Court Opinion

ID: 9625363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:38:08.017979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:29.466321
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
Archie B. Shore brought these actions to establish his title to an undivided one-half interest in certain real and personal property in the possession of defendant Alberta Mae Shore and to secure a partition of the personal property. The actions were consolidated for trial. In her answers, Alberta pleaded that Archie’s actions were barred by a decree of annulment between the parties and that Archie had given her his one-half interest in the property while they were living together as husband and wife. Title to all of the property had originally been taken by the parties as joint tenants. The trial court found that the annulment decree was not a bar to these actions and that Archie had not made a gift of his interest in the property to Alberta. It further found that Archie had deeded his interest in the real property to defendant to protect his interest from unfounded claims against him by third parties and that Alberta held Archie’s interest on an oral trust for him. Since a confidential relationship had existed between the parties and since the claims against Archie were unfounded, it concluded that the oral trust was enforceable and entered *679judgment that each party was the owner of an undivided one-half interest in the real property. In the action for partition of the personal property it entered judgment that each of the parties was the owner of an undivided one-half interest and ordered a partition. Alberta has appealed from both judgments.
Belying on the following facts, Alberta contends that the trial court erred in holding that the decree in the annulment action was not a bar to these actions. At the time of the annulment action in 1951, title to the real property stood in her name and she was in possession of both the real and personal property. In her complaint for divorce or annulment she alleged that the property involved in this action was her separate property and prayed that the court so determine. In his answer and cross-complaint for annulment, Archie alleged that the property was the community or jointly acquired property of the parties and prayed that it be divided equally between them. The trial court awarded an annulment to Alberta on the ground that Archie had another spouse living at the time of his purported marriage to Alberta. It also found that the parties were in pari delicto, and “that the Court, therefore, makes no findings concerning the character of the property set out in the first cause of action of [Alberta’s] complaint.” As a conclusion of law it stated “That the Court, finding both parties at fault in the purported marriage, declines for lack of jurisdiction to make any award of property alleged to be community in character.”
Alberta contends that the foregoing finding and conclusion constitute a binding adjudication that at the time of the annulment neither party was entitled to relief against the other with respect to the property here in question. Archie contends, on the other hand, that a denial of relief for lack of jurisdiction does not constitute a judgment on the merits and that in any event no adjudication with respect to the property was carried into the formal decree of annulment.
When the property rights of the parties are properly put in issue by the pleadings in an annulment action, the court may determine them. (Figoni v. Figoni, 211 Cal. 354, 357 [295 P. 339]; Schneider v. Schneider, 183 Cal. 335, 342 [191 P. 533, 11 A.L.R. 1386] ; see Sanguinetti v. Sanguinetti, 9 Cal.2d 95, 99 [69 P.2d 845, 111 A.L.R. 342].)  If the purported marriage was not entered into in *680good faith, however, the court may not properly award the property of the parties as if the marriage had been valid and the property community in character. (Vallera v. Vallera, 21 Cal.2d 681, 684-685 [134 P.2d 761] ; Baskett v. Crook, 86 Cal.App.2d 355, 362 [195 P.2d 39] ; Taylor v. Taylor, 66 Cal.App.2d 390, 399 [152 P.2d 480].)  When the decision of the court in the annulment action is viewed in the light of these rules, it is clear that it constituted more than a decision on the issue of jurisdiction. It was also a determination on the merits of Archie’s claim that .the property should be divided equally as the community or jointly acquired property of the parties. The court did not merely decide that it lacked jurisdiction to award the property, it decided that because the parties were in pari delicto neither of them was entitled to legal assistance with respect to their property interests. Accordingly, when the decree of annulment is interpreted in the light of the findings of fact and conclusions of law (see City of Vernon v. Superior Court, 38 Cal.2d 509, 514 [241 P.2d 243]; Gelfand v. O’Haver, 33 Cal.2d 218, 222 [200 P.2d 790]), it is clear that it was tantamount to a dismissal of the respective claims of the parties with respect to their property interests. The situation is thus closely analogous to that in Olwell v. Hopkins, 28 Cal.2d 