Court Opinion

ID: 9638339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:41:37.597526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:05.744179
License: Public Domain

POPE, Justice.
The question presented by this appeal is whether a trial court may in a divorce decree divest one spouse of his separate realty and transfer title to the other spouse. The court of civil appeals in reversing the judgment of the trial court has ruled that section 3.63 of the Family Code does not authorize such a divestiture of one’s title to separate property. 535 S.W.2d 425. We affirm that judgment. This court has jurisdiction because the holding of the court of civil appeals conflicts with the holding in Wilkerson v. Wilkerson, 515 S.W.2d 52 (Tex.Civ.App.1974, no writ).
The trial court granted Virginia Eggem-eyer a divorce from Homer Eggemeyer and named her managing conservator of their four minor children. The trial court also awarded Virginia all of the community interest in the small family farm. Homer owned as his separate property an undivided one-third interest in the farm by reason of a gift from his mother. The trial court divested him of that interest and transferred his title to Virginia. The farm was already subject to a 20,101.80 dollar debt owing the Federal Land Bank of Houston as well as a second lien in the amount of 5,200 dollars. In divesting title from Homer, the court created and imposed still another lien against the property in the sum of 10,000 dollars which was ordered payable to Homer by Virginia on July 16, 1982, the date when the youngest of the four children reaches age eighteen. The trial court ordered Homer to pay one hundred dollars per child per month until each reaches eighteen. The court of civil appeals in reversing the divestiture of title followed the well-reasoned decision of Ramirez v. Ramirez, 524 S.W.2d 767 (Tex.Civ.App.1975, no writ), and several previous decisions by this court.
It has long been the law that upon divorce the rents, revenues, and income from a spouse’s separate property may be set aside for the support of the minor children. In support of that principle, the court of civil appeals properly cited Hedtke v. Hedtke, 112 Tex. 404, 248 S.W. 21 (1923); Rice v. Rice, 21 Tex. 58 (1858); Fitts v. Fitts, 14 Tex. 443 (1855), and section 14.-05(a) of the Texas Family Code. The trial court could have but did not set over the father’s separate interest in the farm to the mother for the support of the children during their minority. The court of civil appeals did remand the cause to the trial court to consider such an arrangement. That arrangement would have satisfied the law’s command that Homer Eggemeyer must support his minor children without divesting Homer of his title in his separate property.
Article 4639a, enacted in 1935, for the first time authorized divorce courts to inquire into the financial circumstances of the parties and to make orders for child support. Prior to this article’s enactment, the Texas courts fashioned a method for enforcing the parents’ legal duty to provide child support. The parents’ property, whether community or separate, was subjected to a *139trust or some other form of interim management to insure the payment of child support. Cunningham v. Cunningham, 120 Tex. 491, 40 S.W.2d 46 (1931); Fitts v. Fitts, supra. When the duty of support to the minor was fulfilled, the property was freed from the trust. This method did not divest nor transfer to another person the owner’s fee title.
Virginia Eggemeyer states that section 3.63 of the Family Code authorizes the divestiture of Homer’s separate realty and its vesting in her because the trial court can make such an order when it is “just and right.” The statute is, of course, wholly silent about that matter. The argument is that the earlier article 4638 specifically prohibited the divestiture of title1 whereas the Family Code does not.2 From this omission, she argues the legislature intended to change the law and to authorize a divestiture. This is not a correct result for several reasons.
The legislative commentary which accompanied the section when it was being considered by the legislature stated: “This is a codification of present law.” McKnight, Commentary on Sec. 3.63, 5 Tex.Tech L.Rev. 337 (1974). The legislature believed it was making no change but was carrying forward the law as it then existed.
Section 14.05(a) of the Family Code supplies additional evidence of the legislature’s intent to keep the law unchanged and as it was under article 4638. In construing section 3.63, section 14.05(a) has apparently escaped the consideration of the parties. As appears from the section’s second sentence, section 14.05(a) carried forward into the Family Code what was well established by judicial precedent:
§ 14.05. Support of Child
(a) The court may order either or both parents to make periodic payments or a lump-sum payment, or both, for the support of the child until he is 18 years of age in the manner and to the persons specified by the court in the decree. In addition, the court may order a parent obligated to support a child to set aside property to be administered for the support of the child in the manner and by the persons specified by the court in the decree. [Emphasis added.]
The legislature expressly authorized the setting aside of property “to be administered,” not divested, and “for the support of the child,” but not for the support of a spouse. That was a codification of existing law. Section 3.63 does not expressly authorize the divestiture of separate realty, but section 14.05 does expressly authorize an interim administration of a spouse’s property to assure the payment of child support. The reasonable conclusion is the legislature in enacting section 14.05 was codifying existing law.
