Page v. Page

• Citation: 255 Ga. 145,335 S.E.2d 865
• Decision Date: 05 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. 42362,42362
• Parties: PAGE v. PAGE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 865

335 S.E.2d 865

255 Ga. 145

PAGE v. PAGE.

No. 42362.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Nov. 5, 1985.

Robert L. Wadkins, Frandsen & Wadkins, Columbus, for Ursula page.

Alexander V. Pinter, Oates & Byars, Columbus, for Albert A. Page.

SMITH, Justice.

We granted Ursula Page's application to appeal the Muscogee County Superior Court's grant of Albert Page's motion to set aside a judgment awarding appellant, Mrs. Page, a divorce and alimony. She raises four enumerations of error. We reverse.

Ursula and Albert Page were married in May, 1975. On June 10, 1983, Mr. Page, who was apparently stationed in the Army in southern Oklahoma, filed for divorce in Harris County, Texas. At that time, Mrs. Page resided in Muscogee County, Georgia, where Mr. Page had been stationed at Fort Benning.

On August 19, 1983, before she had been served with notice of the Texas divorce case, Mrs. Page filed for divorce and alimony in Muscogee County. Mr. Page was served with notice of the Georgia divorce proceedings on August 25, 1983. Mrs. Page was served with notice of the Texas divorce on November 9, 1983.

Mr. Page filed an answer in the Georgia case on October 3, 1983. He admitted jurisdiction and requested a jury trial. Mrs. Page filed an answer in the Texas case on November 18, 1983. She contested personal and subject matter jurisdiction.

The Texas Court awarded Mr. Page a divorce on January 11, 1984, but the award was set aside on January 27, 1984, because Mr. Page's Texas counsel had notified Mr. Page's Georgia counsel rather than Mrs. Page's counsel of the trial date in Texas. Mrs. Page's attorney was notified of the date of the new trial on February 15, 1984. At the new trial, the Texas Court granted Mr. Page a divorce, awarded Mrs. Page a house in Columbus, and awarded the parties any personal property in their possession. Neither Mrs. Page nor her attorney attended the Texas trial.

On April 3, 1984, a Muscogee County jury awarded Mrs. Page a divorce, $900.00 monthly alimony, and $500.00 attorney fees. The jury also awarded Mrs. Page a 1977 Chrysler automobile, and "household goods and furnishings." On January 30, 1985, the Muscogee County Superior Court granted Mr. Page's motion to set aside the Georgia divorce and grant of alimony on the grounds that the judgment of divorce in Texas should have been granted full faith and credit, and therefore should have divested the Georgia court of subject matter jurisdiction in the case.

1. Mrs. Page claims that the Muscogee County Superior Court did not lose jurisdiction over her action for divorce and alimony under full faith and credit by reason of the Texas judgment of divorce.

a. In Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279 (1942), a man and a woman, residents of North Carolina, moved to Nevada for the six-week period necessary to establish domicile for divorce purposes, divorced their respective spouses and married one another. When they moved back to North Carolina, shortly after their marriage, the state, possibly at the behest of the jilted spouses, prosecuted them for bigamy. They appealed the North Carolina Supreme Court's affirmance of their bigamy convictions State v. Williams, 220 N.C. 445, 17 S.E.2d 769 (1941), to the United States Supreme Court.

The Court initially stated that "each state, by virtue of its command over its domiciliaries and its large interest in the institution of marriage, can alter within its own borders the marriage status of the spouse domiciled there, even though the other spouse is absent." Williams, supra, U.S. at 298-299, 63 S.Ct. at 213. The Court then held that the divorce granted one spouse in one state will bind the other spouse in his or her domicile if the requirements of procedural due process are met. As Mrs. Page has not sufficiently contested the Texas court's jurisdiction over her, and as the Texas court altered Mr. Page's marital status, we find that as a matter of full faith and credit, the Texas divorce should be recognized in Georgia. Williams, supra.

b. The Texas court did not rule upon the issue of alimony. In Armstrong v. Armstrong, 350 U.S. 568, 76 S.Ct. 629, 100 L.Ed. 705 (1955), a case factually similar to this case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a judgment of divorce in one state for one spouse that does not recognize the issue of alimony, will not, by reason of full faith and credit, bar a subsequent action for alimony in another state by the other spouse. Thus, under the facts of this case, the doctrine of full faith and credit requires recognition of the Texas divorce, but the United States Constitution does not bar Mrs. Page's action for alimony. We must turn to Georgia law to determine the effect of a valid Texas divorce upon the issue of subject matter jurisdiction in Mrs. Page's claims for divorce and alimony.

2. In Chalfant v. Raines, 244 Ga. 747, 262 S.E.2d 63 (1979), this court considered the subject matter jurisdiction of a superior court in an alimony action independent of a divorce or an action for separate maintenance. The court held, "[a]n alimony proceeding need not be ancillary to a divorce proceeding to be valid." Id. at 748, 262 S.E.2d 63. Superior courts clearly possess " 'jurisdiction of the class of cases to which [alimony cases] belong.' Zeagler v. Zeagler, 192 Ga. 453, 456 (15 S.E.2d 478) (1941);" Hopkins v. Hopkins, 237 Ga. 845, 846, 229 S.E.2d 751 (1976).

The Chalfant court distinguished a separate, procedural, bar, found in OCGA § 19-6-27, against an alimony suit independent of a divorce suit or a suit for separate...