Ruppert v. Ruppert

134 F.2d 497, 77 U.S. App. D.C. 65, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 2447

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: December 15, 1942
• Docket: 7788
• Status: Published

Opinions

STEPHENS, Associate Justice:

This is an appeal from a final decree of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia dismissing the complaint of the appellant (Mrs. Catherine Ruppert) in which she sought a limited divorce, separate maintenance,; and an injunction restraining the appellee from prosecuting a divorce proceeding in Florida. In her complaint the appellant alleged marriage to the appellee, cruelty and desertion, and also that the appellee had instituted a divorce suit against her in Florida, notwithstanding the fact that the marital domicile of the parties was in the District of Columbia, for the purpose of defrauding her of her rights under the marital status. The appellee’s answer to the complaint admitted the marriage, charged that desertion was by the appellant, and asserted a final decree in Florida of absolute divorce.¹ After an initial hearing the trial court announced in a memorandum opinion that the appellant was entitled to the relief sought. The court made no findings of fact and stated no conclusions of law and entered no judgment. The appellee then filed a motion for a new trial upon the ground, among others, of newly discovered evidence. He asserted that a Virginia decree, antedating his marriage with the appellant, which purported to dissolve a marriage between the latter and one Kirke Kibler, was invalid for the reason that the appellant, who was plaintiff in the Virginia suit, had lived not in Virginia, but in the District of Columbia, during the year ('required by Virginia law) prior to the filing of the Virginia action. Hence, urged the appellee at the motion for new trial, the appellant was still married to Kibler at the time of her marriage to the appellee; therefore the latter marriage was invalid and formed no foundation for the appellant’s suit in the District Court. The appellee also asked leave, if the motion for new trial were granted, to amend his answer to the appellant’s complaint so as to include a denial of the validity of his marriage to the appellant and a prayer for its annulment. The appellant countered, at the motion for new trial, with the charge that at the time of the Virginia suit the appellee knew that the appellant had been a resident of the District of Columbia and not of Virginia, but that nevertheless he encouraged the obtaining of the Virginia decree and was kept fully informed of every step taken in respect thereof.² The court granted the motion for new trial. The appellee then filed an amended answer admitting a ceremony of marriage with the appellant but asserting the invalidity thereof because of fraud by the appellant upon the Virginia court in respect of her residence and consequent invalidity of the Virginia decree purporting to divorce the appellant and Kibler; and the appellee prayed that the marriage between himself and the appellant be held a nullity and void ab initio. At the new trial the issues were limited to the question of the validity of the Virginia decree; the evidence introduced followed the pattern of the affidavits of the parties under the motion for new trial with the addition of an admission by the appellant that she had never lived in Virginia but that she had represented a Virginia residence to the Virginia court and this notwithstanding a representation to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (in an action for divorce filed by her there oil November 23, 1927, and dismissed by her December 8, 1927, just preceding institution of the Virginia suit, on December 19, 1927) that she was a resident of the District. At the conclusion of the hearing the District Court ordered the appellant’s complaint dismissed upon the ground that at the time of her alleged marriage to the appellee she had been previously married and that such previous marriage had not been terminated by death or divorce, whereby the alleged marriage of the appellant and the appellee was null and void ab initio. This order contained a statement to the effect that the appellee’s amended answer had set up, as a bar to the relief sought by the appellant, the nullity of the marriage of the appellant and the appellee by reason of the previous marriage of the appellant and the absence of termination of the same by death or divorce, and to the effect that the appellant had not denied that nullity. The order of dismissal was entered June 11, 1940.

Until June 24, 1940, the law in this jurisdiction had been declared to be that in annulment proceedings the doctrines of laches and estoppel were inapplicable. Simmons v. Simmons, 1927, 57 App.D.C. 216, 19 F.2d 690, 54 A.L.R. 75; Frey v. Frey, 1932, 61 App.D.C. 232, 59 F.2d 1046. But on June 24, 1940, Goodloe v. Hawk, 72 App.D.C. 287, 113 F.2d 753, holding that “the general public policy in this jurisdiction, as judicially interpreted, no longer prevents application in annulment actions of the laches and estoppel doctrines in determining the effect to be given to such [irregular foreign] divorce decree,” and thereby overruling Simmons v. Simmons and Frey v. Frey was decided. (This ruling was later followed in Saul v. Saul, July 21, 1941, 74 App.D.C. 287, 122 F.2d 64.) On June 21, 1940, the time within which the appellant in the instant case could serve a motion for a new trial and the time within which the trial court could grant a new trial upon its own initiative expired. Rule 59 (b) and (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c. Nevertheless, on June 28 the appellant served and filed a motion to vacate judgment and for new trial and restraining order (against disposition of property in the District of Columbia by the appellee), upon the ground that the order of June 11 was entered “as the result of mistake and inadvertence, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia having in the interim changed the principle of law upon which said judgment was based.” This motion to vacate and for new trial and restraining order was heard and denied on June 28. On July 1, 1940, this appeal from the order of dismissal of June 11 was taken.