Other evidence of legislative intent is derived from that part of section 3.63 which declares a divorce decree shall order “a division of the estate of the parties in a manner that the court deems just and right.” The only “estate of the parties” is community property. Under former article 4638, we construed “the estate of the parties” to mean community property. Reardon v. Reardon, 359 S.W.2d 329 (Tex.1962); Hailey v. Hailey, 160 Tex. 372, 331 S.W.2d 299 (1960); Mansfieid v. Mansfield, 308 S.W.2d 80 (Tex.Civ.App.1958, writ dism’d). The community estate may logically be the subject of “a division.” The statute does not authorize a division of the “estates” of the parties. McKnight, Commentary on Sec. 3.63, 5 Tex.Tech L.Rev. 338 (1974).
*140A constitutional problem also arises from the trial court’s decree that the husband’s separate property shall become the separate property of the divorced wife. The nature of property is fixed by the Texas Constitution, and not by what is “just and right.” Culpability may, despite no-fault divorce, be a basis for the dissolution of a marriage, but it is no basis for a redefinition of property at variance with the Texas Constitution. Section 15, article XVI of the Texas Constitution declares that a wife’s property, owned or claimed by her before marriage, and that acquired afterward by gift, devise or descent shall be the separate property of the wife.3 By reason of legislation, the husband’s property is classified the same way.4 If one spouse’s separate property may by a divorce decree be changed from the separate property of the one spouse into the separate property of the other, there is a type of separate property which is not embraced within the constitutional definition of the term. This question has never been confronted by this court, and as Professor MeKnight has written: “Thus a constitutional issue that has never been raised needs resolution.” McKnight, Matrimonial Property, 27 Sw.L.J. 37, 38 (1973).
This court held in Arnold v. Leonard, 114 Tex. 535, 273 S.W. 799 (1925), and again in Graham v. Franco, 488 S.W.2d 390, 392 (Tex.1972), that the constitutional definition of separate property was intended to be exclusive and that it may not be altered or enlarged by an act of the legislature. See also, Gorman v. Gause, 56 S.W.2d 855 (Tex.Com.App.1933, holding approved); Huie, The Texas Constitutional Definition of the Wife’s Separate Property, 35 Tex.L.Rev. 1054, 1057-1058 (1957). This court has also held that the legislature cannot transform one type of constitutionally defined property into another type of property. Williams v. McKnight, 402 S.W.2d 505 (Tex.1966). We said in Hilley v. Hilley, 161 Tex. 569, 342 S.W.2d 565, 567-568 (1961):
All marital property is thus either separate or community. If acquired before marriage by any method, or after marriage by gift, devise or descent, it is separate; otherwise, it is community. . Property purchased with separate funds is separate . . . and community property partitioned in the manner provided in Articles 4624a and 881a-23, becomes separate property.
There is another constitutional problem. The protection of one’s right to own property is said to be one of the most important purposes of government. That right has been described as fundamental, natural, inherent, inalienable, not derived from the legislature and as preexisting even constitutions. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922); 28 A.L.R. 1321 (1924); 16 Am. Jur.2d, Constitutional Law § 362 (1964). Article I, section 19, of the Texas Constitution 5 explains that no citizen of this state shall be deprived of his property except by the due course of the law of the land. The due course that protects citizens requires not only procedural but also substantive due course. See Interpretive Commentary after section 19, art. I, Tex.Const., p. 448, Vernon’s Tex.Const: “One person’s property may not be taken for the benefit of another private person without a justifying public purpose, even though compensation *141be paid.” Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Co., 300 U.S. 55, 80, 57 S.Ct. 364, 376, 81 L.Ed. 510 (1936). This court quoted and relied upon that statement from Thompson in Marrs v. Railroad Commission, 142 Tex. 293, 177 S.W.2d 941, 949 (1944). There is no contention that the taking of Homer’s separate property and its transfer to Virginia is justified by any benefit to the public welfare. The taking was not grounded upon the police power; consequently, the taking from Homer would not have been a constitutional act even if the legislature had expressly authorized the divestiture of one person’s property and its vesting in another person.
The court of civil appeals, as stated above, held correctly that the trial court may set aside either spouse’s separate real property, its income, rents, or revenues for the support of the minor children. Chief Justice Hemphill, writing in Rice v. Rice, 21 Tex. 58, 71 (1858) said:
The separate property may be divided in cases of necessity; or the whole, both separate and community, may be kept together as in this case, for the benefit of the children; but the decree must not divest either party of their title in the lands or slaves. It will be no breach of the statute to decree the use of property, for some period, to the use of the children, reserving the fee of the property in the husband to be enjoyed by him after the expiration of the trust estate for the children.
The basis for the holding was the duty of the parent to support his children whether from the community or the separate estate. The trial court judgment which was approved in Rice was that a receiver under bond would take charge of the property, collect the proceeds, and apply them to the support, education, and maintenance of two minor children. Rice, supra, 64.
