Case ID: mass_15/html/0183-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Olive Howard versus Apollos Howard.
    An action of debt lies for alimony decreed by this Court, on a sentence of divorce.
    The plaintiff was formerly the wife of the defendant, and was divorced, a vinculo, in 1814, for the cause of adultery committed by the husband. In addition to the decree of divorce, a decree passed, ordering the defendant to pay to the plaintiff, for alimony, the sum of fifty dollars yearly, in quarter-payments of 12 dollars 50 cents; and the present action was brought to recover two years and three quarters of the said annuity — the plaintiff declaring in debt, as upon a judgment of the Court. The defendant demurred generally to the declaration, and the plaintiff joined in demurrer.
    
      Baylies and Eddy, for the defendant,
    contended that an action of debt would not lie for the plaintiff in the present case, there being no judgment according to the course of * the common law. A writ of error would not lie to reverse it;  and of course debt will not lie to enforce it. The proper mode of pursuing the plaintiff’s right, if she has any, is shown in the case of French vs. French. 
      
       A rule to show cause was there issued, and execution might then be obtained, or an attachment for a contempt.
    
      Winslow and Brown for the plaintiff.
    
      
       13 Mass. Rep. 264
    
    
      
       4 Mass. Rep. 588.
    
   Per Curiam.

The only question made in this case is, whether an action of debt will lie, to recover the sum ascertained to be due by the decree of this Court for alimony ; and there seems to be no reason why it should not. The debt is certain, and it is proved by record ; and the decree is, in effect, as much a judgment, as if rendered on the common-law side of the Court.

It was once doubted whether an execution could issue, to carry into effect such a decree, and whether the only remedy should not be an action of debt; but there seems no good reason why both the remedies may not exist,

Declaration adjudged good. 
      
      
         Storer vs. Storer & Al. 6 Mass. Rep. 390