174 Iowa 740 | Iowa | 1916
The petition praying that the bonds of matri
Sec. 3541, Code Supp., 1913, provides that:
“Any defendant may appear specially for the sole purpose of attacking the jurisdiction of the court. Such special appearance shall be announced at the time it is made and shall limit the party to jurisdictional matters only and shall give him no right to plead to the merits of the case. ’ ’
This conferred the right on the defendant to appear and specifically object to the jurisdiction of the court, either over his person or the subject-matter of the suit. His application was strictly within the scope of the statute, and invoked the jurisdiction of the court to pass only on the question as to whether the court had jurisdiction over the subject-matter, i. e., whether the residence of the parties was such that the court might entertain the suit for divorce on the merits. The ruling was necessarily defended on a finding of facts by the court and adverse to the defendant. Whether he then might have pleaded to the merits without waiving exception to the ruling is a point on which the authorities are in conflict. As he did not plead to the merits, the error in the ruling, if such it were, was available to him on appeal; and, as he did not so challenge it, the order of the district court in holding the residence of one or both of the parties such as to confer jurisdiction is binding on him. That he accepted it as such appears from his subsequently recognizing the validity of the decree by moving to correct it by striking a portion therefrom and in not assailing it in any manner in resisting plaintiff’s motion to amend by restoring the clause stricken on his motion. We are not to be understood as approving or disapproving this ruling. All now held is that the defendant, having procured an adjudication on the issue as to whether the court