Shirley v. Shirley, 159

• Decision Date: 22 January 1958
• Docket Number: No. 159,159
• Citation: 100 So.2d 450
• Parties: Bessie SHIRLEY, Appellant, v. C. H. SHIRLEY, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 450

100 So.2d 450

Bessie SHIRLEY, Appellant, v. C. H. SHIRLEY, Appellee.

No. 159.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Jan. 22, 1958.

Rehearing Denied March 3, 1958.

Joe E. Hodges and Cecil T. Farrington, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Henry Arrington and Herbert M. Klein, Miami, for appellee.

KANNER, Chief Judge.

Final decree of divorce was entered in favor of the appellee husband with the court finding that the appellant wife had been guilty of adultery. The appeal is from this determination, the basis therefor being that in a prior action by the appellant the adultery offense had been adjudicated. The appellee will be referred to as the husband, and the appellant, the wife.

This was a divorce action filed by the husband on the grounds of extreme cruelty and adultery. The wife interposed an answer denying the acts alleged and raised the defense of res judicata as to the extreme cruelty and adultery charges. The res judicata defense was upheld as to the extreme cruelty ground. The basis for the res judicata defense as to adultery was that, in a previous separate maintenance action brought by the wife with the husband counterclaiming for divorce upon the ground of extreme cruelty, the husband had offered testimony concerning the act of adultery charged in the present case. In the separate maintenance action the husband had not plead adultery as a defense nor as a ground for divorce, nor was there any amendment to conform to the evidence, but he had specifically sought divorce upon the ground of extreme cruelty. The wife interposed motion to strike the adultery testimony offered in the separate maintenance action. The court withheld ruling and it does not appear that ruling was ever made.

The court in the separate maintenance action found for the wife and against the husband, making this specific finding:

'That the plaintiff has sustained the material allegations of her Complaint and the defendant has failed to sustain the material allegations of his Counterclaim.'

In the instant case, the court by its pretrial order found:

'Upon consideration of the pleadings, Defendant urged and orally moved the Court to strike from Plaintiff's Complaint the allegations of adultery on the part of Defendant, for that such charge was heard and tried in an earlier proceeding between the parties and thus became barred according to the principles of res judicata and/or estoppel by judgment, all as more particularly appears in Defendant's Answer. The Court having examined the record of the earlier proceeding, namely Shirley v. Shirley, Chancery No. 21493, Broward County, Florida, same consisting of the pleadings, only, finds that adultery was not alleged by Defendant as a defense or a part of his counterclaim, nor does it appear in any part of the record. The ground of adulterly then is not barred in the pending cause.'

And by its final decree found:

'The matter of Defendant's adultery was neither adjudicated nor was it required that same be adjudicated in the case of Shirley v. Shirley, Chancery No. 21493, Broward County, Florida, and, therefore, that cause is not a bar to this proceeding.'

The doctrines of res judicata and estoppel by judgment have been clearly differentiated in a number of Florida cases. In the case of Gordon v. Gordon, Fla.1952 59 So.2d 40, 44, the Supreme Court thus drew the distinction:

'The difference which we consider exists between res adjudicata and estoppel by judgment is that under res adjudicata a final decree or judgment bars a subsequent suit between the same parties based upon the same cause of action and is conclusive as to all matters germane thereto that were or could have been raised, while the principle of estoppel by judgment is applicable...