Kathryn W. Meredith v. Richard H. Meredith

226 F.2d 257, 96 U.S. App. D.C. 355, 1955 U.S. App. LEXIS 3047

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: July 7, 1955
• Docket: 11310
• Status: Published

Opinions

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.

This case is before us after rehearing. On April 9, 1953, this court affirmed an order of the District Court which had dismissed a counter-claim of appellant wife for separate maintenance.¹ A petition for rehearing was filed. While that petition was pending the case of Hopson v. Hopson was heard by the court sitting en banc. On January 20, 1955, the opinion and decision of the court in the Hop-son case was promulgated.² Rehearing was then ordered and held in the case at bar. The decision in Hopson makes necessary that the former decision in the present case be reversed.

In April, 1950, both Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were residents of the District of Columbia. The husband, in that month, filed a complaint for absolute divorce. Later that year he moved to dismiss his complaint, on the ground that he had moved to Texas and was no longer resident here. The court granted the motion but permitted the wife to file a counter-claim for separate maintenance. That counter-claim was filed September 1. 1950. Thus the situation at that point was that a claim for maintenance had been filed by the wife in an action brought by the husband in the District of Columbia while both parties were resident here.

In August, 1951, the husband filed a complaint for divorce in Texas and secured a decree there. The wife did not appear in the Texas proceeding, either personally or by attorney, and the decree made no mention of alimony or maintenance. Thereafter the wife’s claim for maintenance, then pending in the District Court here, was tried and was dismissed on the ground that the Texas divorce decree had made the action moot.

The reasoning of Hopson v. Hopson can be stated quite simply. The Supreme Court has held in recent years that the contract of marriage is not a single, indivisible entity but embodies a bundle of rights which are divisible. These include the rights sometimes called “consortium” and also rights to maintenance, alimony, and the custody of children. The Court has held that the marital status as such and the rights of consortium can be terminated by a court which has jurisdiction over either of the parties.³ Then the Court has held ⁴ that the right to maintenance is a personal financial right and ⁵ the right to custody of children is similar to it. But no court has power to deprive a person of a personal right unless it has jurisdiction over him. In Estin v. Estin the Court said: ⁶

“But we are aware of no power which the State of domicile of the debtor has to determine the personal rights of the creditor in the intangible unless the creditor has been personally served or appears in the proceeding. The existence of any such power has been repeatedly denied. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 [24 L.Ed. 565]; Hart v. Sansom, 110 U.S. 151 [3 S.Ct. 586, 28 L.Ed. 101]; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Dunlevy, 241 U.S. 518 [36 S.Ct. 613, 60 L.Ed. 1140].”

Pennoyer v. Neff had established in 1878 that, where the object of an action is to determine personal rights and obligations of defendants, constructive service upon a nonresident is ineffectual for any purpose. There has been no departure from that rule.

Thus the Supreme Court has taught us that the mere marital status, as such, and the rights of consortium can be dissolved by a court having jurisdiction over the plaintiff spouse, but that personal rights of a financial nature, and the corresponding obligations thereunder, can be adjudicated only by a court having jurisdiction over the defendant. To understand the rules resulting from this series of cases one has only to read the vivid and vigorous dissent of Mr. Justice Jackson in Rice v. Rice.⁷

In Hopson v. Hopson we merely applied the principles of the Supreme Court cases above referred to. We must do the same here. It follows that the Texas decree, even though valid as to the marital status of the Merediths and the consortium rights of both spouses, could not destroy Mrs. Meredith’s right to claim maintenance, a financial right. Her claim to maintenance was filed in the District of Columbia in an action in which the court here had jurisdiction over the husband because he had brought the action. The Texas court had no jurisdiction over the wife and so could not deprive her of this financial right. It was therefore error for the District Court to dismiss the claim to maintenance as moot because of the Texas decree.

Sometimes, obviously, the fact that a plaintiff woman is, or is not, presently the wife of the defendant man may be among the equitable considerations which are relevant and material to the issue of maintenance. For example, a long delay in bringing the action may present one problem if the woman is still the wife and another problem if she has not been the wife for the years of the delay; and circumstances attending a prior divorce action — -for example, the wife’s knowledge, acquiescence, conduct, etc. — may bear upon her later claim to equitable relief. And so in some circumstances the validity of a prior divorce may be among the pertinent equitable considerations upon the trial of an action for maintenance. Hopson so teaches but warns that such collateral attacks upon divorces ought not to be permitted unless necessary. In the case at bar Mrs. Meredith’s claim was filed before her husband’s action in Texas was filed and while she was his wife. Whether the Texas divorce was valid or invalid would thus appear to be immaterial to her claim to maintenance; the circumstances surrounding the divorce, her course of action in regard to it, etc., may be material to her claims upon equity.

There is in the District of Columbia a statute⁸ which provides in effect that any “husband” who fails to provide maintenance may be ordered to pay it. The statute is mentioned in many opinions in this field. It is sometimes argued that when a man is not a “husband” he has no obligation to support his wife or children. The point is not pertinent here, because Mr. Meredith was the husband when the claim to maintenance was filed against him. But we point out again, as we did in the former opinion in this case, that this court has long and many times held that equity will compel a father to support his children and his wife quite apart from apparent restrictions in the statute. In our former opinion in this case we cited cases from 1893, 1903 and 1917 down to 1944 and 1953. Hopson held to that view, and we continue to adhere to it.

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.

1 . Meredith v. Meredith, 204 F.2d 64.

2 . 95 U.S.App.D.C. 285, 221 F.2d 839.

3 . Williams v. State of North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279 (1942) (frequently called the first Williams case).

4 . Estin v. Estin, 334 U.S. 541, 68 S.Ct. 1213, 92 L.Ed. 1561 (1948).

5 . May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 73 S.Ct. 840, 97 L.Ed. 1221 (1953).

6 . Supra note 4, 334 U.S. at page 548, 68 S. Ct. at page 1218. It is interesting to note parenthetically that, contrary to some views since expressed, the conclusion in Estin v. Estin was not premised upon some peculiar nature of the judgment in the New York courts but proceeded from the premise that the New York judgment was a property interest and that jurisdiction over such an interest can “only arise from control or power over the persons whose relationships are the source of the rights and obligations.” Ibid. Thus the core of Estin v. Estin is jurisdiction over intangible property rights, not some peculiar characteristic of a judgment.

7 . 336 U.S. 674, 676, 69 S.Ct. 751, 93 L. Ed. 957 (1949).

8 . 31 Stat. 1346 (1901), as amended, D.O. Code 1951, § 16-415.