Court Opinion

ID: 9849227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:36:24.931636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:08.357710
License: Public Domain

Hawes, Justice,
concurring specially. I concur in the judgment of affirmance in this case, but not in the rulings made in Division 3 of the opinion with respect to grounds referred to as (e) and (f) of the motion for a new trial. I do so solely because of the full-bench ruling of this court in the case of Zuber v. Zuber, 215 Ga. 314 (1) (110 SE2d 370), which, I think, renders unnecessary a decision at this time on the issues sought to be presented by those grounds of the motion. In her amended answer, plaintiff embodied a counter-claim for temporary and permanent alimony together with an appropriate prayer or demand that she "be awarded a reasonable amount out of the property and earnings of the plaintiff as alimony, both temporary and permanent, for her own support and maintenance.” Her amendment seeking this relief was filed on November 13, 1969. In the final judgment and decree entered on April 28, 1970, the trial court followed the verdict of the jury in its judgment by incorporating therein the provision that "the court retains jurisdiction of this matter for the purpose of determination of the wife’s entitlement of alimony in the future.” I recognize that the jurisdiction of the court to award permanent alimony is lost where no proceeding to *360recover the same is commenced prior to the entry of a valid judgment of divorce and that jurisdiction of the subject matter of a suit for permanent alimony is dependent on the existence of the marital relation at the time the action is instituted. However, these rules do not bar the defendant from being awarded alimony in this case because at the time she instituted her action for alimony the marital relation had not been severed. In the Zuber case, this court, speaking through Justice Mobley, quoted with approval from 27A CJS 1024, §231, as follows: "Alimony may be granted after a decree of divorce, if the right to have it subsequently determined is reserved therein, provided application therefor is made before the action has become stale.” There, as in this case, the wife had instituted her action for alimony before the divorce became final, and in the divorce decree rendered on September 28, 1953, the court, in language not substantially different from that embodied in the decree in this case, retained jurisdiction and reserved until "a later date” the question of permanent alimony and support. His right to thereafter, on December 5, 1953, render a judgment for permanent alimony was upheld. Certainly, the action had not become stale in this case when the defendant applied for permanent alimony. The evidence adduced on the trial of this case was ample to authorize the award of some amount of money as periodic payments of alimony to the wife and no new hearing need be had or additional evidence received before such an award is made. See Dobson v. Dobson, 223 Ga. 432 (156 SE2d 72), and cits. The plaintiff husband not having objected to the form of the verdict at the time it was rendered thereby consented to the trial judge passing on the issue of what amount of alimony should be awarded at a later date. We need not decide at this time if the defendant should fail to invoke a ruling of the trial court granting her some amount of permanent alimony until after the judgment of this court becomes final whether she would be barred under the principles of laches. In my view, she still may invoke such a judgment from the *361trial court, and this court should mold its opinion and judgment so that they may not be construed to bar that right.