Matilda Von Ellert Sistare v. Horace Randall Sistare

• Decision Date: 31 May 1910
• Docket Number: No. 7,7
• Citation: 218 U.S. 1,54 L.Ed. 905,20 Ann.Cas. 1061,30 S.Ct. 682
• Parties: MATILDA VON ELLERT SISTARE, Plff. in Err., v. HORACE RANDALL SISTARE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

218 U.S. 1

30 S.Ct. 682

54 L.Ed. 905

MATILDA VON ELLERT SISTARE, Plff. in Err.,

v HORACE RANDALL SISTARE.

No. 7.

Argued November 1, 1909.

Decided May 31, 1910.

Messrs. Robert Goeller and Benjamin Slade for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 2-6 intentionally omitted] Mr. William J. Brennan for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 6-7 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

In 1899, by a judgment of the supreme court of the state of New York, the plaintiff in error was granted a separation from bed and board from her husband, the defendant in error, and he was ordered to pay her weekly the sum of $22.50 for the support of herself and the maintenance and education of a minor child. The judgment, omitting title, is copied in the margin.

This action having been begun by the service of the summons herein* on the defendant personally, . . . now on motion of . . . attorneys for the plaintiff, it is

Ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the plaintiff be, and she hereby is, forever separated from the defendant, and from the bed and board of said defendant, on the ground of nonsupport and cruel and inhuman treatment by the defendant. And it is

Further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that from and after the entry of this decree the defendant, Horace Randall Sistare, pay to the plaintiff, Matilda Von Ellert Sistare, for her maintenance and support and the maintenance and education of Horace Von Ellert Sistare, the minor child of the plaintiff and defendant, the sum of twenty-two and 50-100 dollars ($22.50) per week, such sum to be paid into the hands of her attorneys of record in this action on each and every Monday. And it is further

Ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the sole care, custody, control, and education of said minor child, Horace Von Ellert Sistare, is hereby awarded to the plaintiff, and the defendant, upon complying fully with each and all of the directions of the decree herein, and not otherwise, and during his good behavior, shall, until the further order of this court, be permitted to see said child for the space of two hours, between the hours of 10 and 12 o'clock in the forenoon on Wednesdays and Saturdays, excepting Wednesdays and Saturdays during the months of July, August, and September of each year. And it is further

Ordered, adjudged, and decreed that costs are hereby awarded to the plaintiff against the defendant, taxed at the sum of one hundred and seventeen and 67-100 dollars ($117.67), and that the plaintiff do recover said costs from the defendant and have execution therefor. And it is further

Ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the plaintiff have leave to apply from time to time for such orders at the foot of this judgment as may be necessary for its enforcement and for the protection and enforcement of her rights in the premises.

In July, 1904, at which time none of the instalments of alimony had been paid, the wife commenced this action in the superior court of New London county, Connecticut, to recover the amount then in arrears of the decreed alimony. The cause was put at issue and was heard by the court. As stated by the trial judge, in a 'finding' by him made: 'The defendant made the following claims of law as to the judgment to be rendered in this action:

'(a) That the judgment rendered by the supreme court of the state of New York, in requiring the future payment of $22.50 per week, did not constitute a final judgment for a fixed sum of money, which is enforceable and collectible in this action.

'(b) That said judgment, being subject to modification by the court which granted it, is not a judgment which the courts of this state will enforce.

'(c) That the requirement that said sums of money should be paid as aforesaid does not constitute a debt or obligation from the defendant to the plaintiff which can be enforced in this action.

'(d) That said judgment requiring the said weekly payments cannot be enforced in any other way than according to the procedure prescribed in the statutes of the state of New York, and cannot be enforced in this action.

'(e) That the judgment which is sought to be enforced in this action is not a final judgment, entitled to full faith and credit in this state by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States.

'(f) That the judgment which is sought to be enforced in this action will not be enforced by the courts of this state through comity.

'(g) That the facts will not support a judgment for the plaintiff.'

The court, however, adjudged in favor of the plaintiff, and awarded her the sum of $5,805, the arrears of alimony at the commencement of the action.