147 [168 P.2d 972], where it was held that a judgment of dismissal was res judicata when it appeared that the dismissal was based upon a determination that the contract sued upon was void. The court recognized that “Ordinarily a judgment of dismissal is not a judgment on the merits and therefore does not operate as a bar to another action on the same cause of action. This court has recognized, however, that a dismissal may follow an actual determination on the merits [citations] as have courts in other jurisdictions. ... At the hearing upon their motion to dismiss the present action, defendants introduced in evidence the record of the first action. It is clear from that record that the one issue passed upon by the trial court in dismissing the first action was that raised by defendants’ contention that plaintiff’s cause of action was based upon a contract that was void. The defense thus interposed went to the merits of plaintiffs’ cause of action. . . . [Defendants] raised an issue as to plaintiffs’ right to recover under any circumstances upon their alleged cause of action and upon that issue the court rendered judgment against plaintiffs.” (28 Cal.2d at 149-150.) [4] The reasoning in the Olwell *681case is equally applicable here, and accordingly we conclude that although a judgment refusing to determine an issue on the ground of lack of jurisdiction is not ordinarily res judicata (Slaker v. McCormick-Saeltzer Co., 179 Cal. 387, 389 [177 P. 155] ; see also Stark v. Coker, 20 Cal.2d 839, 843-844 [129 P.2d 390]), when the decision on the jurisdictional question is based upon a determination of the merits of an issue before the court, it constitutes a binding determination of that issue.
In the present actions Archie is not seeking to establish an interest in the property growing out of the purported marital relationship. He relies on evidence with respect to the acquisition of the property and the parties’ dealings therewith that the trial court found to be sufficient to establish his claim to a one-half interest without reference to that relationship.  As was pointed out in Vallera v. Vallera, supra, 21 Cal.2d 681, 685, the fact that a man and woman do not in good faith believe they are married does not preclude the court from protecting their respective interests in jointly acquired property. Accordingly if Archie advanced the theory of recovery he now relies upon in the annulment action, the court erred in holding that the fact the parties were in pari delicto prevented relief.  Although it does not appear that Archie sought to establish his interest in the property in the annulment action on the theory now advanced, whether he did or not, these actions are barred by that adjudication. He now seeks to establish the same right in the property that he sought to establish in the annulment action, and the decision in that action went to the merits of his claim. If the court in the annulment action erroneously applied the doctrine of pari delicto to deny relief on the theory now advanced, Archie’s remedy was by appeal. On the other hand, if Archie failed to present the present- theory of recovery in ■ the former action, it is too late for him to do so now. The situation is legally indistinguishable from that in Krier v. Krier, 28 Cal.2d 841 [172 P.2d 681], where a wife sought in successive actions to establish an interest in the same property on different legal theories. “In the prior separate maintenance action Mrs. Krier sought and procured an adjudication with respect to her interest in the property. She here seeks a second adjudication relative to her interest in the same property.  It is settled, however, that a judgment in a prior action between the same parties on the identical *682cause of action is res judicata, and a bar to a second suit thereon, not only as to issues actually determined therein but also as to issues necessarily involved. [Citations.]  And even though the cause of action be different, the prior determination of an issue is conclusive in a subsequent suit between the same parties as to that issue and every matter which might have been urged to sustain or defeat its determination. [Citations.]
“Having claimed the property in the prior action solely as community property and having procured a decree therein based on its character as such, Mrs. Krier is precluded from seeking in this later action another award thereof based on an entirely different interest (homestead or otherwise) existing, but unclaimed, at the time of the earlier adjudication. Under the circumstances she was required to advance her entire interest, whether community or homestead, or both, in order to permit the court to make an effective and complete adjudication of the respective interests of the parties. [Citation.] Not having done so, she cannot relitigate the matter, whether it be held that the two suits involved the same cause of action insofar as they concerned her interest in the property, or merely involved a common issue as to her interest in the property.” (28 Cal.2d at 843-844.)
The judgments are reversed.
Gibson, C. J., Edmonds, J., and Spence, J., concurred.