Barrington v. Barrington
Decision Date | 13 May 1921 |
Docket Number | 3 Div. 485 |
Citation | 89 So. 512,206 Ala. 192 |
Parties | BARRINGTON v. BARRINGTON. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 20, 1921
Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Leon McCord, Judge.
Bill by Mary W. Barrington against Richard L. Barrington for divorce. From a decree overruling demurrers to the bill, respondent appeals. Affirmed.
Charles Wallace Collins, of Washington, D.C., and Holloway & Hill and Henry C. Meader, all of Montgomery, for appellant.
John S Tilley, Steiner, Crum & Weil and Hill, Hill, Whiting & Thomas, all of Montgomery, for appellee.
The bill of complaint is filed under section 3795 of the Code as amended by the act of September 30, 1919 (Gen.Acts 1919. p. 878), which authorizes divorces as follows:
Under a bill filed by this complainant under a former amendment of section 3795 (Gen.Acts 1915, p. 370), similar to the present amendment, relief was denied on the ground that that provision was not retroactive upon a period of separation antedating the act. Barrington v. Barrington, 200 Ala. 315, 76 So. 81. In that case the constitutionality of the act was attacked, but decision thereon was pretermitted as unnecessary. The question was, however, discussed in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice McClellan, with the conclusion that the act was free from constitutional objection, a view in which the present writer fully concurred.
With respect to the present bill, its sufficiency and its equity are challenged by demurrer, and the questions presented are (1) Whether its allegations of fact are sufficiently specific; and (2) whether the act under which it seeks relief is in violation of one or both of the constitutional guaranties of "due process of law," and of "the equal protection of the laws," as found in the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution.
1. Every fact necessary to the relief prayed, as prescribed by the statute itself, is categorically alleged in the bill, and it must be pronounced sufficient in that respect.
2. Due process of law guaranteed by the federal Constitution has been defined in terms of the equal protection of the laws, that is, as being secured by laws operating on all alike, and not subjecting the individual to the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice. Caldwell v. Texas, 137 U.S. 692, 11 Sup.Ct. 224, 34 L.Ed. 816; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462, 11 Sup.Ct. 577, 35 L.Ed. 225. 6 R.C.L. p. 372, § 367.
When the subject of legislation is one exclusively within the jurisdiction of the state, the federal court recognizes a wide discretion in the exercise of its powers with respect to the details of legislation and the exceptions that may properly be made to its operation. Watson v. Maryland, 218 U.S. 173, 30 Sup.Ct. 644, 54 L.Ed. 987; Griffith v. Connecticut, 218 U.S. 563, 31 Sup.Ct. 132, 54 L.Ed. 1157. And the regulation of marriage and divorce has been fully recognized as a matter within the exclusive province of the Legislatures of the states. Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190, 8 Sup.Ct. 723, 31 L.Ed. 654; Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U.S. 14, 23 Sup.Ct. 237, 47 L.Ed. 366; Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U.S. 562, 26 Sup.Ct. 525, 50 L.Ed. 867, 5 Ann.Cas. 1; Green v. State, 58 Ala. 190, 193, 29 Am.Rep. 739; 9 R.C.L. p. 245, § 5; Cooley on Const. Limitations, 154.
The offense imputed to the statute now under consideration, as an argument for its unconstitutionality, is that it authorizes the wife alone to sue for and obtain a divorce because of a status for separation and nonsupport for which the husband may not have been responsible either as to its origin or continuation.
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