Brown v. Brown

• Decision Date: 10 June 1955
• Citation: 198 Tenn. 600,281 S.W.2d 492,2 McCanless 600
• Parties: , 198 Tenn. 600 Clyde O. BROWN v. Pamelia C. BROWN et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 492

281 S.W.2d 492

2 McCanless 600, 198 Tenn. 600

Clyde O. BROWN v. Pamelia C. BROWN et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 10, 1955.

On Rehearing Aug. 2, 1955.

Ferdinand Powell, Jr., and Warren R. Webster, Knoxville, for appellant.

Anderson & Anderson, Knoxville, for appellees.

ROBERT S. CLEMENT, Special Justice.

This suit was filed by the complainant Clyde O. Brown in the Chancery Court of Knox County primarily for the purpose of enjoining the defendant Pamelia C. Brown from prosecuting a petition for contempt which the defendant Pamelia C. Brown had filed in the Circuit Court of Knox County in an effort to enforce a decree of that Court against the complainant Clyde O. Brown.

The controversy arises out of a divorce action between the parties, which the husband Clyde O. Brown commenced in February of 1952 by filing his bill for an absolute divorce against the wife Pamelia C. Brown on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment. In that bill he averred that the parties had entered into a property settlement agreement, one of the provisions of which was that his wife would receive a certain parking lot located on West Church Street in Knoxville, which the parties owned as tenants by the entireties. Among his prayers was a request that the Court approve the property settlement agreement. He also prayed that the custody and control of the two minor children of the parties be adjudicated by the Court in whatever manner the Court deemed to be in the best interest of the children; and he indicated his willingness to support these children.

After the disposition of numerous preliminary matters not material here, the wife, Pamelia C. Brown, filed her answer to this bill for divorce. She denied quite vigorously the allegations on which her husband based his suit for divorce. She made no mention of the alleged property settlement agreement. She did, however, allege that her husband was a 'man of means,' and that he was able to support the defendant and their children and should be required to do so. She did not ask that her answer be treated as a crossbill, and she made no formal prayers for relief.

In February of 1953, after a series of bitterly contested proceedings, the Circuit Court entered a decree granting the husband Clyde O. Brown an absolute divorce from the wife. The Court, however, awarded custody of the minor children to the defendant wife and required the husband to pay 'alimony' in the amount of $125 per month for the maintenance and support of the wife and the children. In addition the Court suggested that the parties attempt to arrive at a property settlement, but provided that in the event no such agreement was submitted to the Court, the Court would 'pass upon the property rights' between the parties. The Court expressly retained the case on its docket for the purpose of arriving at some disposition of the property belonging to the parties.

The wife filed various supplemental pleadings and petitions in an effort to reopen the case and defeat the husband's suit for divorce; but the relief she sought in these matters was denied. Finally the Circuit Court in May of 1953 entered a final decree, once more decreeing the exclusive custody of the minor children to the wife and ordering the husband to pay as 'alimony, for the support and maintenance of defendant and said two dependent children, the sum of $125.00 per month * * *.'

The Circuit Court further ordered that the equity in the parking lot, 'held in the joint names of complainant and defendant should be decreed to defendant as alimony.' To carry out this portion of its decree the Court, after setting forth a detailed description of the property, decreed that all of the right, title and interest of the husband in the parking lot, 'be divested out of him and vested in the defendant Pamelia C. Brown, and to perfect defendant's title, the complainant will execute and deliver to defendant a proper deed conveying his interest in said property, the defendant assuming all indebtedness resting thereon.'

No mention was made in this decree of any property settlement agreement between the parties.

The wife then perfected an appeal from this decree to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decree. She petitioned this Court for certiorari, but the writ was denied.

The husband filed no appeal. At no stage of the proceedings in the Circuit Court, or in the appellate courts, does it appear that he in any way challenged the validity of the decree of the Circuit Court or the power or jurisdiction of that Court to enter it.

After the remand of the case to the Circuit Court the wife sought to obtain from the husband a deed to the parking lot as provided in the decree of that Court. Apparently the husband refused to execute such a deed. The wife then filed a petition for contempt in the Circuit Court in which she set forth the provisions of the decree of that Court and alleged that the husband had refused to comply therewith. She prayed that an attachment issue for the body of the husband; and that he be required to execute the deed as provided in the Circuit Court's decree, and that on his failure to do so he be taken into custody until the order of the Court was complied with.

