Harris v. Harris
| Decision Date | 07 June 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 209,209 |
| Citation | 132 A.2d 597,213 Md. 592 |
| Parties | Golon B. HARRIS v. Amelia L. HARRIS. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Mudd & Mudd and F. DeSales Mudd, La Plata, for appellant.
George W. Bowling, La Plata, for appellee.
Before COLLINS, HENDERSON, HAMMOND and PRESCOTT, JJ., and FLOYD J. KINTNER, Special Judge.
This is an appeal from a decree ordering the respondent, Golon B. Harris, appellant, to pay his wife, Amelia L. Harris, complainant, appellee, alimony and support beginning on November 15, 1956.
The First Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada, having jurisdiction of the parties to this cause, by decree on January 19, 1942, divorced the appellant a vinculo matrimonii from the appellee and ordered him to pay her $100 per month alimony. The appellee later became a resident of the State of Florida where she still resides and has not remarried. The appellant, after his retirement from the Armed Forces, became a resident of Charles County, Maryland, where he still resides. He has remarried and has a child by his present wife. The appellant, by a subsequent motion addressed to the Nevada court, petitioned that court to strike out the previously ordered alimony payments. This motion was denied by that court on November 27, 1950. The appellee, by successive actions at law in the Circuit Court for Charles County, Maryland, had obtained three judgments against the appellant for alimony which had accrued and was in arrears under the Nevada decree. One judgment, dated February 21, 1949, was for $600; another, dated August 15, 1949, for $600; and the third, dated March 27, 1950, for $900. Two of these judgments had been unpaid at the time of the adjudication in the instant proceeding as unsatisfied obligations of record.
On January 8, 1953, the complainant filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Charles County in which she alleged the aforesaid decree of the Nevada court; that said decree had not been modified by said court; that the respondent had failed to comply with the terms of the aforesaid decree in the payment of alimony and was then in arrears in said payments in the amount of approximately $4,300 to and including December 15, 1952. Notwithstanding her repeated demands up to the time of the filing of the petition, she had received nothing from the respondent on account of said delinquent payments. The last payment made by him was the sum of $700 to cover payments up to May 15, 1949. In the petition she asked that the respondent be adjudicated in contempt of court for his failure to comply with the aforesaid decree of the Nevada court, and be cited by an order of the Circuit Court for Charles County to appear and answer 'and abide by such order and judgment as this Court may see fit to pass'. After an order overruling a demurrer to that petition, an answer was filed by the respondent admitting the proceedings in the State of Nevada and alleging that since the Nevada proceedings he has made payments to the complainant from time to time commensurate with his income and her requirements and that she has waived or rescinded further demands under the Nevada decree. He further alleged that the Circuit Court for Charles County was without jurisdiction to adjudge him in contempt for failure to comply with the alleged decree of the Nevada court.
The chancellor filed an opinion in the case on September 13, 1955, before the decision of this Court in McCabe v. McCabe, 210 Md. 308, 123 A.2d 447, decided June 15, 1956. In the opinion in the instant case the chancellor held that the Maryland court could not enforce the Nevada decree by punishment by way of imprisonment. He was of opinion, however, that, although the complainant did not specifically ask for support in the decree, '* * * the relief sought is sufficiently broad to encompass the relief which should be granted without an amendment to the Complaint, even though there is no prayer asked for He set the matter down for hearing for the purpose of receiving additional testimony relative to the amount which should be ordered paid by the respondent to his former wife. Testimony of the complainant was taken by deposition and filed in the case on January 5, 1956. The financial statement filed in the case by the respondent showed that he has an income from Army retirement, annuity and salary of more than $8,000 per year, but no property other than an automobile for which total payment had not been made.
On November 3, 1956, after the McCabe case, supra, was decided, the chancellor filed a decree in which he recited the aforementioned decree of the Nevada court on January 19, 1942, requiring the respondent to pay the complainant $100 monthly as alimony and support. The decree also stated: 'And, it also appearing that said decree had not been altered, changed, or modified, by the First Judicial Court of the State of Nevada, in and for the County of Ormsby, and this Court finding that the Defendant, Golon B. Harris, was in contempt of the First Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada, in and for the County of Ormsby, in that said Defendant had failed to make said monthly payments; and it further appearing from the testimony of the Plaintiff and Defendant that the sum previously awarded is consistent with the present needs of the Plaintiff, and that the Defendant is financially able at this time to pay the amount previously awarded,' he ordered that the respondent pay the complainant $100 per month beginning on November 15, 1956, and costs.
On November 20, 1956, the respondent filed a petition to defer the alimony payments. No action was taken on that petition by the chancellor and on November 30, 1956, the respondent filed an appeal to this Court from the decree of November 3, 1956.
The respondent contends primarily that, because there was no specific prayer for general relief, the chancellor was without jurisdiction to pass the decree appealed from. He relies on General Equity Rule 7 of this Court, in effect when this proceeding was commenced and finally determined, which provided in part:
'All bills * * * shall contain simply a statement of the facts upon which the plaintiff asks relief, and, at his option, the facts which are intended to avoid an anticipated defense, and such averments as may be necessary, under the rules of Equity pleading, to entitle the plaintiff to relief, and the prayer for relief shall specify particularly the relief desired, and shall also contain the prayer for general relief.' By Rule 370 a 3, Maryland Rules of Procedure, in effect since January 1, 1957, it is provided:
'A bill or petition shall also contain prayers...
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