On appeal, the supreme court of errors (80 Conn. 1, L.R.A.(N.S.) ——, 125 Am. St. Rep. 102, 66 Atl. 772) reversed the judgment and remanded the cause 'for the rendition of judgment in favor of the defendant;' and such a judgment, the record discloses, was subsequently entered by the trial court. This writ of error was prosecuted.

The supreme court of errors of Connecticut reached the conclusion that the power conferred upon a New York court to modify a decree for alimony by it rendered extended to overdue and unsatisfied instalments as well as those to accrue in the future; that hence decrees for future alimony, even as to instalments after they had become past due, did not constitute debts of record, and were not subject to be collected by execution, but could only be enforced by the special remedies provided in the law, and were not susceptible of being made the basis of judgments in the state of New York in another court than the one in which the decree for alimony had been made. Guided by the interpretation thus given to the New York law, and the character of the decree for future alimony which was based thereon, it was decided that the New York judgment for alimony which was sought to be enforced, even although the instalments sued for were all past due, was not a final judgment, which it was the duty of the courts of Connecticut to enforce in and by virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States. While the ruling of the court was, of course, primarily based upon the interpretation of the New York law, the ultimate ruling as to the inapplicability of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution was expressly rested upon the decision of this court in Lynde v. Lynde, 181 U. S. 187, 45 L. ed. 814, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 555.

To sustain her contention that the action of the court below was in conflict with the duty imposed upon it by the full faith and credit clause, the plaintiff in error, by her assignments, in effect challenges the correctness of all the propositions upon which the court below rested its action, and virtually the defendant in error takes issue in argument as to these contentions. In disposing of the controversy, however, we shall not follow the sequence of the various assignments of error, or consider all the forms of statement in which the contentions of the parties are pressed in argument, but come at once to two fundamental questions which, being determined, will dispose of all the issues in the case. Those inquiries are: 1st. Where a court of one state has decreed the future payment of alimony, and when an instalment or instalments of the alimony so decreed have become due and payable and are unpaid, is such a judgment as to accrued and past-due alimony ordinarily embraced within the scope of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States so as to impose the constitutional duty upon the court of another state to give effect to such judgment? 2d. If, as a general rule, the full faith and credit clause does apply to such judgments, is the particular judgment under review exceptionally taken out of that rule by virtue of the nature and character of the judgment, as determined by the law of the state of New York, in and by virtue of which it was rendered? We shall separately consider the questions.

First. The application, as a general rule, of the full faith and credit clause to judgments for alimony as to past-due installments.

An extended analysis of the principles involved in the solution of this proposition is not called for, since substantially the contentions of the parties are based upon their divergent conceptions of two prior decisions of this court (Barber v. Barber, 21 How. 582, 16 L. ed. 226, and Lynde v. Lynde, supra), and an analysis of those cases will therefore suffice. For the plaintiff in error it is insisted that the case of Barber v. Barber conclusively determines that past-due instalments of a judgment for future alimony, rendered in one state, are within the protection of the full faith and credit clause, while the defendant in error urges that the contrary is established by the ruling in Lynde v. Lynde, and that if the Barber Case has the meaning attributed to it by the plaintiff in error, that case must be considered as having been overruled by Lynde v. Lynde.

Substantially the controversy in Barber v. Barber was this: In the year 1847, the court of chancery of New York granted Huldah B. Barber a separation from Hiram Barber, and directed the payment of alimony in quarterly instalments. Although the separation was decreed to be forever, the power to modify was reserved by a provision that the parties might at any time thereafter, by their joint petition, apply to the court to have the decree modified or discharged. It was provided that unpaid instalments of alimony should bear interest, 'and that execution might issue therefor toties quoties.' The husband failed to pay where he procured an absolute divorce. where be procured an absolute divorce. Subsequently an action was brought by Mrs. Barber upon the common-law side of the district court of the United States in the territory of Wisconsin, to recover the arrears of alimony, but relief was denied 'for the reason that the remedy...