Gross v. Wickfeldt

28 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 333, 1931 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1568
CourtCourt of Common Pleas of Ohio, Hamilton County
DecidedMarch 11, 1931
StatusPublished

This text of 28 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 333 (Gross v. Wickfeldt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Common Pleas of Ohio, Hamilton County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gross v. Wickfeldt, 28 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 333, 1931 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1568 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1931).

Opinion

Matthews, J.

The plaintiff in this action secured a divorce from the defendant herein, Henry Otto Wickfeldt, at the October term in the year 1905, in cause No. 131237 upon the docket of this court, and in the decree she was awarded alimony in the sum of Five Hundred ($500) Dollars, and the defendant was ordered to immediately pay it, which, however, he has not done. Recently his father died, leaving a last will in which he was named legatee, and on December 2, 1930, an order of distribution was made in the Probate Court in the administration case.

This action is a creditor’s bill in which the plaintiff has joined her former husband and the executor of his father’s [334]*334estate, and seeks to have the legacy of Henry Otto Wickfeldt under said will subjected to the payment of the judgment or decree for alimony.

The defendant Henry Otto Wickfeldt has filed an answer admitting that he is one of the devisees and legatees under the will of his father, probated in this county on September 9, 1929, and that said estate has been fully administered and that on December 2, 1930, an order of distribution was made, under which there will be a certain sum distributed to him. He also admits that at the October term 1905, the Court of Common Pleas of this county entered a decree of divorce in favor of the plaintiff in cause No. 131237, and that said decree included an award of $500 as alimony.

By way of defense he alleges that when said divorce and alimony action was commenced and at all times during its pendency his domicile and residence was in the state of Missouri and had been for a long time before that and so continued to be for a long period thereafter, during' which time he was not within the state of Ohio, and that he at no time had any property, real or personal, within the state of- Ohio, and that no summons was served on him, nor other notice given him of the commencement or pendency of the suit, except by constructive service, and further, that he did not discover or learn of the judgment rendered in said case until the commencement of this action, and as a conclusion he alleges that said Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county was without jurisdiction of his person and that the money judgment in said decree is void.

The plaintiff by way of amended reply admits that in said cause No. 131237 service was had upon Henry Otto Wickfeldt by publication, for the reason that his whereabouts were unknown to the plaintiff, and denies every other allegation contained in the answer .

The cause comes before the court upon the defendant’s demurrer to the amended reply and his motion for judgment on the pleadings'.

This summary of the pleadings is sufficient to disclose that this is not a case of a wife divorced in a foreign [335]*335jurisdiction on service by publication suing her former husband for alimony. It does not therefore fall within the category in which is found Cox v. Cox, 19 Ohio St., 502, 20 Ohio St., 439, and similar cases. It is an action based on the assumption that a valid decree binding the defendant to pay $500 was rendered by this court in 1905 in the divorce and alimony action, and that so far as the obligation to pay is concerned, is res adjudicate. It is a creditor’s bill by a judgment creditor to subject assets that cannot be reached by execution.

If the plaintiff can maintain this action she could enforce the judgment upon which it is based by execution or other proceedings in the original action.

The leading case on this subject, and the one always cited, is that of Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S., 714, in which the court held, as stated in the second paragraph of the syllabus, that:

“A personal judgment is without any validity, if it be rendered by a state court in an action upon a money-demand against a non-resident of the state, who was served by a publication of summons, but upon whom no personal service of process within the state was made, and who did not appear; and no title to property passes by a sale under an execution issued upon such a judgment.”

Counsel for plaintiff, however, earnestly contends that there is a distinction between the enforcement of a judgment in a sister state and its enforcement in the courts of the same state in which it was rendered. The court fails to see any ground for such a distinction.

The Full Faith and Credit provision of the Constitution is not involved in this inquiry. It is the Due Process provision that is violated, and when that provision is involved, there is no distinction between enforcement in another court of the same state and a court of a sister state, nor is there any distinction when the enforcement is attempted in the same court and case in which the judgment was rendered. The constitutional requirement is stated in 6 Ruling Case Law, pp. 448 and 449, under the heading of’ “Due P rocess of Law,” as follows:

[336]*336■“Whenever a judgment purely in personam is sought, personal service upon the defendant is indispensable; in the absence of consent to substituted service, and in the absence of property of the defendant in the state, which is the subject or object of the action, nothing short of service of a summons upon the defendant personally within the state or his appearance in the action constitutes that due process of law which will give the necessary jurisdiction to a court of the state to render a personal judgment against a non-resident.”

And on page 450 it is said:

“Service by publication, or in any other authorized form, is sufficient to answer the requirement of due process of law where property is once brought under the control of the court by seizure or some equivalent act. The law assumes that property is always in the possession of its owner, in person or by agent, and proceeds upon the theory that its seizure will inform him that it is taken into the custody of the court and that he must look to any proceedings authorized by law upon such seizure for its condemnation and sale.”

In the annotation to the case of Stallings v. Stallings, 9 Lawyer’s Reports Annotated (N. S.), 593, the author summarizes the result of the application of this constitutional provision to alimony cases as follows:

“A personal decree or judgment for alimony, rendered in a proceeding for divorce, in favor of the wife against her non-resident husband, not served with process within the state but brought before the court only constructively 'by publication of notice to appear, or by a personal service of such notice in another state, in the absence of a voluntary appearance, is void, not only in the state where rendered, but in every other jurisdiction as well.”

Cases from fifteen states are cited in support of the annotation and no cases to the contrary.

In the more recent case of Closson v. Closson, 29 L. R. A., 1371, the Supreme Court of Wyoming held that:

“A valid personal judgment for money cannot be rendered against a non-resident who has not been served with process within the state, and has not appeared in the action.”

[337]*337In the annotation at 1381, the annotator has this to say on this subject:

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Related

Pennoyer v. Neff
95 U.S. 714 (Supreme Court, 1878)
Freeman v. Alderson
119 U.S. 185 (Supreme Court, 1886)
Reed v. Reed
167 N.E. 684 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1929)

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Bluebook (online)
28 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 333, 1931 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1568, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gross-v-wickfeldt-ohctcomplhamilt-1931.