Court Opinion

ID: 9544652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:58:49.443477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:22.185487
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(dissenting) — The order to pay debts, with which we are here concerned, is invalid because it violates Art. I, § 3, of the state constitution, which provides, inter alia:
“No person shall be deprived of . . . property, without due process of law.”
An order in a divorce action directed to a community debtor to pay his debt to one of the parties to the action is invalid for want of due process, since the debtor is not and cannot be a party to a divorce action. This is for the conclusive reason that the existence of a debt and defenses thereto are an independent issue of fact and law upon which a debtor has a right to have his day in court. For this same identical reason a party to a divorce action has a right to due process regarding community debts, and he cannot have it in the divorce action because the community creditor is a stranger to the action.
The constitutional right to due process makes it impossible for a divorce action to serve as a liquidation proceeding as to creditors and debtors who cannot be parties thereto. Arneson v. Arneson, 38 Wn. (2d) 99, 227 P. (2d) *7231016. Orders relating to accounts receivable and debts are binding only as between the parties and do not adjudicate any rights or provide any remedies between them and strangers to the action. The defendant has only had his day in court as to the divorce. He has a right to assert his defenses to the debts in an action constituting due process on that issue. The order in the divorce action to pay the debts is invalid.
The order of imprisonment for contempt also is invalid because it violates Art. I, § 17, of the state constitution, which provides, inter alia: “There shall be no imprisonment for debt ...”
It is not the prerogative of the court to change the universally accepted meaning of the English language. We are here concerned with an order for the payment of debts and an order of imprisonment for contempt of court.
I reject the law review theory that the court has a right to order a defendant in a divorce action to pay a debt. From that premise it reasons that a defendant is in contempt of court when he does not obey the order, and the court has a right to imprison him for the contempt. This is put upon the ground that the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt does not apply to contempts, and the imprisonment is for the contempt of court and not for the debt.
I prefer the theory that the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt deprives the court of the power to make any order respecting a debt if the contemplated method of enforcement is by imprisonment.
I also reject the theory of the majority that
“. . . where a husband is ordered to . . . liquidate . . . obligations of a . . . community . . . the husband . . . may be punished for contempt . . . in the same manner as if he had been ordered to deliver children . . . into the custody of the wife JJ
We have repeatedly held that the court has only such powers in divorce actions as specifically conferred upon it by statute.
*724RCW 26.08.110 confers plenary powers upon the court in matters relating to custody of children in divorce actions. As to the property of the parties, it provides only that
“. . . judgment shall be entered . . . making such disposition of the property of the parties, either community or separate, as shall appear just and equitable 99
I find no statutory authority in this language to convert a divorce action into a liquidation proceeding for the benefit of creditors.
The order of contempt should be reversed. I dissent.
Hill and Ott, JJ., concur with Mallery, J.