Jones v. Minc

• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FINLEY; ROSELLINI; HUNTER
• Citation: Jones v. Minc, 462 P.2d 927, 77 Wn.2d 381 (Wash. 1969)
• Decision Date: 18 December 1969
• Docket Number: No. 39449
• Parties: William H. JONES, as Guardian of Richard G. Jones, Incompetent, Respondent, v. Lisa MINC, aka Lisa Rulison, aka Lisa Jones, Appellant.

Page 381

77 Wn.2d 381

462 P.2d 927

William H. JONES, as Guardian of Richard G. Jones Incompetent, Respondent, v. Lisa MINC, aka Lisa Rulison, aka Lisa Jones, Appellant.

No. 39449.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Dec. 18, 1969.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 6, 1970.

Bill Lanning, Seattle, for appellant.

Colvin & Williams, John J. Keough, David L. Williams, Seattle, for respondent.

FINLEY, Judge.

This law suit was commenced by the guardian of the respondent, Richard G. Jones, an incompetent, to terminate the marriage of respondent and appellant by divorce or annulment. The trial court awarded respondent an annulment, and in the alternative a decree of divorce. This appeal followed.

Richard G. Jones became a widower on January 28, 1964. He was then 82 years of age. He had been substantially dependent upon his wife in the conduct of his daily affairs. His friends and neighbors described his conduct as confused after the death of his wife. He would lock himself out of his home. He was at time unaware of his wife's death, and was unable to handle his financial affairs.

Several months after the death of his wife he became acquainted with Lisa Minc. She quickly became his housekeeper, and promptly became involved in his affairs. A marriage license was issued to Jones and 'Lisa Mintz' on September 8, 1964. He quit-claimed his home--which he owned free and clear--to the appellant, gave her some $12,000 in 'H' bonds, and permitted the transfer of his savings account passbooks to her. At that time he was under the impression that he was married to the appellant and the quit claim deed to his home so recites.

Mr. William H. Jones, a long-time friend of Richard Jones and administrator of his first wife's estate, discovered the indicated transfers of property and, in administering the community interest of the first wife, he pressed for and achieved the return of the aforementioned assets. Shortly thereafter, on November 9, 1964, another marriage license was taken out and a ceremony was actually performed the next day.

A legal guardianship of the person and property of Richard Jones was then consummated, naming Mr. William H. Jones guardian of the person, and the Seattle-First National Bank guardian of the property.

Appellant Lisa Minc obstructed the attempts of the guardian to safeguard the interests of Richard Jones and conducted a persistent and largely successful campaign to insulate him from all exterior influences. She accompanied him whenever he left the house, intercepted telephone calls from his friends, and attempted to conceal his whereabouts from his legal guardian.

Appellant's activities, which under other circumstances may have been merely suspicious, acquire a sinister cast in the light of appellant's previous marital history. Lisa Minc and married Mr. Irving M. Rulison in California in 1961. They subsequently moved to Seattle where she kept Mr Rulison, aged 70 and a chronic alcoholic, in a room in the basement of their rented home. She admitted to neighbors that she had married Rulison for his money. He was found in May, 1963, in a dying condition, unkempt and extremely emaciated, surrounded by liquor bottles, in the basement room. The cause of his subsequent death was malnutrition, accompanied by chronic alcoholism.

Appellant was also convicted of petty larceny in California, and was tried and then retried for the murder of a previous employer. Both murder trials were terminated by a hung jury. Richard Jones was not told of any of the above acts prior to his marriage.

The trial court found that at the time of his marriage the respondent was not imbecilic, feeble-minded, or insane, within the meaning of RCW 26.04.030. It further found that he was capable of understanding the marriage ceremony and contract. However the trial court found that the marriage was contracted by appellant for the sole purpose of obtaining respondent's property, ¹ and while respondent was under the complete domination of the appellant and was influenced by her fraudulent misrepresentations. It found that the domination and fraud continued after the marriage and that, although there had been voluntary cohabitation by the respondent after disclosure of the factual misrepresentations, the domination and control of the appellant over the respondent's will never ceased.

There are numerous assignments of error. Several of these have not been argued in appellant's brief and will not be further considered. State v. Davis, 60 Wash.2d 233, 373 P.2d 128 (1962).

