Case Name: Theodore L. TANNEHILL, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Estelle Scott Southerland TANNEHILL et al., Defendants-Appellees
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1969-08-26
Citations: 226 So. 2d 185
Docket Number: No. 2813
Parties: Theodore L. TANNEHILL, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Estelle Scott Southerland TANNEHILL et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: FRUGÉ and MILLER, JJ., vote for rehearing.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 226
Pages: 185–194

Head Matter:
Theodore L. TANNEHILL, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Estelle Scott Southerland TANNEHILL et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 2813.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana. Third Circuit
Aug. 26, 1969.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 16, 1969.
Provosty, Sadler & Scott, by Richard B. Wilkins, Jr., Alexandria, for plaintiff-appellant.
Holt, Wagner & Lee, by Richard E. Lee, Pineville, for defendants-appellees.

Opinion:
TATE, Judge.
The plaintiff husband sues to annul a marriage contracted between him and the defendant wife, as well as to disavow a child born after the marriage. Made defendants are his wife and the child. The plaintiff appeals from the dismissal of his suit upon the defendants' exception of no cause of action.
The plaintiff Theodore Tannehill and the defendant Estelle Scott were participants in a marriage ceremony on April 28, 1966. In 1969, three years later, a child was horn of Estelle and named Scott Tan-nehill.
Founded upon appropriate allegations stating separate causes of action, the prayer of the plaintiff Theodore's petition makes three principal demands: (1) that the court decree to be an absolute nullity a 1965 judgment allegedly divorcing his wife Estelle from her prior husband; (2) that, as a consequence, the court also decree invalid and null the subsequent 1966 marriage of the (undivorced) Estelle and himself, Theodore; and (3) that, for reasons to be specified below, the court decree that Theodore is not the father of the child Scott.
The plaintiff Theodore contends that the trial court erred in dismissing his suit upon the face of the pleadings. He points out, correctly, that an exception of no cause of action should not he sustained as to a demand if evidence admissible under the pleadings could justify judgment in favor of the petitioner, construing the petition most favorably to him.
I.
As ground for annulling Estelle's 1965 divorce, Theodore alleges that she and her former husband obtained it in LaSalle Parish, although they were domiciled in Winn Parish.
Under LSA-CCP Art. 3941, an action for a divorce must be brought in the parish of domicile or of last matrimonial domicile. The article further provides that a judgment obtained in a court of improper venue is "an absolute nullity."
The redactors expressly note that the article codified the jurisprudential rule that, for reasons of public policy, courts other than those specified have no jurisdiction to render a valid divorce decree. Official Revision Comment (f). This being so, the LaSalle decree is, under the allegations of the petition, an absolute nullity.
The appellee Estelle relies, however, upon the strong jurisprudential rule preventing collateral attacks upon divorce decrees. Wilson v. Calvin, 221 La. 451, 59 So.2d 451. We ourselves believe, for the reasons stated by Wilson, that to permit collateral attacks such as the present is unwise and could create much mischief, and that it may well have not been contemplated by the redactors of the 1960 Code of Civil Procedure.
Nevertheless, in view of the express code provision, we are bound to consider the present demand for annulment of the divorce judgment as stating a cause of action to attack it as void on jurisdictional ground. The Wilson ruling expressly bars collateral attacks only on "errors or irregularities not jurisdictional." 59 So.2d 453.
Since (under the allegations) the divorce judgment is an absolute nullity for jurisdictional reasons, it has no legal existence. Walworth v. Stevenson, 24 La.Ann. 251 (1872). Thus, a person with interest may show such nullity in collateral proceedings at any time and before any court, for absolutely void judgments are not subject to the venue and delay requirements of the action of nullity (now LSA-CCP Arts. 2001-2006). Tracy v. Dufrene, 240 La. 232, 121 So.2d 843; Buillard v. Davis, 185 La. 255, 169 So. 78; Decuir v. Deuir, 105 La. 481, 29 So. 932.
We therefore, with some hesitance as to the correctness of our view, find that a cause of action has been stated to annul the divorce judgment as jurisdictionally void.