The attachment issued, requiring the husband to appear before the Circuit Court on June 5, 1954, to answer the petition for contempt. The husband presented a bond for his appearance as required by the fiat of the Circuit Court. However, he filed no answer or other pleading to the petition for contempt. On June 5, 1954, the husband, on the basis of the original bill in this cause, obtained a fiat from the Honorable Charles E. Dawson, Chancellor, holding the Chancery Court a Knoxville, and an injunction was accordingly issued restraining the wife from further prosecuting her petition for contempt in the Circuit Court.

In his original bill in this suit the husband alleges that the decree of the Circuit Court, in so far as it purported to divest him of his title to the said parking lot and ordered him to execute a deed to his wife of all of his interest therein, was void, because it was, in that regard, beyond the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for the reason that the relief granted was alleged to be outside the scope of the pleadings and for the further reason that the statutes forbid the courts from awarding a wife alimony when the husband is granted a divorce.

To this bill the wife filed a demurrer on the grounds: (1) that there was no equity on the face of the bill; (2) that the Chancery Court had no jurisdiction to hear the cause, but rather that the exclusive power to inquire into the matters alleged in the bill was in the Circuit Court of Knox County; (3) that the decree of the Circuit Court did nothing more than carry out a property settlement agreement entered into by the parties; (4) that the husband at no time during the proceedings in the Circuit Court or in the appellate courts objected to the entry of the decree by the Circuit Court, and that he was accordingly barred from raising the question in this suit; (5) that the bill herein amounted to a collateral attack on the decree of the Circuit Court, and that such an attack could not be made by proceedings such as this; and (6) that the award of the property in question to the wife was for the support of the minor children of the parties and was therefore valid.

The Chancellor sustained the wife's demurrer and dismissed the husband's bill, without stating his reasons for so holding. The husband has seasonably perfected an appeal to this Court from the Chancellor's decree.

At the outset we are met with the question of whether or not a Chancery Court has the power or jurisdiction to enjoin a party to an action in the Circuit Court from proceeding with a petition for contempt in that Court.

Patently the Chancery Court has no power to sit as a court of review to correct judgments of the Circuit Court which are merely erroneous. Nor does it have the power to interfere with the Circuit Court itself in the performance of its duties and functions. But the original bill in this case alleges that the judgment of the Circuit Court is void for want of jurisdiction, and it seeks to reach not the Circuit Court itself but the defendant herein who filed the petition for contempt in the Circuit Court.

Contempt proceedings, such as the proceeding in the Circuit Court in this case, to compel a party to abide by the decree of a court are civil and not criminal in their nature. Chappell v. Chappell, 37 Tenn.App. 242, 261 S.W.2d 824. Therefore a bill to enjoin a party from prosecuting such a petition does not amount to an interference with the Court which entered the original judgment, since it seeks to reach only the party involved, and not the Court itself.

Such contempt proceedings partake of the nature of a supplemental process, Chappell v. Chappell, 37 Tenn.App. 242, 261 S.W.2d 824. A bill to enjoin the prosecution of such a petition for contempt is thus closely analogous to a bill to enjoin an execution on a judgment of the Circuit Court. It is well settled in this state that the Chancery Courts have the jurisdiction to enjoin an execution from a Circuit, or other court of coordinate jurisdiction, where that execution is based upon a void judgment. Douglass v. Joyner, 60 Tenn. 32; Wooten v. Daniel, 84 Tenn. 156; Rucker v. Moore, 48 Tenn. 726.

In addition if the judgment of the Circuit Court which the defendant wife sought to enforce is void for want of jurisdiction, it can bind no one and a disobedience of it would not be a contempt. Howell v. Thompson, 130 Tenn. 311, 170 S.W. 253; Churchwell v. Callens, 36 Tenn.App. 119, 252 S.W.2d 131; Note, 12 A.L.R.2d 1059.

The Chancery Court therefore had the jurisdiction to enjoin the defendant wife from proceeding with her petition for contempt in the Circuit Court, if the judgment of the Circuit Court is void for want of jurisdiction as the complainant alleges.

A bill...