Case Name: Garver v. Garver, Sr.
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1921-05-24
Citations: 102 Ohio St. 443
Docket Number: No. 16625
Parties: Garver v. Garver, Sr.
Judges: Johnson, Hough, Wanamaker, Robinson, Jones and Matthias, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Ohio State Reports, New Service
Volume: 102
Pages: 443–446

Head Matter:
Garver v. Garver, Sr.
Divorce and alimony — Jurisdiction of alimony exhausted, when— Payments terminated by court — Error proceedings not instituted — .Right to reinstate payments or modify decree — Remedies.
(No. 16625
— Decided May 24, 1921.)
Error to the Court of Appeals of Hamilton county.
Leonard Garver, Sr., on the 20th day of January, 1914, filed his petition in the court of insolvency of Hamilton county for divorce.
Answer was duly filed, and on the 27th day of March, 1914, said cause came on for hearing, and on that day plaintiff was granted a divorce on the ground of gross neglect of duty on the part of the defendant.
In the decree, among other things, it was ordered:
“It is further ordered and adjudged that the said plaintiff pay to the defendant as alimony, in money, the sum of Forty Dollars ($40.00) per month, until the further order of this court.'”
Leonard Garver, Sr., complied with said order until April, 1915, at which time he filed a motion to modify the decree, which came on for hearing July 15, 1915. Upon such hearing the court modified the decree, reducing the said $40 per month to the sum of $25 per month. Garver continued to pay the $25 per month until July, 1917, when he filed another motion to modify the decree by terminating all further payments of alimony to the defendant, Aura A. Garver.
Whereupon the court found and ordered as follows:
“It is, therefore, adjudged and decreed that the plaintiff, Leonard Garver, Sr., is hereby released from paying any further sum of money to the defendant, Aura A. Garver, as alimony or otherwise, and the decree and the supplemental decree, heretofore rendered and entered herein, is modified accordingly.”
Aura A. Garver reserved her exceptions to said last order and entry, of date August 4, 1917, but did not prosecute error from said order.
More than eighteen months thereafter, in March, 1919, Aurá A. Garver filed in said insolvency court a petition to modify the former decrees therein entered, and especially the last one.
On the 11th of April, 1919, Leonard Garver, Sr., filed his motion to dismiss the petition or application of the plaintiff for modification of former decrees, for the reason that the court of insolvency had lost its jurisdiction in said cause.
On the 16th day of April, 1919, the court of in-solve'ncy granted the motion to dismiss, and entered judgment. Aura A. Garver thereupon prosecuted error to the court of appeals, which court on March 1, 1921, affirmed the decision of the court of insolvency.
Error is now prosecuted to this court to reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.
Mr. Frank E. Burnett and Mr. David Davis, for plaintiff in error.
Mr. David Lorbach and Mr. R. A. Le Blond, for defendant in error.

Opinion:
By the Court.
Much of the confusion in law arises from a failure to observe the old-time maxim that "What is clear, neither needs nor permits construction."
The order of the court of insolvency on the 4th day of August, 1917, in which the court held that "Leonard Garver, Sr., is hereby released from paying any further sum of money to the defendant, Aura A. Garver, as alimony or otherwise, and the decree and the supplemental decree, heretofore rendered and entered herein, is modified accordingly," was a final and full disposition of the question of alimony, and when the court finally exhausted its jurisdiction in that behalf there was nothing further for the court to determine.
The plaintiff's rights had been finally cut off in that court, and if she desired further relief by way of reversal or modification her remedy was by error to the court of appeals.
For more than eighteen months she wholly failed, to prosecute her right of error, and then sought to reopen the case by a motion in the court of insolvency, which had exhausted its jurisdiction.
The judgment of the court of insolvency dismissing such application, and the judgment of the court of appeals affirming such dismissal, are therefore approved and affirmed.
Judgments affirmed.
Johnson, Hough, Wanamaker, Robinson, Jones and Matthias, JJ., concur.