Miller v. Miller

• Decision Date: 15 December 1925
• Docket Number: No. 36760.,36760.
• Citation: 206 N.W. 262,200 Iowa 1193
• Parties: MILLER v. MILLER ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

200 Iowa 1193

206 N.W. 262

MILLER

v.MILLER ET AL.

No. 36760.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 15, 1925.

Appeal from District Court, Lucas County; W. M. Walker, Judge.

The petition in this case is in the nature of a creditor's bill. As such it was sustained.

The petition also contained allegations and a prayer for additional alimony, in a separate maintenance suit which had been brought many years ago in the same court.

There was a cross-bill by the defendant resisting the claim for additional alimony, and praying that all rights of alimony be terminated on the ground that the defendant had obtained a divorce in Missouri, the state of his domicile.

There was a decree awarding plaintiff judgment against the defendant for alimony accrued, and denying her further alimony. From this decree she has appealed. Affirmed.Bates & Dashiell, of Albia, for appellant.

Stuart & Stuart, J. A. Penick, and W. W. Bulman, all of Chariton, for appellees.

EVANS, J.

It appears from the record that plaintiff and defendant were husband and wife, and were domiciled in Lucas county; that in September, 1912, the plaintiff obtained a decree of separate maintenance on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment, and on the ground of desertion as of July, 1911. The separate maintenance awarded to her was $25 per month, no part of which has ever been paid by the defendant. The defendant left the state of Iowa, and went into the state of Missouri and acquired his domicile there. The plaintiff remained in Lucas county and maintained herself and the only child of their marriage, a son, now 27 years of age. It appears also that the parents both of the plaintiff and of the defendant, respectively, resided in Lucas county. The plaintiff received from her parents the use of an 11-room house in the city of Chariton, wherein she followed the business of keeping boarders and roomers. Such was her means of livelihood for many years. She filed her petition herein in February, 1923. The occasion for it was that the mother of the defendant had recently died, whereby the defendant had inherited, from her estate, property to the value of about $3,000. The petition sought to reach this property in satisfaction of the unpaid installments provided for separate maintenance. The petition further set forth that the defendant's father was old and feeble and was likely to die ere long, and it prayed that the prospective interest of the defendant in his father's estate be subjected to the claims of the plaintiff. The petition further prayed that because of the changed financial condition of the defendant, the allowance of maintenance to the plaintiff should be increased accordingly, and that the same should be made a lien upon present and prospective property interests of the defendant.

The defendant filed a cross-bill, wherein he averred that the plaintiff herself had, previous to the filing of her petition, become owner by inheritance through her father and mother, of much valuable property, and that she received a large and ample income therefrom. He further pleaded that in 1921 he had obtained a decree of divorce from the defendant in the state of Missouri, whereby the marriage status of the parties had ceased. He prayed that he be relieved from further payments of maintenance under the provisions of the original decree of divorce. The decree permitted the plaintiff to recover the installments of maintenance provided in the original decree up to November 1, 1923, the date of the decree, and terminated all further obligations of defendant in the premises.

It will be noted that the foregoing presents a medley of pleading. The petition did not purport to be filed in the separate maintenance case at all. It did predicate its allegations of right in the plaintiff upon the provisions of such decree. The decree in the former case was put in evidence; the petition was not. We might well refuse to consider the question of alimony and maintenance on that ground, but both parties appear to have treated both actions as amalgamated, and to ask relief accordingly. We shall therefore ignore this feature of the pleadings.

[1] The trial court refused the increased maintenance prayed for by the plaintiff. This was done, notwithstanding that it was made to appear by a supplemental petition, filed after the hearing of evidence that the father of the defendant had died pending the suit and that the defendant had thereby inherited approximately $50,000 worth of property. As against this, the plaintiff herself had, some years prior to filing her petition, inherited from her parents large property, somewhat less than the amount now inherited by the defendant. The situation thus presented clearly warranted the court in refusing to give any further consideration to the question of maintenance. At the time the plaintiff filed her petition she was in much more affluent circumstances than was the defendant, who, at that time and for several years prior thereto, had been a mere laborer, working for the wages of the day. We find no ground in the record for our interference with the order of the court refusing to increase the plaintiff's allowance.

[2] II. The decree appealed from recognized the validity of the divorce decree rendered in Missouri and treated the marriage of the parties as having been dissolved thereby. In effect, however, it awarded alimony to the wife to the extent of extending the monthly installments to November 1, 1923, which date was two years subsequent to the dissolution of the marriage by the Missouri decree.

The complaint directed to this feature of the decree is that the court should not have recognized the Missouri decree as being valid in Iowa; that, so far as the wife was concerned, her status should be deemed unchanged; and that her right to receive the monthly installments awarded to her in 1912 should be deemed unimpaired.

The question at this point is whether the court was justified in recognizing the validity of the Missouri decree. The argument is that the “full faith and credit” clause of the federal Constitution does not apply to a foreign default decree of divorce against a defendant domiciled in another state. It is conceded, however, that the courts of this state may properly give effect within this state, to such a decree entered in another state, as a matter of comity between states, where such course is not in contravention of the laws or public policy of this state. The argument and the concession properly cover the present state of the law on this subject. The further contention is that comity ought not to be extended.

For many years the courts of all the states of the Union, save three or four, have recognized default decrees of divorce entered in another state, and valid therein, as being effective everywhere to dissolve the marriage status, notwithstanding the nonresidence of the defendant spouse therein, and the want of personal jurisdiction over him. That the plaintiff in the divorce proceeding should in good faith have had his domicile within the state, and within the jurisdiction of the court entering the decree, has usually been regarded as the controlling jurisdictional fact. This recognition of the validity of foreign decrees of divorce doubtless came into vogue under the assumption that the “full faith and credit” clause of the federal Constitution required such recognition. Such assumption was predicated upon the pronouncement of the Supreme Court of the United States, so construing the federal Constitution. Atherton v. Atherton, 181 U. S. 155, 21 S. Ct. 544, 45 L. Ed. 794, and Cheever v. Wilson, 9 Wall. 108, 19 L. Ed. 604.

In Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U. S. 562 (1906), 26 S. Ct. 525, 50 L. Ed. 867, 5 Ann. Cas. 1, the Supreme Court changed its former position and held that the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution did not apply to a default decree of divorce entered in a state other than that of the matrimonial domicile, where no personal jurisdiction had been acquired over the defendant therein.

The Haddock decision was predicated upon the following facts: In a suit in New York, it appeared that the parties had been domiciled in New York, and that the husband abandoned his wife and went to Connecticut, and there obtained a divorce. The New York court in the subsequent suit by the wife, refused to recognize the validity of this divorce, and, on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, it was held that the New York court was not bound under the federal Constitution to give “full faith and credit” to such decree. The reasoning was that the Connecticut court had acquired no jurisdiction over the defendant spouse, and therefore the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution did not apply. This pronouncement was later followed by the same court with some qualification in Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U. S. 551, 33 S. Ct. 129, 57 L. Ed. 347.

Though this pronouncement lifts from the courts of the respective states the mandate of the federal Constitution, it interposes no obstacle in the way of such courts to recognize the validity of such foreign decrees as a matter of comity between states. On the contrary, such right is recognized in the Haddock Case.

The state of New York, through its courts, has always taken the exceptional position that it will not recognize the validity of a default decree of divorce rendered in any state other than that of the matrimonial domicile, where the defendant remains within the matrimonial domicile, and where personal jurisdiction of the defendant is not acquired. The practical results of such holding have been quite appalling. It is quite universally conceded that status is the res of a divorce proceeding, and that it...