Case Title: Sidebottom v. Sidebottom

Citation: 233 N.E.2d 667, 249 Ind. 572

Docket Number: 268S20

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 1968-02-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
249 Ind. 572 (1968)
233 N.E.2d 667
SIDEBOTTOM
v.
SIDEBOTTOM.
No. 268S20.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed February 9, 1968.
*573 Pogue and Young, of Franklin, for appellant.
Richard L. Gilliom, Richard L. LaGrange, and Murray, Stewart, Irwin & Gilliom, of counsel, of Indianapolis, LaGrange and Fredbeck, of Franklin, for appellee.
JACKSON, J.
This matter comes to us from the Appellate Court by way of Petition to Transfer under Acts 1901, ch. 247, § 10, p. 565; 1933, ch. 151, § 1, p. 800, being § 4-215, Burns' 1946 Repl. See Sidebottom v. Sidebottom (1967), 140 Ind. App. 657, 225 N.E.2d 772 for opinion of the Appellate Court.
The appellant's motion for new trial was overruled on December 29, 1964. The appellant has assigned as error the single specification, "1. The Court erred in overruling Appellant's Motion for New Trial." The transcript and Assignment of Errors were filed in the office of the clerk of the Supreme and Appellate Courts on June 25, 1965.
On June 29, 1965, appellee filed in the Appellate Court her Motion to Dismiss Appeal and brief in support thereof, on the theory that appellant had accepted material benefits of the judgment and decree in that he had taken possession of the personal property awarded him and sold part of the same, retaining the proceeds. That by so doing he was estopped from pursuing this appeal. The Appellate Court in its opinion of April 27, 1967, 225 N.E.2d  at 774 held as follows: "This court, by prior action, denied the motion to dismiss and held the action on the motion to affirm in abeyance pending presentation of the case on the merits." Later on in the opinion the court held: "We therefore find that the motion to affirm filed by the appellee should be denied and we shall proceed to disposition of the appeal on the merits."
*575 Appellant's brief, on the merits, was filed August 26, 1965. Appellee's brief, on the merits, was filed September 21, 1965.
On April 24, 1967, appellee filed in the Appellate Court her Second Motion to Dismiss Appeal. Such motion, in pertinent part, reads as follows:
Attached to such motion was a partial transcript of a hearing in the Johnson Circuit Court on April 10, 1967, in which the witness Earl Winfield Sidebottom testified on cross-examination his second marriage took place August 20, 1964, at Lexington, Kentucky.
Thereafter, on April 25, 1967, the Appellate Court entered the following order:
April 27, 1967, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment and decree of the Johnson Circuit Court and remanded the cause to the trial court for a new trial consistent with their opinion. See: 225 N.E.2d 772.
*576 On May 16, 1967, appellee filed her petition for rehearing by the Appellate Court with the clerk of the Supreme and Appellate Courts.
On May 16, 1967, the same day on which she filed her petition for rehearing, appellee filed Appellee's Third Motion To Dismiss Appeal on the theory that by appellant's remarriage subsequent to the judgment appealed from he had adopted and recognized the validity of said divorce decree and judgment by acceptance of a material part of said decree and judgment and had thereby waived any further right to appeal. Attached to said motion were Exhibit A, appellee's affidavit concerning appellant's remarriage; Exhibit B, the reporter's certified partial transcript containing appellant's own testimony of remarriage; and Exhibit C, a certified photostatic copy of Record of Marriage of Earl W. Sidebottom and Memory L. Partlow, from the State Department of Health of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Appellant made no reply or response to appellee's Third Motion to Dismiss. On the 19th day of June, 1967, the Appellate Court denied appellee's Third Motion to Dismiss and appellee's Petition for Rehearing.
Appellee's Petition to Transfer was filed with the clerk of this Court on July 7, 1967.
Appellee's Petition to Transfer at specifications 5, 6, 9 and 10 alleges the decision and opinion of the Appellate Court contravenes rulings precedent of the Supreme Court as stated in cases cited in each of such numbered specifications.
Appellee's Petition to Transfer at specifications 7 and 11 alleges the Appellate Court failed to give a statement in writing of each substantial question arising on the record and the decision of the Court thereon. Under each of said numbered specifications is a rather lengthy discussion of the questions raised.
Specification No. 8 of appellee's Petition to Transfer alleges that the opinion of the Appellate Court erroneously decides a *577 new question of law. This specification deals with the question of the exception to the rule of law that acceptance of a material benefit of a judgment constitutes a waiver of the right to appeal by the person accepting the benefit.
In arriving at a determination of the issues involved herein it first becomes necessary to dispose of the several motions filed herein by the appellee.
The question presented by appellee's several motions in the case at bar is whether the appellant can maintain the appeal presently before us. The following authorities we think throw sufficient illumination on the problem to provide the answer.
A careful consideration of the authorities above cited, together with many others read and considered but not cited on account of lack of time and space, compel us to the following conclusions:
1. The overwhelming weight of authority is to the effect that an appellant having recognized the validity of a judgment and decree of divorce rendered in a court of competent jurisdiction and having jurisdiction of the persons by accepting the favorable and/or beneficial provisions thereof, financial and/or marital, accruing to him thereunder, in the absence of fraud, is estopped from questioning the validity of such judgment or decree from and after the acceptance of such benefit or benefits. From and after such acceptance, an appellant is prohibited from proceeding to perfect or maintain any appeal from the same.
2. Appellee, by her several motions filed herein as disclosed by the record, and to which, so far as we are able to *580 ascertain by such record, appellant failed, neglected or refused to answer or reply, has raised what in effect is a plea in bar to the present appeal.
3. Nowhere in the proceedings, as disclosed by the record, is there raised any issue of fraud on the part of the trial court or the appellee.
4. The appellant of his own volition, by his own acts, placed himself in the position he now occupies.
5. The appellee's motions to dismiss the appeal were, and are, well taken and must be sustained.
The appellee's petition to transfer is hereby granted. The appeal herein is dismissed, with prejudice, at the costs of the appellant.
Lewis, C.J. and Arterburn, Hunter and Mote, JJ., concur.
NOTE.  Reported in 233 N.E.2d 667.