Coughlin v. Ehlert

• Decision Date: 31 October 1866
• Citation: 39 Mo. 285
• Parties: EDWARD COUGHLIN, Petitioner, v. ADOLPH EHLERT, Jailor and Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

39 Mo. 285

EDWARD COUGHLIN, Petitioner,

v.ADOLPH EHLERT, Jailor and Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1866.

Petition for writ of Habeas Corpus.

Cline & Jamison, for petitioner.

HOLMES, Judge delivered the opinion of the court.

This party is brought before the court on a writ of habeas corpus. It appears by the return of the jailor that he was committed to jail under an order of the St. Louis Circuit Court, which stated that “being here in court under attachment for not obeying the order of court made on 30th March, 1865, to pay alimony to the plaintiff as set forth in said order,” and “failing to show cause for disobeying said order” he was thereby committed to the county jail “for ten days unless said alimony is sooner paid.” The petition states that the petitioner is a poor man and unable to employ counsel, and that he had stated to the St. Louis Circuit Court under oath that he could not pay nor had he the means to discharge any part of said judgment, nor did he know any one to whom he could look with any hope of getting the same; and that he was a poor man and had no means out of which he could satisfy said judgment, small as it was.

The act concerning divorce and alimony provides that when a party neglects or refuses to pay alimony as adjudged, the court shall have power “to award an execution for the collection thereof, or to enforce the performance of the judgment or order by sequestration of property, or by such other lawful ways and means as is according to the practice of the court”--Gen. Stat. 1865, ch. 114, § 6. It seems that this party was treated by the Circuit Court as being in contempt for disobedience of the previous order of court requiring him to pay alimony which he had been adjudged to pay. It does not appear that any execution or process of sequestration had been issued. A writ of sequestration is a process for contempt; but it was said in Roberts. v. Stoner, 18 Mo. 481, that “a sequestration merely to compel the payment of money cannot now issue, as imprisonment for debt is now abolished.”

The party here was under no other contempt than that of refusing to pay the money which the court had ordered to be paid as alimony. As process against the body for the non-payment of a debt cannot now be issued, there would seem to be no means of putting a party in contempt for disobeying orders or decrees for the mere payment of money. We do not mean to say that a party may not be put in contempt for disobeying a decree for...