The remaining assignments raise four issues: (1) the propriety of the property settlement made in the instant case; (2) the jurisdictional standing of a guardian to seek annulment or divorce in behalf of his ward; (3) the effect of the subsequent death of the ward upon the jurisdiction of this court over the subject matter of the marriage; and (4) the quantum of evidence required, and the elements involved, in the assertion of a fraud upon one whose competence is simultaneously brought into question.

The first issue is dependent upon the court's power to act. In other words, if a divorce was a proper remedy for the asserted wrong, the property of both parties was within the jurisdiction of the trial court. RCW 26.08.110. The settlement made was one within the broad discretion of the trial court in such matters. See Mumm v. Mumm, 63 Wash.2d 349, 387 P.2d 547 (1963). On the other hand, if annulment was the proper remedy, restoration of the status quo ante, with such equitable modifications as were within the sound discretion of the trial court, would be proper. In view of the foregoing, we find no abuse of discretion and no merit in the first issue raised by the appellant.

The second issue raises problems of some difficulty. It is generally held that a guardian has no standing to bring an action for the divorce of his ward without specific statutory authorization. The action for annulment is not so limited, it being relatively common to allow the guardian standing to bring such an action. See Annot. 6 A.L.R.3d 681 (1966). To the extent that the grounds for divorce express injuries personal to the parties to the marriage, while those of annulment represent legal impediments to the creation of a valid marital relation, such a rule is sound.

Prior to the enactment of the Divorce Act of 1949, the problem in this case would have been rather easily resolved as the proper relief for one in the respondent's position would have been an annulment. Appellant urges, however, that in Saville v. Saville, 44 Wash.2d 793, 271 P.2d 432 (1954), this court construed RCW 26.04.130, ² dealing with voidable marriages, and a section of the Divorce Act of 1949, RCW 26.08.020, ³ as to make divorce the Exclusive remedy for marriages voidable '(w)hen either party to a marriage shall be incapable of consenting thereto, for want of legal age or a sufficient understanding, or when the consent of either party shall be obtained by force or fraud, * * *.' RCW 26.04.130. ⁴

The remedy of annulment is not generally favored. Its growth in the state of New York as a substitute for divorce--occasioned by that state's very limited grounds for divorce--exerted a warping effect upon the law throughout the United States. Annulments have been condemned as bastardizing children, cutting wives off without alimony and providing quick marriage terminations without adequate residence requirements. Many of these criticisms are no longer valid. Statutory relief such as RCW 26.08.060 insures that the issue of the marriage will not be bastardized.

Further, the statement of the courts' jurisdiction as to persons and property and the breadth of its discretion contained in RCW 26.08.110 makes no distinction between divorce and annulment for the purposes of property settlement and custody, care, and support of minor children. The statute has been construed to authorize the grant of alimony in annulment cases, Jones v. Jones, 48 Wash.2d 862, 296 P.2d 1010, 54 A.L.R.2d 1403 (1956), as well as in divorce. Loomis v. Loomis, 47 Wash.2d 468, 288 P.2d 235 (1955).

In light of the course of the legislative enactment and decisional law in this state, a policy regard for the interests of the wife or children for financial or familial reasons would appear to show no further reasons, other than the residence and waiting period requirements, for preferring divorce to annulment as the proper remedy for a marriage voidable because the consent thereto was by force or fraud. See H. Clark, Domestic Relations § 2.15, n. 7 (1968).

However, Saville, supra, in determining that divorce was the exclusive remedy for dissolving marriages which are voidable under RCW 26.04.130, did not merge that statute into the statute dealing with grounds for divorce, RCW 26.08.020. RCW 26.08.020 contains a number of different bases for a claim for relief, as to which divorce is the proper remedy. Most of the sections of RCW 26.08.020 deal with personal injuries arising after the establishment of a valid marital relationship. Consequently, it would be inappropriate for a guardian to seek to terminate a marriage validly entered into. However, RCW 26.04.130 deals with infirmities amounting to a defect in the marriage contract from the outset. These infirmities are not personal injuries arising after the commencement of the marital relationship, but rather inhere in the lack of consent to the marriage and are, thus, a legal impediment to the validity of the marriage itself.

Just because the remedy is now divorce does not mean that the policy reasons for allowing guardians to seek an annulment do not also apply in this situation.

Under the guardianship statute, the guardian has power to represent his ward in all matters, and to sue and be sued. RCW 11.92.060. RCW 26.04.130 authorizes the voiding of those marriages which fall under it 'at the suit of the party laboring under the disability, or upon whom the force or fraud is imposed.' It would be a...