If the only demand at issue were to annul the divorce, it might be contended that as a direct attack upon the judgment the suit could be brought only in LaSalle Parish, since the non-waivable venue of actions of nullity is in the court which rendered the judgment attacked. LSA-CCP Arts. 44, 2006. This jurisdictional defect can be noticed by the appellate court of its own motion. Succession of Guitar, La.App. 4th Cir., 197. So.2d 921. However, here the demand to annul the divorce judgment is ancillary to the demand to annul the marriage (see II below), and thus this collateral attack may be brought be fore another court in which the principal claim for relief is asserted. Tracy v. Dufrene, 240 La. 932, 121 So.2d 843.
II.
The husband Theodore also sues to annul his 1966 marriage to his wife Estelle on the contention that her 1965 divorce was an absolute nullity. For the reasons stated in I above, he can collaterally attack this divorce decree in the present suit. We note that it was brought in Rapides Parish, Estelle's alleged domicile, and thus the marriage-annulment action is properly ven-ued as unwaivably required by LSA-CCP Art. 3941.
Various issues are briefed as to whether this might be a putative marriage even if the divorce is technically invalid, as to whether (if so) the child thus has the status of a legitimate child, and as to whether the plaintiff has the right to amend to more clearly specify the particulars of the invalidity of the marriage even as putative. We need not decide them here, for the question before us is, simply, whether the plaintiff has stated a cause of action to annul his marriage to Estelle.
We hold he has, and remand. The consequences of a determination upon the merits concerning the invalidity of the marriage or of its possible putative effects are not before us now.
III.
The third cause of action pleaded, as the foundation of the plaintiff Theodore's third demand, is to disavow the child under the provisions of Civil Code Articles 184-192. The two substantial grounds asserted are: (1) that Theodore could not be the father of the child, since he is sterile because of a childhood disease and is thus biologically incapable of producing spermatozoa to conceive a child; and (2) that Theodore is not the father of the child, nor even presumed to be so, because his marriage to Estelle was void.
Historically, as we will note, the action of disavowal in Louisiana has been restricted to Code-specified grounds. Neither of the grounds alleged is a Code cause for disavowal, and hence the trial court properly sustained an exception of no cause of action as to the demand to disavow the child.
Our Civil Code lists only five grounds for disavowal, none of which include the sterility of the husband nor the invalidity of the marriage. Articles 185-190. Uniform judicial interpretations have indicated that these five grounds, and these five grounds only, are cause for disavowal. Williams v. Williams, 230 La. 1, 87 So.2d 707; Lambert v. Lambert, La.App.3d Cir., 164 So.2d 661. See Comment, Action en Desavue, 23 La.L.Rev. 759 (1963).
With regard to the persuasive practical arguments for permitting disavowal by a sterile husband:
In Williams v. Williams, cited above, our Supreme Court rejected an attempt to disavow a child on the basis of blood tests which allegedly conclusively showed the husband could not be the father of the child, holding this was not one of the Code-authorized grounds. This court cannot, consistently with the Williams holding, permit the present child to be disavowed by reason of scientific tests which allegedly can prove the present husband cannot have fathered the present child.
Furthermore, despite any technical difference between the "impotence" or the "sterility" of the husband, we see no true functional reason why the Code should prohibit disavowal for impotence and permit it for sterility, even without taking into consideration the state of scientific knowledge at the time the Code provision was first enacted. To the contrary, the Code's emphasis that a child cannot be dis avowed even for impotence indicates a statutory concern that the causes for disavowal be limited to those specified by statute.
The general statutory intent, as consistently interpreted by the Louisiana courts, is to protect helpless children born during a marriage from illegitimation by one or both of their parents or by others for their own selfish aims. Williams v. Williams, 230 La. 1, 87 So.2d 707, 709 (syllabus 7). This, until now, has been the guiding principle of restrictive judicial interpretation of these Code provisions.
The rigid construction of the paternity and disavowal articles by the Louisiana courts has been criticized by some scholars, notably Professor Robert A. Pascal. See, for instance, his commentaries at 14 La. L.Rev. 121 (1953), 17 La.L.Rev. 310 (1957), 18 La.L.Rev. 685 (1958), 25 La.L.Rev. 297 (1965), and 26 La.L.Rev. 461 (1966). Nevertheless, the Louisiana courts have consistently so interpreted and applied them, despite commentaries indicating different interpretations by the French courts of the French counterpart articles. We are unwilling to depart from this settled guiding principle, in the absence of direction from our Supreme Court to the contrary.
