Court Opinion

ID: 9810103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:39:55.217882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:23.296656
License: Public Domain

*52Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: Tbe defendant brought an action against bis wife, tbe plaintiff herein, for an absolute divorce in Alamance County, which was the place of his residence, at that date, September, 1910. The present plaintiff, the defendant in that action, appeared and filed an answer. Subsequently she instituted this action-in Wake, in August, 1911. The defendant herein moved to abate this action by reason of, the pendency of his prior action which had been brought in Alamance. This motion should have been granted.
In Smith v. Morehead, 59 N. C., 360, the Court held that the domicile of the husband was the domicile of the wife, and that proceedings in divorce instituted by the wife against the husband must be brought in the county where the husband resided.
But independently of th'at, an action for divorce is sui generis, and is to determine the status, of the parties. Hence, there can be nothing in the nature of a counterclaim. In Bidwell v. Bidwell, 139 N. C., 409, Holce, J., says: “Actions for divorce deal with the status of the parties,” and held that, there having been a decree of divorce between the parties, a subsequent action would be barred, though it might set up matters which would have affected the former decree, if pleaded in time.
In the present case, even if this action had been properly brought by the wife in Wake, the judgment decreeing her a divorce from bed and board was a determination that such was the legal status of the parties at the date of that judgment. Hence, in the further prosecution of plaintiff's suit in Ala-mance, which he had a right to bring in that county, and which he did bring therein nearly a year prior to the institution of the present suit by his wife in Wake, he will be estopped by the judgment in this case from further prosecuting his action. He, can only bring a new action, and only as to causes arising subsequent to the date of the judgment in this. He is estopped by the judgment in this case. As the husband instituted his action in Alamance prior to the beginning of this action, he had a right to prosecute it to judgment, and the action in this case in Wake should have been dismissed, for the wife could have had her full remedy by a defense to the action in Alamance which was already pending for the purpose of determining the status of the parties.
*53In DeHaley v. DeHaley, 74 Cal., 489, tbe point is expressly decided, tbe Court bolding that while an action for a divorce is pending, one of tbe parties thereto cannot maintain a subsequent action for divorce against tbe other, but that all matters affecting tbe status .of tbe parties should be determined in tbe action first brought, and not by a new action setting up matters in recrimination or defense. In 2 Nelson Separation and Divorce, sec. 745, it is said: “Tbe term counterclaim is not applicable to a cause for divorce, which is neither a tort nor a breach of contract, but is a cause of action unlike all other causes.”
The husband having brought his prior action in Alamance, the wife should have tried out her grounds of defense or her claims for relief in that action.
The test of a counterclaim is that its decision is not necessarily involved in the pending action, and the claimant can bring his counterclaim on it even after judgment. If the plaintiff in the Alamance case, which was first brought, had obtained judgment of absolute divorce, the defendant in that case could not have brought her action for divorce from bed and board. Bidwell v. Bidwell, 339 N. C., 409. It follows that she could not bring such suit pending the Alamance action. Her demand is not a counterclaim, but a recrimination, and would be barred by a decision granting the demand in the plaintiff’s action against her, for it is a matter necessarily involved in the decree in the action against her which would determine her status. Tyler v. Capeheart, 125 N. C., 64.
Walker, J., concurs in this dissent.