Virginia Eggemeyer strongly relies upon Hedtke v. Hedtke, 112 Tex. 404, 248 S.W. 21 (1923), as supporting her contention that Homer Eggemeyer’s separate property may be transferred to her. The husband and father in that divorce action owned one hundred acres as his separate property which was also the family homestead. It was the homestead interest not the land itself, that was granted the wife and two children of the marriage “during the balance of the natural life of the plaintiff (mother).” The lands were adjudged the property of the husband, and the decree was that “Possession of said land to revert to said defendant, J. G. Hedtke at the termination of said homestead rights as herein provided. . . . ” In that case, the reason for the rule was also expressed; it was the husband’s burden to support his family. The court was overbroad in its statement that the divorced husband owed family obligations to the divorced wife as distinguished from their children, but the court clearly recognized the limitations upon divesting title:
For the purpose of doing equity, the court may award all the personal property to either spouse, and may subject the income, rents, or revenues of all real estate belonging to either or both of the spouses, to the support of either or both of them, or to the education and support of the children.
The case concerned homestead rights, that is, the use of the husband’s separate property upon which homestead rights accrued during marriage. Homestead rights are different from the community or separate character of property. In Hedtke, homestead rights were properly subject to the decree as a part of the court’s order for support of the children. We should not extend this precedent which upholds a right to a continued use of separate property as homestead to a right to divest title in separate property.
The dictum of Hedtke v. Hedtke, supra, that a divorce court may dispose of “any and all property of the parties, separate or community” in the exercise of a wide discretion which will be corrected only where there is an abuse of discretion is, in general, a sound rule. See, Hailey v. Hailey, 160 Tex. 372, 331 S.W.2d 299 (1960). It was not, however, essential to the decision. The trial court had decreed the homestead *142right during the life of the divorced wife, but provided further that “[possession of said land to revert to said defendant J. G. Hedtke, at the termination of said homestead rights . .Trial courts have a broad latitude in the division of the marital community property, but that discretion does not extend to a taking of the fee to the separate property of the one and its donation to the other. This is the construction which this court has previously given Rice and Hedtke. See Cunningham v. Cunningham, 120 Tex. 491, 40 S.W.2d 46 (1931).
The language and holdings of a number of courts of civil appeals are reviewed and distinguished in Ramirez v. Ramirez, 524 S.W.2d 767 (Tex.Civ.App.1975, no writ). We agree with that decision. We disapprove the language of Wilkerson v. Wilkerson, 515 S.W.2d 52 (Tex.Civ.App.1974, no writ), as well as the language and holdings of those decisions which have construed section 3.63 of the Family Code at variance with this opinion, Baxla v. Baxla, 522 S.W.2d 736 (Tex.Civ.App.1975, no writ); In re Marriage of Butler, 543 S.W.2d 147 (Tex.Civ.App.1976, writ dism’d); Burns v. Burns, 541 S.W.2d 280 (Tex.Civ.App.1976, no writ); Dietz v. Dietz, 540 S.W.2d 418 (Tex.Civ.App.1976, no writ); Merrell v. Merrell, 527 S.W.2d 250 (Tex.Civ.App.1975, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Harrison v. Harrison, 495 S.W.2d 1 (Tex.Civ.App.1973, no writ); In re Marriage of McCurdy, 489 S.W.2d 712 (Tex.Civ.App.1973, writ dism’d); Medearis v. Medearis, 487 S.W.2d 198 (Tex.Civ.App.1972, no writ). See McKnight, Division of Texas Marital Property on Divorce, 8 St. Mary’s L.J. 413, 444-449 (1976).
The correct rule, as stated by the court of civil appeals in this case, is that a parent owes a duty to support his child and that duty can be enforced against the parent and his separate property. A receiver or trustee may be named to assure compliance with the order for child support. The fee to the separate property, however, may not be divested.
We affirm the judgment of the court of civil appeals reversing the trial court’s divestiture of the husband’s separate property and remanding the cause to the trial court to determine whether an interim arrangement for the support of the children should be made.
STEAKLEY, J., joined by GREENHILL, C. J., and REAVLEY and YARBROUGH, JJ., dissent.

. Article 4638. [4634] [2980] [2864] Division of property. — The court pronouncing a decree of divorce shall also decree and order a division of the estate of the parties in such a way as the court shall deem just and right, having due regard to the rights of each party and their children, if any. Nothing herein shall be construed to compel either party to divest himself or herself of the title to real estate. [P.D. 3452.]

. Section 3.63: In a decree of divorce or annulment the court shall order a division of the estate of the parties in a manner that the court deems just and right, having due regard for the rights of each party and any children of the marriage.

. All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned or claimed by her before marriage, and that acquired afterward by gift, devise or descent, shall be the separate property of the wife . .

. Section 5.01. Marital Property Characterized (a) A spouse’s separate property consists of:
(1) the property owned or claimed by the spouse before marriage;
(2) the property acquired by the spouse during marriage by gift, devise, or descent; and
(3)the recovery for personal injuries sustained by the spouse during marriage, except any recovery for loss of earning capacity during marriage.
(b) Community property consists of the property, other than separate property, acquired by either spouse during marriage.

.No citizen of this State shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of the law of the land. Tex.Const. art. I, § 19.