Mccotter v. Carle

• Decision Date: 22 December 1927
• Parties: J. K. MCCOTTER v. BELLE E. CARLE.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 584

149 Va. 584

J. K. MCCOTTER v. BELLE E. CARLE.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

December 22, 1927.

1. FORMER ADJUDICATION OR RES ADJUDICATA — Action by Divorced Wife Against her Former Husband — Plea that Plaintiff was Barred by Decree in Suit for Divorce — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by a divorced wife against her former husband for money for which she claimed he was indebted to her. Defendant entered a plea of former adjudication and vouched the record in the divorce suit. Nothing could be found in this record upon which reliance could be had for the contention that it had the effect of a former judgment and estopped the plaintiff in the instant case. The bill contained the usual recitals as to the marriage and the jurisdictional essentials, alleged that the defendant deserted the plaintiff, and concluded with the statement that at the time of the marriage both defendant and plaintiff possessed real estate situated in Virginia. The prayer of the bill made no reference to any property rights of the parties except such as arose out of the marriage. No alimony was decreed, nor were the property rights of the parties decreed upon.

Held: That the claims in the instant case were in no way in issue, nor involved, nor passed upon in the divorce suit.

2. EQUITY — Jurisdiction — Complete Relief. — When a court of equity has acquired jurisdiction of a case on any equitable ground, it will proceed to grant complete relief, even to the extent of enforcing legal rights.

3. FORMER ADJUDICATION OR RES ADJUDICATA — Estoppel as to Matters which Might have been Litigated. — When a subsequent case is between the same parties and upon the same cause of action, judgment in the former case estops the parties as to all matters litigated or which might have been litigated in the former suit.

4. FORMER ADJUDICATION OF RES ADJUDICATA — Judgment in Divorce Case not a Bar to Action for Debt by Divorced Wife — Estoppel as to Matters that might have been Litigated — Equitable Jurisdiction — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by a divorced wife against her former husband for a debt. The defendant pleaded former adjudication and vouched the record of a divorce suit in which a divorce had been denied the wife. It was argued for the defendant that in the divorce suit an issue was joined upon the claim asserted by the plaintiff in the instant case, and though no evidence was adduced in respect to it, yet as the court found that plaintiff had failed to establish a case entitling her to the relief prayed for by the bill, this was an adjudication, conclusive upon the parties not only as to every question actually raised and decided, but as to every claim which properly belonged to the subject of litigation.

Held: That the court having denied the divorce, the property rights of the parties in no sense constituted demands, which properly belonged to the subject of the controversy and might have been litigated. Therefore, the decree in the divorce suit was not a bar to the present action. Nor did the court of equity acquire jurisdiction of the divorce suit upon any equitable grounds; its jurisdiction was entirely statutory.

5. DIVORCE — Proceedings in Rem — Equitable Jurisdiction. — A suit for divorce is in its essence and character qualifiedly a proceeding in rem, and is very different from a transitory cause of action, and does not involve an appeal to the general jurisdiction of the equity forum.

6. DIVORCE — Power to Grant — Inherent Jurisdiction of Law or Equity — Jurisdiction Statutory. — Power to grant divorces originally resided in the legislature; neither the law courts nor the equity courts have any inherent power to dissolve marriage, and the authority in any court to decree a divorce is purely statutory.

7. DIVORCE — Jurisdiction — Chapter 205 of the Code of 1919 — Divorce Cases Differentiated from Ordinary Suits in Equity. — Chapter 205 of the Code of 1919, enacted in obedience to the mandate of section 63 of the Constitution of 1902, provides that every court "exercising chancery jurisdiction" shall have jurisdiction of divorce suits. The many limitations, both in respect to jurisdiction and procedure, placed upon divorce suits by the statute, differentiate the divorce case from ordinary suits in equity and render it a chancery case sui generis. The divorce jurisdiction is derived solely from the statute.