The appellant contends first that the trial court erred in granting a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence, and second that in view of Goodloe v. Hawk and Saul v. Saul the appellee is barred by estoppel and laches from attacking the validity of the Virginia decree; under each contention the appellant asks that the trial court’s decision in her favor at the first trial be reinstated.

1. The first contention cannot be sustained. Under familiar principles the action of a trial court on a motion for a new trial is, subject to exceptions not here pertinent (for a discussion of such exceptions see Freid v. McGrath, Nov. 23, 1942, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 133 F.2d 350), a matter within the court’s discretion and its action will not be disturbed on appeal except for abuse. The question presented at the motion for a new trial was one of fact. While that question was presented on affidavits, the trial court had heard the parties at the first trial and was in a position therefore to judge of their credibility. We cannot say that the decision to grant the new trial was so far wanting in evidential support as to be arbitrary.

2. The second contention is in effect an assertion that the appellant is entitled to determination of this case on the basis of the law as declared in Goodloe v. Hawk and Saul v. Saul, and that on the record the appellee is barred by laches and estoppel from attacking the validity of the Virginia decree and that this court should so determine and in consequence forthwith order reinstatement of the original decision in the appellant’s favor.

The appellant is entitled to a determination of this case on the basis of the law as declared in Goodloe v. Hawk and Saul v. Saul. With exceptions not here pertinent (where vested rights have intervened), the general principle is that a decision of a court of appellate jurisdiction overruling a former decision is' retrospective in its operation, and the effect is not that the former decision is bad law but that it never was the law. 14 Am.Jur., Court, § 130; American Sugar Refining Co. v. City of New Orleans, 5 Cir., 1902, 119 F. 691; Groner v. United States, 8 Cir., 1934, 73 F.2d 126; Chase v. American Cartage Co., 176 Wis. 235, 186 N.W. 598. At the time of the trial, in the Circuit Court of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, of the case last mentioned — an action brought by an administrator for damages resulting from a decedent’s death caused by an automobile collision — it had been held in Prideaux v. Mineral Point, 1878, 43 Wis. 513, 28 Am.Rep. 558, that the negligence of a driver would be imputed to a gratuitous passenger. In a special verdict the jury found that the defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of the death and assessed damages, but found also that the driver of the car in which the deceased was riding proximately contributed to produce her death, and upon this special verdict and in view of the rule of Prideaux v. Mineral Point the trial court entered judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff appealed. Pending the appeal the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Reiter v. Grober, 1921, 173 Wis. 493, 181 N.W. 739, 18 A.L.R. 362, and in Brubaker v. Iowa County, 1921, 174 Wis. 574, 183 N.W. 690, 18 A.L.R. 303, overruled Prideaux v. Mineral Point. On the appeal it was held that the case should be disposed of under the law as determined by the later decisions. The court said:

“ . . . The judgment of a trial court that is appealed from cannot establish the ■law of the case. That must be established by this court in the decision upon the appeal. A lawful change in a judicial rule not amounting to a rule of property or its equivalent by a court of last resort becomes effective at once, and thereafter, upon subsequent appeals, operates alike upon acts coming within it whether occurring before or after its announcement. ...” [citing authorities] [186 N.W. at 599] The judgment was reversed and the cause remanded with directions to enter judgment for the plaintiff for the amount of damages assessed. Cf. also American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 1921, 257 U.S. 184, 42 S.Ct. 72, 66 L.Ed. 189, 27 A.L.R. 360. There a change of law pending appeal was by statute. The Supreme Court held that the case must be determined under the new statute. It said that “The complainant had no vested right in the decree of the District Court while it was subject to review.”

But we cannot now determine on the present record that the appellee is barred by laches and estoppel from attacking the validity of the Virginia decree and in consequence forthwith order reinstatement of the original decision in the appellant’s favor. Such a disposition of the case on appeal in Chase v. American Cartage Co., supra, was, it will have been noted, possible; but there, with a verdict against the defendant on the issue of negligence and an assessment of damages, and with imputed negligence out of the case, no further proceedings were necessary in the trial court. At the new trial of the instant case the court made no findings of fact and stated no conclusions of law upon the issues of laches and estoppel of the appellee to set up the invalidity of the Virginia decree. In this the trial court was not remiss because at the time of the new trial and of the order dismissing the appellant’s complaint Simmons v. Simmons and Frey v. Frey, as pointed out above, reflected the law in this jurisdiction. Nevertheless there should be a determination by the court of first instance of the issues of laches and estoppel and findings of fact and conclusions of law thereon before this court exercises its appellate function. The pleadings may now be amended so as formally to introduce those issues. Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Additional evidence may be introduced if the trial court deems it necessary.

