50 Mo. App. 170 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1892
— This was an action on a foreign decree for alimony in arrears therein. The petition stated that in the month of May, 1883, in the supreme court of .the state of New York, within and for the county of Kings, plaintiff filed her bill of complaint against the said Albert Brisbane, alleging her marriage with said Albert Brisbane in the said state of New York, in the year 1847, and charging said Albert Brisbane with adultery after said marriage, and while the same
The only question arising on the record before us is, whether the petition states facts sufficient to support the .judgment, or, in other words, whether an action at law can be maintained in a court of general jurisdiction in this state upon a duly authenticated copy of the record of a decree for divorce, and an order for the payment of alimony rendered in a court of competent jurisdiction in the state of New York. Parties to a cause for divorce and alimony are as much bound by a decree for both which has been given by one of our state courts having jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and over the parties, as the same parties would be if the decree had been given in the ecclesiastical court of England. The decree in both is a judgment of record and will be received as such by other courts. And such a judgment or decree rendered in any state of the United States, the court having jurisdiction, will be carried into judgment in any other state to have there the same binding force that it has in the state in which it was originally given. Barber v. Barber, 21 How. (U. S.) 582.
In section 847 of Bishop on Marriage, Divorce & Separation, it is stated that “a, decree for alimony, there being a court of competent jurisdiction, is a record to which, under the constitution of the United States, must be given full faith and credit in every other state. The courts of' the 'other state wherein the decree is relied upon will accord to it the effect it has under the law of the state of its rendition.” The defendant is mistaken in supposing that an action of debt will not lie upon a decree of divorce and ali
In Pennington v. Gibson, 16 How. 65, the general rule is declared to be “that in every instance in which an action of debt can be maintained upon a judgment at law for a sum of money awarded by such judgment, the like action can be maintained upon a decree in equity which is for an ascertained and specific amount, and nothing more; and that the record of the proceedings in the one case must be ranked with and responded to as of the same dignity and binding obligation with the record of the other.” This rule has been recognized and followed in other cases. Nation v. Johnson, 24 How. (U. S.) 203; Harsford v. Van Auken’s Adm’r, 79 Ind. 302; Becknell v. Becknell, 110 Ind. 42; Post v. Neafie, 3 Col. 22; Evans v. Tatum, 9 S. & R. 252; Warren v. McCarthy, 25 Ill. 95; Tilford v. Oakley, Hemp. 197.
The decree in this case for alimony being like any other judgment for money is, of course, enforceable in this state by an action at law thereon. We can see no-reason why the judgment on the decree should be limited to the arrears for one year preceding the commencement of this suit. If the wife has not been paid the alimony ordered to be paid her by the husband, why should he be exempt from all of it in excess of that due for the last twelve months before she applied to have enforcement of it in this state? If there is any reason why this is not so he should have pleaded the grounds of exemption in his answer. Though the courts of equity in England may have ordinarily refused to enforce the-decrees of the ecclesiastical courts for the payment of the arrears of alimony for more than a year next preceding the application therefor, unless under special circumstances, yet we are not to be guided or controlled by any such practice where the action is one at law in this state to enforce a foreign decree for alimony in arrears. The statute of this state in relation to alimony imposes no such restrictions, nor does any rule of the common law, so that we do not feel any way bound to follow the practice referred to prevailing in the English courts of chancery, or in those courts that have adopted that practice in this country. There are, as far as we are advised, no rights of creditors of the husband infringed by giving full effect to the New York decree in this case. We think, for these reasons, that the petition states facts sufficient to constitute a
The judgment will be affirmed.