Court Opinion

ID: 9865530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 18:50:33.368044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:32:19.050185
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
In his motion for rehearing the movant quotes the Code, § as follows: “Fraud will authorize equity to annul conveyances, however solemnly executed, and to relieve against awards, judgments, and decrees obtained by imposition.” The provisions • of this section, under the ruling made in the first division of the syllabus, which was a direct quotation from a previous decision of This court, would not authorize the procedure taken.
The motion makes the following statement: “Movant contends That in rendering said decision the court overlooked the fact in the ■record that it is unequivocally charged in the original petition that fit was the defendant in error’s fraudulent purpose and intention fin filing and securing her fraudulent divorce to perpetrate a fraud ■on any man she might subsequently determine to marry, and to put ¡herself into a position -where she could enforce a false claim against *634him.” in view of the ruling in the first division of the syllabus,, it seems manifest that unless the plaintiff, as a stranger to the previous divorce proceeding, which was regular on its face but which, he now seeks to attack, can bring himself within the status of a. prospective creditor whom his spouse sought by that proceeding to. defraud, his action cannot be maintained, even under the theory which the plaintiff by this, his alternative position, seeks to maintain. It is true that this court in Sullivan v. Ginsberg, 180 Ga. 840 (1 b) (supra), held that, “Where a mortgage is made and. accepted with the understanding between the parties that it will be withheld, from record for the purpose of protecting the financial credit of the mortgagor, the agreement may amount to fraud as-against subsequent creditors, depending in that respect upon the intention of the parties, to be determined as an issue of fact;” but it would seem to be a far cry from what was held in that ease to the position which the movant now assumes. There, it was plainly alleged that a mortgage was purposely withheld from record in order to conceal the financial credit of the mortgagor from other creditors “who were advancing” credit to him, and it was held that under such circumstances the agreement might amount to a fraud against the other creditors if the proof showed that such was the-fraudulent purpose and intent. Here, oven according to the contention in the motion, there was nothing more than a strained, and it might be said fanciful, allegation that the purpose of the defendant spouse in obtaining her prior divorce was to perpetrate a fraud upon any man “she might subsequently determine to marry,” and to “put herself into a position where she could enforce a false claim” of unstated character “against him.” It would not seem that such a strained and indefinite supposition, based upon other equally fanciful suppositions, could be taken to afford such solid basis of alleged fact as would clothe the present petitioner with the-rights and privileges of a prospective creditor whom the defendant spouse had sought by her previous divorce proceeding to defraud of alimony. But be that as it may, it does not appear that any such question is presented by the petition, since the movant’s contention on rehearing as to what the petition contains is based on a misinterpretation of the record. The movant appears correct in saying that the petition shows that at the time the previous divorce-decree was obtained it was the fraudxxlent purpose of his spouse “tc> *635place herself in the false position of being a single woman with the •right to ■ contract a subsequent marriage, thereby committing a fraud upon whomever she could thereafter enter into a marriage •ceremony with;” but we are unable to find any allegation in the petition that in obtaining such a decree it was her purpose and indent “to put herself in the position where she could obtáin a false •claim against” whomever she might subsequently marry. On the •contrary, it appears that all the petition does allege is that she “entered into said, ceremony with petitioner” for the fraudulent ■purpose of enforcing a false claim against him — not that such had 'been the fraudulent purpose in obtaining the previous divorce de•cree, and that she subsequently filed a claim for alimony. Therefore it appears that no question is made as to whether the petition ■would be good in a case where the previous divorce decree had been •obtained with the fraudulent intent and purpose of subjecting whomever she might thereafter marry to a fraudulent claim for .-alimony, and such a question cannot be decided.

Rehearing denied.