8. DIVORCE — Property Rights — Adjudication Independent of an Award of the Divorce — Divorce Denied. — Although woman is now largely freed from all marital disabilities in respect to her separate property and legal rights, and can under proper circumstances maintain an action against her husband in connection therewith, still such an action or assertion of property right cannot be interjected into a divorce suit, and be validly adjudicated independent of and without reference to the award of the divorce. When a divorce is not decreed, the power of the court to consider in any respect the estates or property rights of the parties, whether between themselves or otherwise, is non-existent, in the absence of a grant to the courts of express power to decree as to the property of the parties.

9. DIVORCE — Property Rights — Adjudication where Divorce is Denied — Former Adjudication or Res Adjudicata — Case at Bar. — In the instant case a divorced husband was sued by his former wife for debts contracted before marriage. Plaintiff pleaded former adjudication and vouched the record in a prior suit for divorce in which the divorce had been denied.

Held: That the plea could not be sustained as the divorce was denied, and the court rightly refrained from considering or passing upon any independent cause of action between the parties.

10. DIVORCE — Decree as to Property Rights — Where Divorce is Denied and which Divorce is Granted. — Under the Virginia statute, decreeing as to the property rights of the parties is a mere incident of the granting of a divorce, whether such decree is asked for in the pleadings or not, but it is not an incident of the denying of a decree of divorce.

Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of the city of Hopewell, in a proceeding by motion for a judgment for money. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff assigns error.

The opinion states the case.

J. Toomer Garrow and Chas. T. Morris, for the plaintiff in error.

Archer L. Jones, for the defendant in error.

CRUMP, P., delivered the opinion of the court.

Belle E. Carle secured a verdict and judgment against J. K. McCotter for $500.00 in June, 1926. The parties will be referred to according to their respective positions as plaintiff and defendant in the lower court.

The plaintiff brought her action in March, 1926, by notice of motion against McCotter, in which it was claimed that he was indebted to her in the sum of $1,217.00 and interest. Filed with the notice of motion was the following account of the items claimed:

                (TABLE OMITTED)
                

The items consist of an alleged advance on the purchase of an automobile, of cash advanced to pay certain notes of the defendant, of a further loan of $40.00, and of certain monies due from the defendant as rent.

It appears from the evidence that Belle E. Carle, at the time a widow, was married to the defendant McCotter in August, 1922, and that by a decree of the Corporation Court of Hopewell on July 11, 1925, she was granted a divorce from bed and board from him, which was subsequently, by a decree of December 15, 1925, merged into and made a decree of divorce from the bond of matrimony, with leave to the plaintiff to abandon the name of McCotter and to resume her former name of Mrs. Belle E. Carle.

The transactions out of which the debts alleged to be due arose, occurred prior to the marriage of the parties in 1922. An automobile was purchased in December, 1920, the title to which was transferred to McCotter, who executed the deferred payment purchase notes, but with the agreement that Mrs. Carle was to pay one-half of the purchase money, and the car was to become their joint property. It was out of the purchase of this automobile that the first two items of the account originated. There was some insistence in argument on behalf of plaintiff in error that the purchase of the automobile and the dealings of the parties concerning its use constituted a partnership. It is sufficient to say that the testimony clearly establishes that the automobile was bought and used as joint property, and there is no fundation for the contention that there existed a partnership between the parties in this regard.

There was considerable testimony, much of the evidence being in conflict, and the verdict of the jury was conclusive upon the merits of the case, with the exception of the defense of former judgment or res judicata which was disallowed by the trial court.

In a formal plea of former judgment, the defendant vouched the records in two prior chancery cases between the same parties, the plea being accompanied by a copy of the complete record in each of these cases. The earlier case was a divorce suit brought by Mrs. Carle, then Mrs. McCotter, against her husband, the present defendant in the instant case, in which suit she prayed for a divorce from the bond of matrimony, which was denied by a final decree of October 14, 1924, dismissing the bill. The record in the second case discloses also a divorce suit between the parties, in which Mrs. Carle filed a bill in April, 1925, praying for a divorce on the ground of desertion; in this case she was awarded a divorce from bed and board, which was enlarged into divorce from the bond of matrimony by a final decree in December, 1925.

These two prior chancery causes were between the same parties, and it is insisted on behalf of the defendant that in one or both of these cases a cause of action was alleged identical, totally or partially, with the cause of action in the instant case, and that the final decree in one or both of the cases involved...