Court Opinion

ID: 9738600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:57:48.292324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.189460
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, J.
I dissent. The principle of judgment finality stimulates less fervor than the urgings of visceral justice. The extent and limitations of res judicata in divorce cases were summarized by us in Farley v. Farley, 227 Cal. App.2d 1, 8 [38 Cal.Rptr. 357]. The law is not inflexibly harsh with a divorced spouse who finds himself saddled with an invalid judgment past the point of appeal. He may attack the judgment in a collateral proceeding if it is void on the face of the judgment roll. (3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (1954) pp. 2047-2048, 2117.) He may also seek equitable relief, by motion or separate action, for extrinsic fraud or mistake which prevented him from presenting his case. (Ibid., pp. 2124-2132.)
Upon collateral attack the judgment roll is the only evidence on the question of jurisdiction. (Johnson v. Hayes Cal. Builders, 60 Cal.2d 572, 576 [35 Cal.Rptr. 618, 387 P.2d 394] ; Estate of Wise, 34 Cal.2d 376, 382 [210 P.2d 497].) Limited by Code of Civil Procedure section 670, the judgment roll in this case is impeccable. The majority opinion stretches the judgment roll beyond its statutory limits, then finds a flaw in *14it. Such a procedure was flatly rejected in Borenstein v. Borenstein, 20 Cal.2d 379, 381 [125 P.2d 465], in which the court refused to permit expansion of the judgment roll by inclusion of a custody report.
Nor has the husband alleged extrinsic fraud or mistake. For all that appears, he knowingly consented to the support arrangement, then changed his mind when the financial burden shifted from the shoulders of the federal government to his own. Nevertheless, the majority opinion fills the deficiency by hypothesizing a deceived trial court and a mulcted husband.
If the husband was not misled, the wife’s apparent perjury does not signal destruction of the support award. “The public purpose underlying the principle of res judicata that there must be an end to litigation requires that the issues involved in a case be set at rest by a final judgment, even though a party has persuaded the court or the jury by false allegations supported by perjured testimony. This policy must be considered together with the policy that a party shall not be deprived of a fair adversary proceeding in which fully to present his case. Thus, equitable relief will be denied where it is sought to relitigate an issue involved in the former proceeding on the ground that allegations or proof of either party was fraudulent or based on mistake, but such relief may be granted if the party seeking it was precluded by fraud or the mistake of the other party from participating in the proceeding or from fully presenting his case.” (Jorgensen v. Jorgensen, 32 Cal.2d 13, 18 [193 P.2d 728] ; see also Howard v. Howard, 27 Cal.2d 319 [163 P.2d 439] ; Hendricks v. Hendricks, 216 Cal. 321 [14P.2d 83].)
Far from expressing fraud or mistake, the present record is more compatible with knowing consent. The husband’s “appearance and waiver” was like a default in that it manifested his consent to the relief sought by the wife’s complaint upon the conditions alleged in the complaint. (Brown v. Brown, 170 Cal. 1, 5 [147 P. 1168]; Spurr v. Daniels, 152 Cal.App.2d 867, 870 [313 P.2d 621]; Garcia v. Garcia, 148 Cal.App.2d 147, 153-154 [306 P.2d 80].) According to the majority opinion, the appearance and waiver was efficacious to switch on the judicial machinery but did not require the signer to accept the machinery’s output. Judicial machinery should not be frustrated in this cavalier fashion. I would reverse the order and permit the husband to renew his motion, claiming extrinsic fraud or mistake if he is able.