Title: Field v. Field
Citation: 68 So. 2d 376
Docket Number: N/A
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: November 6, 1953

68 So. 2d 376 (1953)
FIELD
v.
FIELD.

Supreme Court of Florida, Division B.
July 31, 1953.
On Rehearing November 6, 1953.
Rehearing Denied December 10, 1953.
Loftin, Anderson, Scott, McCarthy &amp; Preston, George F. Gilleland and Francis W. Sams, Miami, for appellant.
Redfearn &amp; Ferrell, Miami, for appellee.
DREW, Justice.
George C. Field, Jr., appellee (hereafter called the husband), filed a complaint for divorce in the Circuit Court of Dade County against his wife, Florence Dill Field, appellant (hereafter called the wife), charging desertion. On receiving notice of the suit, the wife, then residing in New Jersey, through her New Jersey counsel, by letter, advised the presiding Judge of the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit that the husband had been indicted in New Jersey for criminal desertion and *377 assault and battery (on the wife) and that she (the wife) had obtained a judgment of separate maintenance in her favor in the New Jersey courts prior to the time the Florida action was filed and that the New Jersey Court had enjoined the husband from prosecuting his Florida action. On refusal of the Florida Court to recognize such proceedings the wife appeared and answered the husband's complaint. The answer denied the husband's Florida residence and the desertion, and alleged the entry of the New Jersey decree.
The cause was referred to a master and voluminous testimony was taken, culminating in a recommendation that the bill of complaint be dismissed because "the plaintiff [had] not established statutory desertion * * *."
When the matter reached the chancellor on exceptions to the master's report he decreed that the bill be "dismissed" and that prayer for divorce be denied for the lack of proof of one of the elements of the charge of desertion. We do not find sufficient disparity between the recommendation and the decree to warrant an exploration of the law on the points attempted to be raised. Obviously the appellant won the suit when the bill was dismissed regardless of the fact that the master thought no element of desertion had been established, the chancellor thought one had not been proved.
Later, and by a separate order, the lower court, pursuant to the prayer of a petition filed by the husband, ordered the wife to join with the husband:
The same order further provided:
It is from both the final decree and the order from which we have just quoted that this appeal is taken.
The order requiring the wife to join in the conveyance is obviously erroneous.
The purpose of ordering the wife to join in the conveyance was, of course, to divest her of her dower right in the property *378 in order that an effective conveyance thereof could be made. Had the Chancellor granted a divorce in the cause the husband would have been free to make such conveyance. But the effect of what he did was to leave the parties just where they were (so far as the marital status was concerned) before the suit was instituted. The lower court's order was clearly erroneous under the ruling of this Court in the case of Pawley v. Pawley, Fla., 46 So. 2d 464, 472, 28 A.L.R.2d 1358, rehearing denied, Fla., 47 So. 2d 546 where, in footnote No. 2, it is said:
In the absence of a regular business partnership, and of a dissolution of the marriage relationship, there is no occasion to undertake to adjudicate the respective rights of the spouses to property in which both have an interest. See Clawson v. Clawson, Fla., 54 So. 2d 161. Of course, no question of specific performance is even remotely involved.
So the desertion not having been proved the bill was properly dismissed. The subsequent order relative to the property is reversed.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part.
ROBERTS, C.J., and THOMAS and HOBSON, JJ., concur.
DREW, Justice.
The decree of the lower court appealed from found, inter alia:
The Court decreed:
The Court also decreed "that the plaintiff's bill of complaint be and it is hereby dismissed without prejudice to his right to institute such further action as he deems necessary." (Emphasis supplied).
Section 65.04, Fla.Stats. 1951, F.S.A., provides that "No divorce shall be granted unless one of the following facts *379 shall appear: * * * (7) Willful, obstinate and continued desertion of complainant by defendant for one year." (Emphasis added.) The statute contemplates and requires that the deserting shall be "willful, obstinate and continued" for one year and refers to such desertion as one fact, just the same as it does to the other eight grounds specified. In all cases where desertion is charged the determination of the time such desertion (actual or constructive) took place is necessary only for the purpose of ascertaining whether it has been "willful, obstinate and continued" for one year. All four factors must affirmatively be proven to establish the one fact. The failure to prove any single factor is fatal to proving the ground for divorce prescribed by law.
Therefore, when the lower court found that desertion had not been for the prescribed period of one year, it made a determination only that the plaintiff was not entitled to a divorce from the defendant. The decree entered "without prejudice" was not a final decree in the sense that it determined the merits of the action. Such a qualified dismissal in equity is not an adjudication of the merits of the subject matter in controversy nor a bar to a new suit on the same cause of action. See Epstein v. Ferst, 35 Fla. 498, 17 So. 414; Brown v. Brown, 167 Tenn. 567, 72 S.W.2d 557; Burton v. Burton, 58 Vt. 414, 5 A. 281; Note, 1944, 149 A.L.R. 553, 564. The finding as to the date such desertion occurred and that defendant deserted the plaintiff were purely gratuitous and binding on no one. The whole purpose of the inquiry was whether grounds for divorce existed  not whether one or more facts constituting such grounds existed.
We do not agree with appellee's contention on rehearing that the opinion of the court effects, under the authority of Stanton v. Stanton, Fla. 1952, 60 So. 2d 273, a result that the Chancellor's recital in the instant case that the wife deserted the husband October 5, 1951, was binding on her and that she could not relitigate the question in a subsequent suit between the parties. In Stanton v. Stanton, supra, the ground for divorce in the first action was cruelty and the complaint sought, in addition to a divorce, custody of children and alimony. It was necessary to the determination of the question of alimony and support money for the children for the Court to determine who was at fault in the separation. Section 65.10, F.S. 1951, F.S.A. It was, therefore, necessary to the entry of a decree that such fact be determined. Under such circumstances, the parties to the litigation were precluded from re-litigating that same question, which was decided on the merits, in subsequent proceedings between them by virtue of the doctrine of estoppel by judgment.
As herein clarified the judgment in the original opinion is adhered to.
ROBERTS, C.J., and THOMAS and HOBSON, JJ., concur.