In Re Marriage of Schauberger

624 N.E.2d 863, 253 Ill. App. 3d 595, 191 Ill. Dec. 675
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedDecember 6, 1993
Docket2-92-1061
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 624 N.E.2d 863 (In Re Marriage of Schauberger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Marriage of Schauberger, 624 N.E.2d 863, 253 Ill. App. 3d 595, 191 Ill. Dec. 675 (Ill. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

PRESIDING JUSTICE INGLIS

delivered the opinion of the court:

The executor of the estate of Clarence A. Schauberger appeals from an order denying the executor’s motion to expunge or vacate an order entered December 15, 1980, which vacated a dissolution of marriage judgment for Mary C. Schauberger and Clarence A. Schauberger. The executor contends that the order vacating the dissolution of marriage was void because the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction. The sole issue on appeal is whether the trial court had jurisdiction to vacate the dissolution judgment more than 30 days after its entry. For the following reasons, we affirm.

In 1980, Mary C. Schauberger petitioned for dissolution of marriage. The parties stipulated that the matter should be heard as a default, and an order of dissolution was entered on August 29, 1980. On December 15, 1980, the parties jointly filed a motion to vacate the judgment of dissolution of marriage. The motion to vacate was brought pursuant to section 72 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110, par. 72), now section 2 — 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 1401 (West 1992)). The trial court granted the motion to vacate on December 15, 1980, entering an agreed order which stated that the judgment of dissolution was vacated.

Clarence A. Schauberger died in November 1991, and his will was admitted to probate on December 9, 1991. Mary C. Schauberger renounced the will, electing to take her statutory share of the estate. On June 11, 1992, the executor of the estate filed a motion to expunge or to vacate the December 15, 1980, order on the basis that the trial court had been without jurisdiction to vacate the dissolution of marriage judgment. The court denied the executor’s motion to vacate, and this appeal followed.

Preliminarily, we address three arguments advanced by petitioner, Mary C. Schauberger. First, she argues that since the order vacating the dissolution of marriage judgment was an agreed order, it cannot be set aside unless the party seeking to set it aside shows the order resulted from fraudulent misrepresentation, coercion, incompetence of one of the parties, gross disparity in the position or capacity of the parties, or newly discovered evidence. (See In re Haber (1981), 99 Ill. App. 3d 306, 309.) The “agreed order” in this case was actually a proposed draft order of the trial court’s determination that there were sufficient grounds to vacate its earlier order. This does not constitute an agreed order as is discussed in Haber. In Haber, the court noted that an agreed order is a recordation of an agreement between the parties and not a judicial determination of their rights. {Haber, 99 Ill. App. 3d at 309.) Because the order vacating the judgment of dissolution of marriage was not a recordation of an agreement between the parties, the rule stated in Haber is not applicable. See Cooper v. Bi-State Development Agency (1987), 158 Ill. App. 3d 19, 23 (order denying defendant’s motion to dismiss was not agreed order as referred to in Haber even though parties agreed to order).

Petitioner also advances a convoluted argument that since an action for dissolution of marriage abates upon the death of one spouse (see In re Marriage of Black (1987), 155 Ill. App. 3d 52, 53), here the vacation of the dissolution action resurrected the dissolution action and then Clarence Schauberger’s death abated the dissolution action. We reject this argument. Whether the dissolution of marriage judgment action was vacated is the issue to be resolved by this appeal. By assuming that the dissolution order had been vacated, petitioner begs the question.

Petitioner further contends that the motion to vacate or expunge is defective on its face as it was brought on behalf of the estate instead of the executor. An estate lacks the capacity to sue or be sued, and any action must be brought by or against the executor or representative of the estate. (Wisemantle v. Hull Enterprises, Inc. (1981), 103 Ill. App. 3d 878, 881.) Here, the attorney who appeared and argued on behalf of the motion to vacate or expunge stated that he represented the executor of the estate of Clarence A. Schauberger. This assertion was not challenged by petitioner. In light of these facts, it seems clear that the motion to vacate was brought by the executor, and the designation of the estate as the moving party amounted to a misnomer subject to correction, not dismissal. See Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 110, par. 2 — 401(b) (now 735 ILCS 5/2 — 401(b) (West 1992)).

Turning to the executor’s arguments on appeal, the executor contends that the Illinois Supreme Court case of Meyer v. Meyer (1951), 409 Ill. 316, is controlling. In that case, the court held that the trial court had no jurisdiction to vacate a judgment of dissolution of marriage nine months after the entry of the judgment. (Meyer, 409 Ill. at 321.) Similarly, in Bratkovich v. Bratkovich (1962), 34 Ill. App. 2d 122, 126, the appellate court held that the trial court had no jurisdiction to vacate a judgment of dissolution of marriage more than 30 days after the entry of the judgment. Relying on those two cases, the executor contends that the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to vacate the dissolution of marriage judgment and therefore the order vacating the judgment of dissolution is void. The executor further argues that the court was not revested with subject-matter jurisdiction by the filing of Clarence and Mary Schauberger’s joint petition pursuant to section 72 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110, par. 72).

At the time that Meyer was decided, there was no procedure for vacating judgments more than 30 days but less than 2 years from the date of the entry of judgment such as is now embodied in section 2— 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 110, par. 2 — 1401 (now 735 ILCS 5/2 — 1401 (West 1992))), and was formerly embodied in section 72 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 110, par. 72) when the parties in the case at bar sought to vacate the dissolution judgment. Similarly, in Bratkovich, the court was not faced with a petition to vacate pursuant to section 72. The Bratkovich court relied on Meyer to hold that the court had no subject-matter jurisdiction to enter an order vacating a dissolution of marriage judgment. (Bratkovich, 34 Ill. App. 2d at 124.) We also note that in a recent case, In re Marriage of Kane (1993), 249 Ill. App. 3d 412, 414, the appellate court held that it had no jurisdiction to vacate a judgment of dissolution 17 months after it was entered on the basis of a petition to vacate not brought pursuant to section 2 — 1401 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In Kane, the trial court had improperly vacated a judgment of dissolution of marriage based on a petition to vacate alleging that the petitioner had failed to establish sufficient grounds for the judgment of dissolution. We must decide whether a different result is mandated in the case at bar because the parties brought the motion to vacate pursuant to section 72 of the Civil Practice Act.

Generally, a trial court loses jurisdiction over the subject matter in a divorce proceeding after 30 days following the entry of a final order therein. (Kelly v. Kelly (1982), 105 Ill. App.

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Bluebook (online)
624 N.E.2d 863, 253 Ill. App. 3d 595, 191 Ill. Dec. 675, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-marriage-of-schauberger-illappct-1993.