It is contended by the appellee that the doctrines of laches and estoppel can be applied only in an independent annulment proceeding, and not, as here, in a divorce action in which the invalidity of the marriage relied upon by the complainant is asserted, and its annulment sought, in an answer to the complaint. We think this contention not sound. It is true that the statutory estoppel established by D.C. Code (1940) § 30 — 104 is at the end of a provision referring to “A proceeding to declare the nullity of a marriage.” We print that section in the margin.³ But § 30 — 101 recognizes that the nullity of a prohibited marriage may be shown even in a collateral proceeding. We print the pertinent parts of that section in the margin.⁴ The marriage and divorce statutes in question, read as a whole, are, we think, not clear as to the intention of Congress as to whether the doctrines of laches and estoppel can he applied in both an independent annulment suit and in such an attack upon a marriage as is made in the instant case. That being true the statutes must be construed, and, under familiar rules of statutory construction, a reasonable intent must be attributed to Congress. We think that to construe the statutes as meaning that the doctrines of laches and estoppel can be applied only in an independent annulment proceeding and not in an action where the attack upon a marriage by a party thereto is made by way of defense to a divorce action would be improperly to conclude that Congress intended an unreasonable distinction. There seems to be no sensible reason why Congress would permit the defenses to be raised against annulment in the former type of proceeding and not in the latter.

It is further urged by the appellee that at the time the motion to vacate judgment was heard (June 28, 1940), it was called to the attention of the trial court that Goodloe v. Hawk had been decided (June 24), so that the fact that the doctrines of laches and estoppel were applicable in annulment proceedings was known to the court when it overruled the motion to vacate the judgment and for a new trial and restraining order. Therefore, it is contended, the overruling of the motion may be considered a determination against the appellant of the issues of laches and estoppel. But, as was pointed out above, this motion was too late (Freid v. McGrath, supra). Therefore the trial court must properly be taken to have overruled the motion on that ground alone and not to have passed upon the merits of the motion.

It is finally asserted by the appellee that even under Goodloe v. Hawk and Saul v. Saul laches and estoppel cannot be invoked by one confessedly guilty of a fraud which is asserted to have invalidated a marriage, and that therefore the appellant, having admitted her nonresidence in Virginia, cannot raise these defenses against the appellee’s charge that fraud was committed on the Virginia court. But this contention involves the reach of Goodloe v. Hawk and Saul v. Saul and upon this we think we ought not pass in the absence of findings of fact on the questions of fraud on the Virginia court and of the participation of the appellant and appellee, respectively, in that fraud. It is true, as above pointed out, that the trial court stated in effect that the appellant had conceded the nullity of the Virginia decree. But there was no full finding of fact upon the subject of the asserted fraud by the appellant upon the Virginia court and no finding at all in respect of the appellee’s asserted participation in that fraud.

We conclude that the case should be remanded to the trial court for findings of fact and conclusions of law upon the issues of fraud upon the Virginia court, the participation of the parties therein, and laches and estoppel, and for a further hearing if necessary to the end of arriving at such findings and conclusions.

Reversed and remanded.

1 The appellee’s answer said nothing as to the cruelty.

2 The appellee supported his motion for a new trial by affidavits and exhibits to the effect that the appellant had been a resident of the District of Columbia during the year prior to the filing of her suit for divorce in Virginia but that she had represented to the Virginia court that she had lived in Virginia during the required year. In his affidavit the appellee took oath also that he did not become aware of the appellant’s asserted misrepresentations to the Virginia court until after the trial of the instant case. The appellant countered with affidavits to the effect t-hat the appellee encouraged the divorce and that he had full knowledge of every aspect of the Virginia proceeding. The appellee filed an affidavit in reply admitting an acquaintance, prior to his marriage with the appellant, with the Virginia decree but denying his knowledge of the fraud upon the Virginia court and knowledge of the residence requirements in Virginia.

3 “A proceeding to declare the nullity of a marriage may be instituted in the case of an infant under the age of consent by such infant, through a next friend, or by the parent or guardian of such infant; and in the caso of an idiot or lunatic by next friend. But no such pi'oceedings shall be allowed to he instituted by any person who, being fully capable of contracting a marriage, has knowingly and wilfully contracted any marriage declared illegal by the foregoing sections. (Mar. 3, 1901, 31 Stat. 1392, ch. 854, § 1286; June 30, 1902, 32 Stat. 543, ch. 1329.)”

4 “The following marriages are prohibited in the District of Columbia and shall be absolutely void ah initio, without being so decreed, and their nullity may be shown in any collateral proceedings, namely:

* * *

“Third. The marriage of any persons either of whom has been previously married and whose previous marriage has not been terminated by death or a decree of divorce. (Mar. 3, 1901, 31 Stat. 1391, ch. 854, § 1283.)”