aunt and his soon-to-be uncle.
Soon as you make up your mind and give her a ring.
[laughs]
[Judy] It's in his best interest.
He needs the largest community that he can.
I agree.
Okay, we're gonna stop throwing barbs because that only serves to inflame
already raw emotions.
[theme music playing]
I want you to say, "I am angry that
I wasn't consulted in this massive surgery that your son had,
but I'm grateful that it was done
because if it wasn't done, in all probability,
he wouldn't be here."
You just have to think about that.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] Mary Farve and Jason Stockton have accused Mary's brother,
Michael Manry, of owing for an ambulance bill.
Michael claims Mary and Jason took his son without his permission.
What I'm telling you is a very simple procedural thing
where you have to go.
You can't sue him for the return of Dakota's things
unless you have guardianship of Dakota.
Understood.
Because he already is the subject of a recent order of custody from a court.
That's what you have to have.
You can take that bill from the ambulance service,
put it in an envelope, we'll get you the address
and that's where that goes.
That's his father, who is his legal parent under this order.
So send that bill to them
so you don't have to worry about that bill.
As far as his property is concerned,
that has to go along with an order of custody or guardianship,
and that's something that you should do.
But, Mr. Manry, I am not making a decision with regard to his custody or not.
What I'm asking you is, until a court reviews
whatever orders they're going to make with regard to custody and guardianship first,
I know you may be angry, but they probably saved his life
by getting him to the doctor that they did.
And if they removed a massive tumor from his brain,
you should say, "Thank you for doing that."
'Cause it was a month after he was living with you.
Someone else took your son and saved his life.
And for that at least you have to be grateful.
You can be angry.
You can be angry that you didn't get it done before.
You can be angry that somebody else did it without consulting you.
You can be angry at all of those things.
But at the same time,
you have to feel grateful that it was done.
There wasn't no reason for them kidnapping my son.
[Judy] Okay, Mr. Manry, you keep going back to the same song.
- Your Honor, may I address that? - [Michael] And I was worried about him.
You keep going back to the same song.
And what I'm saying to you is,
their next stop if Dakota wants to live with them,
and he's right now over 19 years old,
is to the court who issued the order to modify that order.
All I'm saying to you is, I want you to say,
"I am angry that I wasn't consulted
or didn't participate in this massive surgery that your son had,
but I'm grateful that it was done
because if it wasn't done, in all probability,
he wouldn't be here."
You just have to think about that.
What I'm telling you is, you have to love your child
more than you at this moment dislike your sister and her fiancé
because they were able to take control of a situation
and get your child fixed.
So is Dakota, just for my own,
is Dakota angry with his father?
He's angry that his father won't return any of his wrestling...
He is correct. He is a huge wrestling fanatic.
Okay. What particularly does he want?
He wants his wrestling?
He wants his wrestling belts.
They have replica belts that were made.
He wanted his PlayStation 4 and the wrestling game.
Okay, well, PlayStation 4, I'm not interested in that.
He wants his wrestling belts?
Yes, ma'am.
Your Honor, can I show you something right quick on my phone?
Dakota kept texting me, you know.
He kept on, like, video chatting me and everything.
And then all of a sudden, like a light switch,
he changed and everything.
The boy's mind has been poisoned by Mary and Jason.
No.
What I'm telling you, Mr. Manry,
that's for enough court and another day when Dakota has a lawyer,
you may have a lawyer, to modify this custody order.
Right now he would like his wrestling belts.
I want my son to come home to me.
Okay, then I strongly urge you to go to court,
file a petition against them for custodial interference,
or you go to court and file an application for guardianship of Dakota,
which is a much more positive thing to do,
and let a court that has the social work services,
the psychiatric services,
evaluate Dakota and figure out
in whose best interests are we supposed to place faith.
And I think if he is a thinking young man,
and you told me that he is because he wants these things
that are important to him,
he should be able to have a say with whom he lives.
Now, you have my ruling.
Your next stop, folks, is to modify the order
of the court in Mississippi that gave his father custody,
physical and legal custody of him.
You have to petition for guardianship. That's your next step.
So, in that regard, your case is dismissed.
Send the ambulance bill to his father.
[Michael] Hey, I got a countersuit, Your Honor.
We're done.
- [bailiff] This court is adjourned. - I'm not hearing it, sir.
Okay.
[theme music playing]
I did everything I can for my kids and...
My brother, he said nothing but lies.
When somebody takes your kid without your permission...
But, you know, that's him. I mean, that's what he does.
You don't know where they're at and you're going crazy
because you don't know where your kid's at.
That's kidnapping.
I should get a thank-you out of it, but he's not gonna do that.
I want my son to come home to his daddy 'cause I love him very much.
That's my son.
It's about him. It's not about her. It's not about her and her brother.
It's not about me and her brother.
My son, I love him. I'd do anything in the world for him.
It's about Dakota.
So you didn't listen to the defendant's counterclaim back there
for emotional distress, for I believe it was $3500.
I would've given that to him.
I don't think anyone was acting maliciously in this case.
Like you said to the father,
he should be grateful that his son is alive and his sister took action
when he might have been stumbling a little bit.
But that's what that cause of action is for,
when someone takes an action that was legally incorrect,
and here the plaintiffs had no legal right
to take him to get that surgery.
I agree that he should have had it and it all came from a good place.
However, when you take an action that causes somebody else
such severe emotional distress,
and I would consider taking someone else's child
in for the riskiest surgery that probably exists
qualifies as causing some severe emotional distress.
So I probably would've awarded him that if I was ruling.
Well, so let me give you the reason that I didn't even bother to hear it.
Mm-hmm.
I think the aunt and her fiancé had nothing but pure motives
in taking this 19-year-old who they say appeared to be malnourished.
Mm-hmm.
And they say was diagnosed as being malnourished,
which is possible, and it's possible that it was all related
to this brain tumor that he clearly had...
- Mm-hmm. Of course. - ...that was impairing his stability,
and he was with his father for a year...
- Yeah. - ...while this tumor was growing.
I don't think that they had malicious intent.
Neither do I.
And I think that but for their actions,
this 19-year-old boy probably would be dead.
If they took out the tumor that was the size of a grapefruit,
I would say, six months later or eight months later,
there's a strong probability that it would affect the optic nerve.
It would affect the carotid artery and gone.
So although I could understand his annoyance,
from the time he went to live with him until his surgery was a month,
and I actually don't believe that this father didn't know
where he was for a month because they evidently have a living mother
who they're both in touch with.
He was moving around, phone disconnected.
At the hospital, the mother showed up.
She said, "I can sign the documents."
Well, you know, you're involved in major surgery for a child.
Your focus is not on your brother who did not take care of business for a year.
So I'm gonna leave that up to a family court judge
to determine who should have custody.
And I probably guarantee you that custody will remain with his aunt
because that's what Dakota wants.
Father may be angry, but that's what's gonna happen.
I have no doubt that the father loves him.
He did not take good care of him for the year.
Sure.
And so I wasn't going to reward that by giving him any money
against these people who had nothing but the child's best interest,
when for a year he really didn't take care of business with his son.
And that's why I didn't hear his case for emotional distress.
Understood. Thank you.
[announcer] Are you having a family dispute?
Go to JudyJustice.tv.
[theme music playing]