Court Opinion

ID: 9711036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:23:13.55118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:01.796141
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
In Jenkins v. Jenkins, 246 Pa.Super. 455, 371 A.2d 925 (1977), the majority opinion stated that the Act of 1907 authorizes two distinct types of action: under section 1 of the Act, an action in personam to recover past expenditures; and under section 2, an action in rem for future support. I disagreed with this statement, but because it did not seem essential to the decision, I concurred in the majority’s re-*247suit.1 Here the distinction drawn by the majority in Jenkins is essential to the decision. I shall therefore try to explain my disagreement with it.
In Gessler v. Gessler, 181 Pa.Super. 357, 124 A.2d 502 (1956), this court held that under section 2 recovery may be had for future support only. I submit that a comparison of section 2 with section 1 will disclose no basis for holding now that while section 2 looks to the future, section 1 looks to the past. The only difference I can find in the two sections is procedural: section 1 authorizes an in personam action, section 2, an in rem action.2 Here, the majority holds that under section 2, appellee is entitled to future support. I agree. However, the majority also holds that under section 1, appellee may be entitled to recover past expenditures. I disagree. Like section 2, section 1 looks to the future only. Consequently, in my opinion, appellee may not recover past expenditures under section 1.
I grant that Gessler v. Gessler, supra, is somewhat unclear. In Gessler this court observed that “sections 1 and 2 of the Act must be construed together . . 181 Pa.Super. at 361, 124 A.2d at 505. Then the court stated that
*248[sjection 2 provides for an action in rem against the husband’s property in a proceeding for future “suitable maintenance” of the wife; it does not prescribe the procedure for the collection of the value of necessaries which had been supplied for the support of the wife and minor children.
Id. (footnote omitted).
I do not read this sentence as implying a distinction between sections 1 and 2 in the sense that because section 2 looks to the future, therefore section 1 looks to the past. Rather, the court discussed the scope of section 2 because section 2 was the only section arguably relevant to the in rem proceeding before the court. In other words, the court found no need to discuss the scope of section 1, and to observe that it, like section 2, provides an action “for future ‘suitable maintenance’ ” only.
If my reading of Gessler is correct, no case law supports the majority’s reading of sections 1 and 2. (Adler v. Adler, 171 Pa.Super. 508, 90 A.2d 389 (1952), cited by the majority in Jenkins, did not involve the Act of 1907.) It only remains, therefore, to apply settled principles of statutory construction. As stated above, a comparison of the language of one section with the language of the other will disclose no basis for the distinction drawn by the majority. Furthermore, I can imagine no reason why the legislature would want to draw the distinction. Why should an in personam action look only to the past, and an in rem action only to the future? There is no logical connection between the temporal difference and the procedural difference; one difference, therefore should not determine the other.
This is not to say that a wife3 has no recourse to recover past expenditures made by her after desertion by her husband. Both Gessler v. Gessler, supra, and Adler v. Adler, supra, make clear that she may bring an action under common-law theories of restitution or quasi-contract. Here, however, appellee sued only under the Act of 1907.
*249I therefore concur in the majority’s order “vacatpng] the lower court’s support order and remandpng] for the entry of a support order effective as of August 25, 1976, the date the lower court entered its original order,” Majority Opinion at 1106, but I dissent from the majority’s order remanding for a determination of past expenditures.

. In Jenkins the plaintiff was deemed by the majority to have sued only for support, not for past expenditures. (The majority noted that even if the complaint were construed as in assumpsit for past expenditures, it failed because it alleged no such expenditures.) The majority held that the plaintiff could not be awarded support retroactive to the date of her husband’s desertion, because an award under the Act of 1907 may be effective only from the date of the order, and also because she was barred by res judicata. Thus the issue of recovery for past expenditures was not presented.

. Indeed, leaving aside the procedural language of the two sections, the difference between them suggests, not that section 1 authorizes an award of past expenditures and section 2 only future support, but the opposite. Section 1 reads: “If any man shall separate himself . . . and shall neglect to provide suitable maintenance . . ., the . . . court . . shall make and enforce such orders and decrees as the equities of the case demand . . ..” (Emphasis added.) Section 2 reads: “Whenever any man . . . has neglected or refused or shall neglect or refuse to provide suitable maintenance . ., proceedings may be had against any property real or personal of said husband for the suitable maintenance . ..” (Emphasis added.)

. I have spoken in terms of a wife’s suit against a husband (rather than a spouse’s suit against a spouse) only because that is the case here. See Pa.Const. art. 1, § 28.