Grattan v. Tillman

1957 OK 261, 323 P.2d 982, 1957 Okla. LEXIS 665
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 22, 1957
Docket37356
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 1957 OK 261 (Grattan v. Tillman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grattan v. Tillman, 1957 OK 261, 323 P.2d 982, 1957 Okla. LEXIS 665 (Okla. 1957).

Opinion

PIALLEY, Justice.

This is an action by Mary M. Grattan ■ against Beverly E. Tillman, Ida S. Gassa-way and Josephine H. Theimer, seeking, a judgment declaring an alimony judgment held by her against her former husband, Thomas E. Grattan, to be a first and prior, lien against the following land in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, to-wit:

“Lots 9 and 10, Block 2, Fitzhugh Place, being a subdivision of Lots 7 and 8, Alta Vista Addition .to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.”

She further prayed that her judgment lien be foreclosed, the land sold and the proceeds applied to the payment of her judgment for alimony.

The judgment in favor of Mary M. Grattan was for permanent alimony in the sum of $2,000, against Thomas E. Grattan, her former husband. It was rendered by the District Court of Oklahoma County, May 14, 1954, and filed May 28, 1954, on the judgment docket of that County.

Mary M. Grattan sued her husband for divorce, child support and a division of their jointly acquired property, including the land above described and here referred to as the “home place” and alimony. We find it necessary to set out the pertinent portions of the divorce decree. After granting Mary M. Grattan a divorce and providing for child support the court decreed that Mary M. Grattan should receive “* * * as her sole and separate property, free and clear of any claim or right of the defendant therein, the following: All household furniture, furnishings, and effects * * * ”, two automobiles and “That defendant should pay to plaintiff forthwith, as her reasonable alimony in money, the sum of.$2,000; That the defendant should pay, * * * all debts, bills, accounts, and obligations * * * ” incurred during their marriage and that the plaintiff shall have the right to occupy the home place, rent free and free of all other expenses to be paid by the defendant, from May 14th to August 1, 1954.

The court then granted to Thomas E. Grattan “* * * as his sole and separate property, free and clear of any claim or right of plaintiff” the following:

All property not set apart to the plaintiff, including the home place above described, but subject to assuming the mortgage indebtedness thereon,' and subj ect to the right of plaintiff to occupy the same until August 1, 1954, arid a business at 3815 North Lincoln, in Oklahoma City, subject to assuming the mortgage iridebtedness thereon. Defendant was ordered to pay court costs and attorney fees for his wife.

After the divorce decree was granted, Mary M. Grattan executed a quit claim deed conveying all of her right, title and interest in the home place to Thomas E. Grattan. The habendum clause expressly provides that the grantor, nor any one in her behalf “ * * * shall or will hereafter claim or demand any right or title to the said premises or any part thereof; but *984 they and every one of them shall by these presents be excluded and forever barred, * * This quit claim deed contains an obvious error in naming Thomas E. Grattan in lieu of Mary M. Grattan in the latter part thereof but no complaint was made by the plaintiff and the error is so obviously a typographical error that it may be disregarded The quit claim deed was filed for record May 27, 1954, the day before the divorce judgment was filed.

When the divorce judgment was entered, the home place was burdened with a first mortgage to Home State Life Insurance Company in the sum of $5,000 and a second mortgage for $3,000 in favor of Raymond Edward Theimer.

Josephine H. Theimer loaned $8,500 to Beverly E. Tillman and Ida S. Gassaway on February 22, 1955, secured by a mortgage on the home place and the first and second mortgages above described were released February 28 and March 5, 1955.

On May 16, 1955, Mary M. Grattan filed this action and asserted that since the two mortgages existing at the date of the divorce and alimony decree had been released, she had a prior lien on the home place to secure the payment of her alimony judgment for $2,000.

The trial court heard oral testimony and admitted in evidence many exhibits consisting largely of copies of the instruments above mentioned, including a copy of the judgment for divorce, division of property and alimony, and found for the defendants. The plaintiff Mary M. Grattan has appealed. She contends that where in a divorce decree a wife is granted permanent alimony, she is entitled to a lien on the home place awarded to her husband to secure the payment of her alimony. She further contends that the present defendants who purchased the home place after her judgment was entered on the judgment docket, are charged with notice of her judgment for alimony. She makes no mention of the quit claim deed above described, a copy of which was introduced in evidence.

Mary M. Grattan relies upon Section 706, 12 O.S.1951, which provides in part:

“Judgments of courts of record of this State, except County Courts, and of the United States rendered within this State, shall be liens on the real estate of the judgment debtor within the county in which the judgment is rendered from and after the time such judgment is entered on the judgment docket, * * * ”

She also quotes from 27 C.J.S. Divorce § 251, p. 1024 and 1 Ruling Case Law, page 866, and cites Commons v. Bragg, 183 Okl. 122, 80 P.2d 287, 290. However, in that case the court held that “ * * * alimony is not a debt within constitutional or statutory provisions against imprisonment for debt. It being held that an order for the payment of alimony possesses different characteristics from an ordinary debt since it is designed to secure the performance of a legal duty in which the public has an interest. Cain v. Miller, 109 Neb. 441, 191 N.W. 704, 30 A.L.R. 125, and annotation beginning on page 130. * * * ”

In the case relied on by the plaintiff, the wife sought to subject to the payment of an alimony judgment, an award to the husband by the State Industrial Commission. 85 O.S.1951 § 48, provides that such awards shall be free from all claims of creditors and from levy, execution and attachment or other remedy for the collection of a debt. Yet this Court held that such award could be reached and made subject to the payment of alimony.

The only other Oklahoma case cited by plaintiff in her original brief is Stanfield v. Stanfield, 67 Okl. 56, 168 P. 912, 914, wherein it is said:

“Alimony decreed to a wife in a divorce is as much a debt, until the decree is recalled or modified, as any judgment for money is.”

The Stanfield case does not involve the-question here commented upon by the Court and is not in point under the facts in thft-case under consideration.

*985 In Haven v. Trammell, 79 Okl. 309, 193 P. 631, this Court held that:

“Where in a divorce, alimony in money is decreed, which is adjudged to be a lien upon all the real estate owned by the defendant in the state, the homestead of the defendant, owned at the time such judgment is rendered, may be legally levied upon and sold for the payment of the said alimony.”,

in spite of the statute making the homestead exempt from execution.

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Bluebook (online)
1957 OK 261, 323 P.2d 982, 1957 Okla. LEXIS 665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grattan-v-tillman-okla-1957.