Court Opinion

ID: 9853590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:50:51.582673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:51.942729
License: Public Domain

Hawkins, Justice,
dissenting. I dissent from the ruling made in the first headnote and corresponding division of the opinion. Code § 30-201 provides: “Alimony is an allowance out of the husband’s estate, made for the support of the wife when living separate from him. It is either temporary or permanent.” By Code § 30-209 it is provided: “The jury rendering the final verdict in a divorce suit may provide permanent alimony for the wife, either from the corpus of the estate or otherwise, according to the condition of the husband,” and § 30-210 is as follows: “Permanent alimony shall be granted in the following cases: 1. In cases of divorce, as considered in Chapter 30-1. 2. In cases of voluntary separation. 3. Where the wife, against her will, shall either be abandoned or driven off by her husband.” Under these Code sections, which must be construed together, alimony allowed to the wife, whether to be paid in monthly instalments, in a lump sum, or in specific property, is a charge against the husband’s estate, and his estate is not relieved from payment thereof merely because the decree provides that the permanent alimony should be paid in monthly instalments. This court has held that a provision for permanent alimony bars the *294wife’s right to dower and year’s support. Harris v. Davis, 115 Ga. 950 (2) (42 S. E. 266). It would be inequitable and unjust to deprive the wife of the right of inheritance, dower, and year’s support by reason of an award of permanent alimony, and then to deprive her of the permanent alimony upon the death of her husband, in the teeth of the statute, Code § 30-218, which provides that, “After permanent alimony shall be granted, upon the death of the husband the wife shall not be entitled to any further interest in his estate in her right as wife, but such permanent provision shall be continued to her, or a portion of the estate equivalent thereto shall be set apart to her.” In Wise v. Wise, 156 Ga. 459 (119 S. E. 410), the question for decision was whether the wife acquired absolute title or only a life estate in the property awarded as alimony, and, after referring to the above-quoted Code section, this court at page 476 said: “Whether or not these provisions could be applied in the case of a grant of permanent alimony where a total divorce is granted, they are not sufficient to require a different construction than that hereinbefore given to the Code of 1863, §§ 1676, 1677, 1678; which in the Civil Code of 1910 are §§ 2954, 2955, 2956.” This is not a ruling that the Code section referred to has no application to the award of alimony in a divorce case. As pointed out in that case (page 475), the object of the law providing for alimony “is support of the wife.” The very object of the law is thwarted by the majority opinion, and the former wife in this case—-who by the decree of the court is entitled to permanent alimony against the husband— is deprived of that support which the law and the decree of court provides for her, simply because that support is made payable in monthly installments instead of in a lump sum or in specific property. There is neither law, reason, nor logic to support such a conclusion. The decree for alimony, “an allowance out of the husband’s estate,” although payable in monthly installments, was rendered during the lifetime of the husband. It was final, unexcepted to, and in force at the time of his death. In no other instance of which I am aware is a final and solemn judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction granting a money judgment against a person discharged by the death of such person, if he leaves an estate out of which *295it may be collected. For these reasons I cannot concur in the first division of the opinion. See, in this connection, Smythe v. Banks, 73 Ga. 303. I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Candler concurs in this portion of this dissent.
Nor can I concur in the second division of the opinion, for in my opinion the purchase by the father of the bonds, which were payable to the father or to the sons, but which were never surrendered by the father to the sons during the lifetime of the father, did not constitute “advancements” to the sons within the meaning of the Code § 113-1013, requiring the sons to account therefor in the distribution of the estate of their deceased father. Mr. Justice Almand concurs in this dissent as to the second division of the opinion.
The judgment in this case was affirmed on July 9, 1951. On July 24, 1951, after further consideration of the case on the court’s own motion, the judgment remained affirmed.