True v. True

• Decision Date: 01 January 1861
• Citation: 6 Minn. 315
• Parties: ADELIA B. TRUE vs. CLINTON J. TRUE.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

6 Minn. 315

ADELIA B. TRUEvs.

CLINTON J. TRUE.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Appeal from order of the district court, Washington County.

Points and authorities for appellant: —

1. The decree and judgment were regular, authorized by law, and in accordance with the rules and practice of the district court for Washington County. Comp. Stat., 463, 464; see grounds of motion for judgment, folios 21-22, Return; Minn. Stat., 543, § 88-9; id., 541, § 74; Rule 16 of Law, and 36 of Equity, rules of district court for Washington County, folios 27-8, Return.

2. The district court has no power or authority to vacate a decree and judgment of divorce once granted and entered. The decree of divorce was granted by a court of competent authority, and fully and completely dissolved the marriage contract, and the court has not the power to unite the parties again in matrimony, nolens volens, by a revocation of the decree. Comp. Stat., 539, § 56; id., 463, § 5; id., 466, §§ 29, 30, 31, show that it was contemplated that a decree of divorce should be final.

Points and authorities for respondent: —

1. The decree in this action was improvidently granted, and not authorized by law.

2. Courts of record have control over all judgments or decrees made by them, and have authority to correct or vacate their judgments and decrees, in all cases where a fraud has been perpetrated upon the court. Willard Eq., 163; 6 Wend., 537.

3. The decree in this action, and the judgment entered therein, having been obtained by collusion between the parties, were properly vacated and set aside.

Curtis & Houston, for appellant.

L. E. Thompson, for respondent.

FLANDREAU, J.

This is an action for a divorce, a vinculo matrimonii, brought by the wife against her husband, charging him with adultery, cruel and inhuman treatment, neglect, want of affection, and conduct rendering a dissolution of the marriage contract necessary to the peace and happiness of the wife. The defendant put in an answer which raised no material issue, confessing the charges in effect. A motion was then made by the plaintiff to strike out the answer, and for judgment on the pleadings. The motion was granted by default, no one appearing to oppose it, and a decree entered upon the complaint as confessed, without any proof being taken of the facts charged, dissolving the marriage contract, and awarding the custody of the infant child of the parties to the wife.

The defendant subsequently moved the court to set aside the decree, and allow him to come in and answer upon an affidavit of his own, denying the charges in the complaint, and alleging that one Clarke, a brother-in-law of the plaintiff, had assumed the control of the plaintiff, and had negotiated with the defendant to allow the plaintiff to procure a divorce without the defendant making any defense, and had offered him large sums of money to consent thereto, and had obtained from the attorneys of the plaintiff the draft of an answer that raised no material issue, to be put in, which answer had been actually made, &c. Also, an affidavit of the woman with whom the adultery was specifically charged, denying the same, and the affidavit of L. E. Thompson, that Clarke, the brother-in-law of the plaintiff, had deposited with a banker in St. Paul, the certificate of deposit of another banker in Stillwater, where the parties resided, for the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, to be delivered to the defendant when a decree of divorce and awarding the possession of the child to the plaintiff was obtained, subject to the proviso that the defendant should not interpose any other defense in the action, than the answer that was then in, which was the insufficient answer before spoken of, and that the certificate was subsequently delivered to the defendant.

The motion was opposed, and an affidavit of the plaintiff was read, denying that she knew anything about the facts of collusion, &c., or ever authorized the said Clarke to make any agreement or deposit the certificate, as stated by Thompson. Clarke also swears, that the agreement with the defendant was concerning the custody of the child, and not touching the divorce, and he denies the alleged collusion touching the bad answer, and alleges that the plaintiff was ignorant of his intervention in the matter. One of the plaintiff's attorneys denies positively any knowledge of, or participation in, furnishing the draft answer, and the other member of the firm denies it evasively. Upon this state of facts the court opened the decree, and from the order so made the plaintiff appeals.

The plaintiff's counsel insists that a decree for a divorce may be taken upon a failure to answer, without proof of the facts alleged, as in any other case, and further, that a decree once made in such a case is final, and can neither be appealed from, nor disturbed on motion for any cause.

We will examine two points which seem prominently to be involved in this case, although the first one, as we view it, would be sufficient to decide the whole matter, leaving, as it does, the action of the court in making the decree, without authority of law or jurisdiction. It is the granting the decree without proof. The second point will be, whether a decree so granted, or obtained by collusion of the parties, and fraud upon the court, can be relieved against.

The contract of marriage differs from all other contracts, in being indissoluble by the action of the parties to it, and of perpetually binding obligation until discharged by a competent court. It is the most important of the social relations. It is sanctioned by Divine authority, and recognized by all Christian nations as the palladium of virtue, morality, social order, and the permanent happiness of the human race. To its auspicious influence may be traced the great advances made in civilization, through the elevation of woman to social equality, the education of children, the refinement of manners, the improved sense of justice, the enlightened cultivation of the arts, and the physical development of man; and, above all, is it valuable as awakening in the human heart those chaste and exalted conceptions of virtue, which, in spiritualizing the mind, and subduing the grosser passions of men, give moral character and grandeur to the state. It is the only lawful relation for the continuance of the species, and the perpetuity of the choicest benefits permitted by Providence to the enjoyment of man, and as such should engage the most profound solicitude of the legislator and the courts, to preserve it unsullied in its purity, and transmit it to posterity with its integrity unimpaired.

It is not pretended, that by the mere consent of the parties the marriage contract may be dissolved, and it is for us to determine whether the same end may be attained by the mere form of a statement of the facts charged in a complaint by one of the parties, and the confession of them by the other, without any further proof. The power of granting divorces belonged formerly to the ecclesiastical courts, and was regulated by the canon law. The 105th canon, after reciting, that matrimonial causes required the greatest caution, when the marriage was sought to be dissolved upon any suggestion or pretext whatever, concludes as follows: "We do strictly charge and enjoin, that in all proceedings to divorce, and nullities of matrimony, good circumspection and advice be used; and that the truth, as far as is possible, be sifted out by the depositions of witnesses, and other lawful proofs and evictions; and that credit be not given to the sole confessions of the parties themselves, howsoever taken upon oath, either within or without the court." Devenbagh v. Devenbagh, 5 Paige, 554. The State of New York has, by statute, made a provision to the same effect. 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat., 144, § 35, and has also made full provisions by rules of court, to...