Tobias v. Tobias

208 Ill. App. 539, 1917 Ill. App. LEXIS 908
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 16, 1917
DocketGen. No. 6,411
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 208 Ill. App. 539 (Tobias v. Tobias) 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
Tobias v. Tobias, 208 Ill. App. 539, 1917 Ill. App. LEXIS 908 (Ill. Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.

On December 1, 1905, Mrs. Alma.C. Tobias filed in the Peoria Circuit Court a bill for divorce against her husband, Harry H. Tobias, and had service by copy of bill and copy of. summons out of the State. Defendant was defaulted, and on or about March 20, 1906, she had a decree for divorce, from which no appeal or writ of error was ever prosecuted. On September 2, 1908, Tobias began this suit by filing a bill in said Circuit Court against Mrs. Tobias, in which he sought to vacate said decree of divorce. It was not a bill of review, for it did not set out any part of the record, but it alleged lack of jurisdiction in the court for reasons hereinafter stated, and that the decree was obtained by false testimony. The cause was referred to a master, who took evidence and made a report adverse to Mrs. Tobias. Her objections thereto were sustained and there was a decree dismissing the bill. The cause was removed to this court by writ of error. Mrs. Tobias filed certain pleas to said writ of error, to which we sustained a demurrer, and held that we were thereupon required to reverse the decree regardless of the merits. The case is reported as Tobias v. Tobias, 193 Ill. App. 95. The cause was reinstated in the court below and referred to another master to report the proofs with bis conclusions, and he took proofs and made a report favorable to Mrs. Tobias. Exceptions thereto were overruled and there was a decree dismissing the bill for want of equity. Tobias prosecutes this writ of error to reverse that decree.. In this court he presents three reasons why hé was entitled to the relief he sought, namely: (1) That Mrs. Tobias did not reside in Peoria County when she filed her bill for divorce and that therefore the Peoria Circuit Court had no jurisdiction; (2) that there was on file in that case no sufficient proof of service and therefore that court had no jurisdiction; and (3) that the decree was obtained by false evidence.

Section 5 of the Divorce Act (J. & A. 4220) requires that the proceedings shall be had in the county where the complainant resides. ■ Prior to November, 1903, Tobias and his wife had lived in the City" of Peoria. In that month they departed therefrom. Mrs. Tobias went to the home of her parents in Mason county, Illinois. Tobias claims that she thereby lost her residence in Peoria county. The place of residence is a matter of intention, and when a residence has once been obtained it is not lost by any temporary departure from that place, and it remains the residence of the party until he or she has acquired another residence, which does not mean merely a temporary abode. This is held in many cases, and among them Smith v. People, 44 Ill. 16; Hayes v. Hayes, 74 Ill. 312; Cooper v. Beers, 143 Ill. 25; Imhoff v. Lipe, 162 Ill. 282; Hill v. Hill, 166 Ill. 54; Palmer v. Riddle, 197 Ill. 45; Widmayer v. Davis, 231 Ill. 42; Welsh v. Shumway, 232 Ill. 54; Holt v. Hendee, 248 Ill. 288: In Hayes v. Hayes, supra, where the question was whether one Dr. Hayes was a resident .of Bock Island, notwithstanding he had gone to Iowa and lived in various places for long periods of time and had voted there at a presidential election, the court said: “To effect a change of domicile there must be an actual abandonment of the first domicile, coupled with an intention not to return to it, and there must he a new domicile acquired by actual residence within another jurisdiction, coupled with the intention of making the last acquired residence a permanent home.” In Holt v. Hendee, supra, the court said: “In order to bring about a change of residence it is necessary that there be not only an intention to change the residence, but the change must actually be made by abandoning the old and permanently locating in the new place of residence.” Practically the same thing was decided in several other of the cases above cited. At the time when the parties left their home in the City of Peoria it was agreed that Tobias should go to Oklahoma and enter into possession of a farm there owned by his father, and Mrs. Tobias should go to the home of her parents near Forest City, Mason county, and that in the spring she should go to her husband in Oklahoma. She testified that she was very much attached to her home in Peoria and was very unwilling to leave it, and that she had no intention of making her permanent home in .Mason county. For reasons hereinafter stated she did not go to Oklahoma. She was a music teacher, was frequently in Peoria thereafter, and went into the business of selling pianos for a company located in Peoria. If her testimony is true, she never intended to take up her residence in Mason county. Before the divorce suit was begun she consulted Peoria lawyers on the subject and told them these facts and told them that she intended doing business in Peoria as soon as she could, and they advised her that under the circumstances narrated she had not acquired a residence in Mason county and had not lost her residence in Peoria county, and thereupon they prepared and filed a bill in Peoria county. Tobias called several persons who lived near them in the City of Peoria and who knew of the removal, and they testified that from the conversations with Mr. and Mrs. Tobias they understood that she was removing to Mason county only temporarily and expected to go to Oklahoma in the following spring. Two neighbors testified that Mrs. Tobias told them that while she was telling her husband that she would go to Oklahoma in the spring, in fact her people would not permit her to go and she did not expect to go. ■ This testimony Mrs. Tobias denied. Before they left Peoria they sold a little of their furniture and part of it was shipped to her at Forest City, and part of it was- shipped to her husband’s parents in Washington, Tazewell county. Certain witnesses for Tobias testified that at times when they saw Mrs. Tobias in. Peoria and she was going back to Mason county, she said she was going home. Mrs. Tobias testified that she had always called the residence of her parents in Mason county “home,” and that while living with her"husband, whenever she went down to Forest City to visit her parents she had told people she was going home. We are of opinion that under the evidence and the law as held in this State Mrs. Tobias did not acquire and did not intend to acquire a. permanent residence in Mason county, and that she never lost her residence in Peoria county, and that the bill was properly filed there.

The proof filed in the divorce case of service of copy of bill and notice of suit was by affidavit and was defective in two respects. Defendant contends that therefore the court did not acquire jurisdiction to render the decree of divorce. While the statute, section 14 of the Chancery Act (J. & A. 894), permits such service to be proved by affidavit, yet it elsewhere provides that such service may be proved “to the satisfaction of the court.” This therefore permitted other proof than an affidavit. The decree of divorce fully found service by a copy of the bill and a copy of the summons and by a reading of each t,o Tobias. The findings of a court of general jurisdiction, as to jurisdictional facts necessary to constitute service, are conclusive against collateral attack unless irreconcilable with facts otherwise disclosed by the record, and in aid of such finding it will be presumed that evidence was heard to support the finding where, as here, it is competent to receive evidence for that purpose. Figge v. Rowlen, 185 Ill. 234. There is a certificate of evidence on file in the divorce case and it does not contain such proof, but it only purports to be a certificate of the evidence offered by Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
208 Ill. App. 539, 1917 Ill. App. LEXIS 908, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tobias-v-tobias-illappct-1917.