Robinson v. Robinson
| Citation | 18 So.2d 29,154 Fla. 464 |
| Parties | ROBINSON v. ROBINSON. |
| Decision Date | 16 May 1944 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Duval County; DeWitt T. Gray judge.
Laura H Hyde, of Jacksonville, for appellant.
Will O Murrell, of Jacksonville, for appellee.
Appellant represented to the court in her motion for writ of garnishment that appellee had failed to pay alimony awarded her by a decree. She added the statement that he 'was to pay * * * for the use and benefit of her attorneys * * * the sum of $250.00, and the further sum of $20.60 for costs of Court in the above styled cause.' (Italics furnished.) The writ issued, and the garnishee answered.
Meanwhile appellee moved to dismiss the proceeding on the ground that the decree was voidable because the parties had never been married, and to dissolve the garnishment on the specific grounds of the absence of any legal marriage, the failure of the testimony to prove the plaintiff's charge of adultery, and the unjustness of the allotments for alimony.
It seems only necessary to state, with reference to these aspects of the assault, that they were not only calculated to introduce issues foreign to the controversy, but they obviously constituted a collateral attack upon the final decree, and could not, therefore, be recognized as causes for dismissal or dissolution of the action in garnishment.
Added were the general grounds of the insufficiency of the motion for the writ of garnishment and the illegality of the proceeding, and it is under these that we must search for the defects which the trial judge considered fatal to appellant's case when he sustained appellee's position.
Although appellant's original motion is not very definite, it may be gleaned from it and the writ which eventually issued that the amount she sought to collect was the sum of (1) the alimony which had accrued pursuant to the decree and (2) fees and costs which were reduced to judgment in that decree. It seems that the latter item would be governed by the general law relative to garnishment after judgment, but it occurs to us that the former does not fall in the same category.
Allotments for permanent alimony do not become liens when made because from their very nature they are indeterminate and inconclusive. Dickenson v. Sharpe, 94 Fla. 25, 113 So. 638. They may be adjusted or revised because of change in circumstances of the parties, or they may be discontinued because of remarriage of the wife or the death of one party. Such allowances may, of course, become judgments if after default a competent court adjudges them due and payable, Gaffny v. Gaffny, 129 Fla. 172, 176 So. 68, although relief is usually accomplished in contempt proceedings. Vinson v Vinson, 139 Fla. 146, 190 So. 454.
It has been insisted by counsel for the appellant that the garnishment proceeding in the lower court was not instituted under Chapter 77, Florida Statutes, 1941, and F.S.A., but that she relied only upon Section 65.13, Florida Statutes, 1941, and F.S.A. The purpose of the latter, originally enacted as Chapter 4973, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1901, was twofold: to extend the remedy of garnishment to cases arising from the noncompliance with orders for the payment of alimony and suit money; and to impound monies due public officials.
After stating the first proposition the legislature was at pains to prescribe the procedure to be followed where the money represented the salary due a public official, but omitted further reference to wages of an individual not in the public service. Abridged to contain only the language applicable to cases like the present one the law simply provides that 'So much as the court in its discretion may order of the moneys or other things due to any person * * * whether the head of a family or not residing in this state when the money or other thing is due for the personal labor or service of such person or otherwise, shall be subject to * * * garnishment to enforce...
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...1968)). Alternatively, a trial court may award a money judgment for default, although contempt is the usual remedy. Robinson v. Robinson, 154 Fla. 464, 18 So.2d 29, 30 (1944) (citing Vinson v. Vinson, 139 Fla. 146, 190 So. 454 (1939)). Payments for equitable distribution, on the other hand,......
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