Court Opinion

ID: 9589494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:45:16.4782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:24.857321
License: Public Domain

Miller, J.,
concurring in result:
Less than eighteen months ago, by the opinion in Morris v. Henry, 193 Va. 631, 70 S. E. (2d) 417, from which I dissented, this court decided that in a divorce suit a court of equity was empowered to decree that after the death of a father, his estate be charged with support of his infant child whose custody was awarded to the mother. In that opinion the power and authority of the court to so decree is said to be derived from section 20-107, Code of 1950. The part of that section material to that decision and to this case now before us is as follows:
“Upon decreeing # # # a divorce * * * from the bond of matrimony * * * the court may make such further decree as it shall deem expedient concerning the estate and *115the maintenance of the parties, or either of them, and the care, custody and maintenance of their minor children, # * # ”
Though no dissent was written by me in Morris v. Henry, supra, it was my view that section 20-107 did not either expressly or by implication confer such broad power upon a court of equity. It is not contended that courts of equity in Virginia enjoyed this power prior to the enactment of the statute relied upon, and had the legislature intended to endow them with such far-reaching authority, it would, I think, have said so in plain and explicit language.
In Blades v. Szatai, 151 Md. 644, 135 A. 841, 50 A. L. R. 232, the statute sought to be invoked and relied upon to give such broad authority provided that the court in divorce cases should be empowered to direct “who shall have the guardianship and custody of the children and be charged with their support and maintenance, and may at any time thereafter annul, vary or modify such order in relation to the children.” In deciding that liability for support of children could not be imposed upon the father’s estate after his death, the court said that the quoted language indicated that the lawmakers “had in mind and were dealing with living individuals, and not with estates of decedents * * * ” and “it would be an unwarranted assumption of the legislative intent to put such a construction upon the language * * # ” as to charge the estate of the deceased father with support of any one or more of his children.
In the opinion rendered today in the case now before us, the language in section 20-107 which was said to empower the court to decree that payments be made for support of an Infant child out of the father’s estate after the father’s death is held insufficient to empower the court to do so as to alimony for the divorced wife. I agree that the statute (section 20-107) does not authorize the court to decree the accrual and payment of alimony out of the husband’s estate after his death. That, I think, should have also been held in Morris v. Henry, supra, with regard to *116the court’s power to decree payment of support money for an infant child after its father’s death. Thus, I think the two opinions are to that extent in conflict. They split the statute, and I am confident that the legislature intended no such result. I do not agree with that part of the court’s opinion in this case that re-aflirms the decision in Moms v. Henry, supra.
My conclusion is that the legislature did not by section 20-107 intend such far-reaching consequences as to empower the court to impose liability upon the estate of the deceased ex-husband for alimony or upon the estate of the deceased father for support. Long established principles or courses of the law should not be changed by close, nice and conflicting judicial interpretation. That should be left to the legislature and be accomplished by definite and reasonably certain legislation.