Before concluding, we should note the skillful effort by the plaintiff-appellant's counsel to avoid the application of this jurisprudence by alleging that the plaintiff Theodore could not be the father of the child, since the marriage between himself and the child's mother was void. Thus, he alleges, the ordinary presumption that husband is the father of children conceived during the marriage, LSA-Civil Code Article 184, does not apply, since Theodore is not the husband of the child's mother.
If Theodore is not the husband of the child's mother, then the disavowal articles do not apply; for they regulate only actions to disavow legitimacy resulting from marriage. He thus asserts no cause of action under these articles. Our dismissal of his action to disavow under these articles does not, of course, prevent him from obtaining any relief which might result should he be successful in annulling the marriage, but these consequences result from principles of law other than those expressed by the disavowal articles.
Decree.
Normally, a suit will not be dismissed upon an exception of no cause of action if the allegations set forth a' cause of action as to any part of the plaintiff's demand. Bailey v. Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company, 134 So.2d 339 (La.App.3d Cir., 1961). As the Bailey case indicates, the exception should thus normally be overruled if any part of the petition can stand against the exception.
On the other hand, when two separate and distinct demands are set out by the petition, an exception of no cause of action may lie to eliminate one, but be overruled as to the other. Succession of Nelson, 163 La. 458, 112 So. 298 (1927); Succession of Curtis, 156 La. 243, 100 So. 412 (1924); City of Natchitoches v. State of Louisiana, La.App.3d Cir., 221 So.2d 534. Dean McMahon has discussed this subsidiary rule and the reason for it, distinguishing it from the usual rule that the exception should be overruled if not available as to part (of a demand) of the petition. McMahon, The Exception of No cause of Action, 9 Tul.L.Rev. 17, 31-32 (1934). See also McMahon, Work of the Louisiana Appellate Courts, 23 La.L.Rev. 385-86 (1963).
Accordingly, (1) we overrule the defendants' exception of no cause of action to the plaintiff's cause of action alleged to annul the 1965 divorce and the 1966 marriage, and we reverse the trial court's holdings to the contrary and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with the views here expressed; and (2) we affirm the trial court judgment, insofar as it dismissed the plaintiff's demand to disavow the child. The costs of this appeal are to be paid one-half by the plaintiff-appellant, one-half by the defendants-ap-pellees; all other costs are to await final disposition of these proceedings.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part.
. This is one of the "jurisdictional" venues which may not be waived by the parties. LSA-CCP Art. 44. See 28 La.L.Rcv. 392-93 (1968).
. The divorce proceedings may or may not show on their face the jurisdictional defect. Under the allegations of the petition most favorably to the petitioner, these proceedings could show without extrinsic evidence the jurisdictional defect complained of. We therefore do not reach the question of whether the lack of jurisdictional venue could bo shown by extrinsic evidence other than in a direct attack by action of nullity upon the judgment, venued as required by LSA-CCP Art. 2008. Cf., Wilson v. King, 227 La. 546, 79 So.2d 877, Edwards v. Whited, 29 La.Ann. 647, Restatement of Judgments, Sections 11 and 12 (1942). See James, Civil Procedure, Section 11.6 (1965). But see 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 421, 426 (1947).
.In the action to annul his divorce, Estelle's former husband would appear to bo an indispensable party, LSA-CCP Art. 641, which may be noticed by the court upon its own motion, LSA-CCP Art. 645. However, his absence may be remedied by amendment upon the remand, LSA-CCP Arts. 640, 934.
. The writer himself has criticized the mechanical application of the paternity presumption, when used to deprive a child or his true parents of their rights, instead of to protect the child. See his dissent in George v. Bertrand, La.App.3d Cir., 217 So.2d 47, 49 cited by the plaintiff-appellant. In the present case, however, our rigid application is used in accord with the jurisprudentially-determined intent of the articles, i. e., to protect a child from being illegitimated at a time when he himself is not in a position to counter evidence which could by default or collusion accomplish this purpose. (In the present hard-fought litigation, of course, there is no slightest suggestion of this; but, the door open, the next children may not be defended by such worthy champions.)