Court Opinion

ID: 9612456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:08:53.402759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:55.061067
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J., Dissenting.
I dissent.
I concur in that portion of the majority opinion which holds that the judgment should be affirmed as to those alimony payments which had accrued under the Missouri decree within five years immediately preceding the commencement of this action, but I dissent from that portion of said opinion which purports to affirm that portion of the judgment of the trial court establishing the Missouri decree as a California judgment requiring payments henceforth of $25 per week by the husband to the wife although the Missouri award was for the support of both the children and the wife, and the children have now reached majority, and the wife, since the Missouri decree, has remarried. It is true that the second marriage has been dissolved, but when we consider that the wife has done nothing to enforce the Missouri decree from the time of its entry until 1938, and during that time has lived with the husband for four years and has been married and divorced a second time, considerations of good morals, social principles, natural justice, and fair play require a determination that it is against the public policy of this state to establish the Missouri decree as a California judgment requiring the husband in the future to pay $25 per week to the wife. It must be conceded that whether or not future payments under the Missouri decree shall be so established, lies entirely in the discretion of the trial court, unaffected by the full faith and credit clause of the federal Constitution; but it is contended that such establishment is not against the public policy of this state as expressed by the legislature in section 139 of the Civil Code, which provides that alimony payments shall cease upon remarriage of the wife. The term “public policy” as used in connection with the enforcement by one state of another state’s laws is at best vague and impossible of precise definition, and it is true that a state’s public policy ordinarily is not violated merely because there is a variance in the laws of the states involved, and that before there is such a violation of the law *118of the other state, it must be contrary to good morals or natural justice. But in this instance we have a declaration of policy in California which states that a woman cannot look to her former divorced husband for support and maintenance after she has become the wife of another man. It is undoubtedly a fundamental social principle inherent in the fiber of any flourishing and successful social order, that marriage, and the home life and families that flow therefrom, are to be fostered and encouraged at all times. The law that relieves a man from further alimony payments after bis divorced wife remarries, not only encourages á man to remarry and establish a home and rear a family because he is relieved of the burden of supporting his first wife, but in the majority of instances will make his remarriage a possibility; whereas, due to economic circumstances, it would be out of the question, if he has a former wife to support. It necessarily follows, therefore, that natural justice and fundamental social principles are advanced and secured by the policy declared in section 139 of our Civil Code and any law to the contrary is a violation of the public policy involved in the doctrine of comity and should not be countenanced by this court. There is no injustice caused to the woman. When she marries the second time, she takes her new companion for better or worse, and chooses, and in justice should look to him and him alone for her maintenance. He should not be relieved from this obligation, nor be permitted to live a life of ease and idleness at the expense of not only the efforts and toil of the first husband, but also at the much greater cost of making it economically impossible for the first husband to remarry. The decision cites Handschy v. Handschy, 32 Cal. App. (2d) 504 [90 Pac. (2d) 123], for its position, but rather than supporting it, that decision unequivocally states that, it is against the public policy of California to enforce a divorce decree of a sister state which requires the payment of alimony after remarriage. In the cited case it is said at page 509: ‘ ‘ Appellant contends also that as the children are of age the amount of alimony awarded was ipso facto reduced to the extent that the same provided for their maintenance, support, and that the trial court erred in refusing to allow him credit accordingly, although no modification had been made of the decree of the Tilínois court. No authority is cited by appellant in support of his contention, nor have we found any. There are cases where *119accrued installments of an award for support and maintenance for wife and minor children were cancelled, the wife having remarried and the children become of age, but in those cases it is clear that the remarriage of the wife was the principal factor considered by the court, it being held that to require a husband to pay for the support and maintenance of his divorced wife, following her remarriage to another, would in the absence of extraordinary conditions, violate a sound principle of law and be against recognized public policy. (Hale v. Hale, 6 Cal. App. (2d) 661 [45 Pac. (2d) 246]; Atlass v. Atlass, 112 Cal. App. 514 [297 Pac. 53].)"
Here the children are of age, and it certainly would do violence to the policy of our state founded on natural justice and basic social principles to permit the establishment of the Missouri decree requiring appellant to make payments to the wife in the future. The portion of the judgment of the trial court so declaring should be reversed.