Aspinwall v. Aspinwall
| Decision Date | 13 December 1895 |
| Citation | 33 A. 470,53 N.J.E. 684 |
| Parties | ASPINWALL v. ASPINWALL. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Appeal from court of chancery; McGill, Chancellor.
Bill by Florence S. Aspinwall against Summer D. Aspinwall. Decree for complainant. On failure of defendant to comply therewith complainant applied for a judgment for contempt, and from a denial of the application she appeals. Affirmed.
Cortlandt Parker and Chauncey G. Parker, for appellant.
Samuel Kalisch, for respondent.
The appellant and the respondent, who is her husband, entered into articles of agreement providing for a separation between them, in which the respondent agreed, among other things, to pay to his wife a certain sum of money each week for her support. Upon his failure to comply with this provision of the contract, the appellant filed her bill in the court of chancery to compel the performance by her husband of the articles of agreement, and particularly the payment of the weekly allowance stipulated for therein. The chancellor decreed the performance of the contract; and that portion of the decree which directed the payment by the husband to the wife of the moneys which had become due to her, under the stipulation to pay the allowance, was affirmed by this court. Aspinwall v. Aspinwall, 49 N. J. Eq. 302, 24 Atl. 926. The respondent having failed to pay to the appellant the moneys decreed to be due to her under the articles of separation, after service upon him of a certified copy of the decree and a demand for payment, she applied to the chancellor for an attachment for contempt against him to compel the payment thereof. The chancellor, considering that an attachment for contempt was not a proper method for the enforcement of the appellant's decree, denied the application, and from the order of denial this appeal is taken.
In my opinion the application for an attachment was properly refused. It is true, as urged by counsel for the appellant, that in the earlier days of the court of chancery the only method by which a decree for the payment of money due upon a contract could be enforced, as well as all other decrees except those which were for the land itself, was by process of contempt; but that was because such decrees operated only in personam. This defect in the law, however, has been remedied in this state by statute. Revision, p. 113, § 56; Id. p. 115, § 64. By these provisions the legislature has clothed the court of chancery with power to enforce its decrees by the sequestration of the estate, both real and personal, of the defendant, and by the issuing of writs of fieri facias and...
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Cohen v. Cohen
...provisions of a divorce or maintenance decree of the Court of Chancery, the proceedings should be for contempt. And see Aspinwall v. Aspinwall, 53 N.J. Eq. 684, 33 A. 470. As already suggested, the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery in alimony matters is purely statutory; but the court h......
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Cain v. Miller
...may not be imprisoned, is based upon Roberts v. Stoner, 18 Mo. 481, which was not a divorce and alimony case. In Aspinwall v. Aspinwall, 53 N.J.Eq. 684, 33 A. 470, construing a statute of the state, the first reason assigned; also in Gane v. Gane, 45 N.Y.S. 355. The second reason is given i......
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Phillips v. Phillips
...stipulated for should be paid by the husband. (The decree only applied to moneys which had become due and not to future payments, 53 N. J. Eq. 684, 33 A. 470.) "These stipulations for the support of the wife, who is living separate from her husband with his assent, have always been regarded......
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Krafte v. Belfus
...a contempt, remediable by imprisonment. It falls within the constitutional provision abolishing imprisonment for debt. Aspinwall v. Aspinwall, 53 N. J. Eq. 684, 33 A. 470. Were these proceedings on a turnover order in supplemental proceeding, disobedience would have been contempt, enforceab......