Jamal v. Jamal
| Decision Date | 17 July 1968 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 51531 |
| Citation | 98 Ill.App.2d 180,240 N.E.2d 246 |
| Parties | Maryam M. JAMAL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ahmad JAMAL, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Cook & Watt, Chicago, for plaintiff-appellant; Rufus Cook, Garland W. Watt, Chicago, of counsel.
Meyer Weinberg and Bernard Kaufman, Chicago, for defendant-appellee; Meyer Weinberg, Bernard Kaufman and Harry G. Fins, Chicago, of counsel.
Some four years after their divorce, plaintiff filed three separate petitions requesting post-decree relief: (1) the issuance of a rule to show cause why defendant should not be held in contempt of court for failure to comply with the child-support provisions of the decree; (2) enforcement of the property-settlement provisions of the decree through recognition and enforcement of a supplemental agreement thereafter entered into by the parties; and (3) the issuance of a writ of ne exeat in support of the other two petitions. A writ of ne exeat was issued under which defendant was taken into custody and released on bond; defendant filed a motion to dismiss the second petition and filed answers to the other two petitions; and a hearing was held, at the conclusion of which an order was entered (1) denying plaintiff's petition for a rule to show cause, (2) striking her petition relating to property rights of the parties, and (3) denying ne exeat and releasing defendant's bond. Plaintiff's appeal followed.
First, as to the question of arrearage in child support. When the parties and their attorneys appeared in court with their records, they were directed by the court to repair to another room for the purpose of reconciling their differences and ascertaining by agreement the exact amount of arrearage, if any. After apparently attempting so to do, they reported back to the court that, while defendant had produced cancelled checks in more than the total amount due for child support from the date of the decree, some of the checks indicated that they were in payment of child support, but a good many others did not, and as to these latter checks there was a dispute as to whether or not they had been drawn for the purpose of child support. The issue of child-support arrearage as presented by the pleadings thus remained unresolved and was presented to the court for determination.
After a very considerable argument by counsel, the court called both parties as witnesses and conducted a brief examination. It touched very little, and only in a general way, upon the matter of child-support payments. Further, the court's only concern about the supplemental property agreement seems to have been whether defendant was in Chicago or New York when it was signed. Plaintiff said he was in Chicago. Defendant said he was in New York. Neither party was asked any questions about the checks which were in dispute as to purpose. Counsel for defendant was permitted to ask some questions of both witnesses, and the court elicited some information about the peripatetic existence of defendant, who was an entertainer.
The only exhibits admitted into evidence were an empty envelope, which defendant said he had received in the mail from plaintiff's attorney about a week before the petitions were filed, and a copy of a letter which he said he had dictated over the telephone to his attorney in New York, enclosing the empty envelope and telling him that he had no way of knowing what it was about. Prior to the examination of the witnesses, a number of checks had been shown to the court and they had been discussed by counsel, but they do not appear to have been introduced into evidence. Also, during the questioning of plaintiff, a copy of a letter from her was given an identification number but was not admitted in evidence. The primary argument of defendant's brief in this court is that we must affirm because the record is incomplete in not including the various documents just referred to. We do not agree, since only the two were admitted into evidence, and we fail to recognize the relevance of either. The letter from defendant to his attorney, incidentally, was read into the record in its entirety.
On the basis of the evidence introduced, no court could possibly determine whether there was an arrearage in child support as no testimony was elicited concerning the purpose of the checks which were in dispute. When the court concluded his preliminary type examination of the parties, as outlined above, he suddenly broke off the questioning and announced his decisions which were then incorporated in the order now subject to this appeal. He apparently decided that plaintiff's testimony, in response to the court's own questioning, supplanted her right to testify or present other evidence on her own behalf. Though counsel for plaintiff immediately made formal request to cross-examine defendant and to interrogate his own client in support of her claim for $3300 in past-due child support, he was denied the opportunity to do either. * In a court of law this sort of procedure would be highly erroneous; in a court of conscience, it is unconscionable. The rights to cross-examine and to present evidence are so basic as to be grounded in due process. Collectively, they constitute the litigant's day in court. Illinois Constitution, Art. II, § 2, S.H.A.; People ex rel. Bernat v. Bicek, 405 Ill. 510, 526, 91 N.E.2d 588; Pettigrew v. National Accounts System, Inc., 67 Ill.App.2d 344, 350--351, 213 N.E.2d 778; Gorin v. McFarland, 80 Ill.App.2d 398, 408, 224 N.E.2d 615. Defendant's citations to the effect that the scope and extent of cross-examination are matters for the trial court's discretion do, of course, express sound principles of law but are not applicable to a situation of complete denial. We conclude that the procedure followed in the instant case effectively denied to plaintiff her day in court and the resulting order must therefore be reversed and remanded for a proper hearing.
We next consider whether the court was correct in dismissing plaintiff's petition concerning property rights of the parties. This petition detailed the following allegations: (1) a decree of divorce was entered on March 6, 1962; (2) the decree incorporated in its terms a property-settlement agreement between the parties; (3) specific parcels of real estate were to be sold and in consideration of receiving half the proceeds from such sales, plaintiff waived alimony and other property rights; (4) plaintiff's share of the proceeds would have been worth more than $65,000; (5) the parcels were not sold, because defendant, by not paying his income taxes, allowed liens to attach to the properties in sums so large as to make their sale impractical and frustrate plaintiff's expectation of receiving $65,000 as her share of the proceeds; (6) in consequence of these altered circumstances, on October 24, 1963, plaintiff and defendant entered into a second agreement in 'full settlement' of defendant's obligations under the divorce decree; (7) the new agreement provided that defendant was to remove all Internal Revenue Service liens from specific real estate, convey this real estate to plaintiff, and receive conveyances from plaintiff and members of her family of certain other business interests; (8) if the second agreement had been fully performed, plaintiff would have received a net equity of $272,500 in real estate, some of which had an exceptionally high income-producing potential; (9) plaintiff performed all of her obligations under the second agreement, and defendant transferred to her his title to the real estate, but defendant refused to satisfy his debts to the government, with the result that the property remained encumbered with the tax liens; (10) substantially all the property was lost through foreclosure; (11) due to her lack of funds, plaintiff had been powerless to prevent this loss; (12) plaintiff was unable to pay her attorneys' fees and costs incurred in the preparation of this petition.
The petition sought the following relief:
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