Court Opinion

ID: 9641872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:42:00.089341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:40.448093
License: Public Domain

Melvin Mayfield, Judge, concurring. I concur in the opinion written by Judge Cooper. On our de novo review, I think the evidence is clear that the decedent, Bill Brown, induced the appellant, Mae Ireland Brown, to marry him again after he insisted that she attend the court hearing at which the judge stated that Bill and Brenda Brown were divorced. While Bill may not have actually known that his divorce was not final at the time he married Mae the second time, I think he was guilty of willful disregard of her interest by not making sure that the decree was final before he married her again. It was his divorce and he knew she did not want to live with him until he had divorced Brenda and he and Mae were married again. By remarrying Mae after insisting that she come to court and see the judge grant him a divorce from Brenda, I think Bill would have been estopped to deny that his divorce from Brenda was not final at that time. In Bethell v. Bethell, 268 Ark. 409, 597 S.W.2d 576 (1980), the court said: A party who by his acts, declarations or admissions, or by his failure to act or speak under circumstances where he should do so, either with design or willful disregard of others, induces or misleads another to conduct or dealings which he would not have entered upon, but for such misleading influence, will not be allowed, because of estoppel, afterward to assert his right to the detriment of the person so misled. 268 Ark. 424 (citations omitted). Because Bill Brown would have been estopped to deny that his divorce was final at the time he remarried Mae, under the cases cited by Judge Cooper, Bill’s heirs and estate are also estopped to make such denial. Not only is the doctrine of estoppel a sufficient basis for upholding the validity of Mae’s marriage to Bill, I think it is the only basis. It seems to me that the case of Standridge v. Standridge, 298 Ark. 494, 769 S.W.2d 12 (1989), makes it abundantly clear that a decree is not effective until properly entered. As the majority opinion in that case states, “since the adoption of the rules” the Supreme Court has made it clear that a judgment or decree is not effective until it has been entered as provided by the rules of civil procedure. It is hard for me to believe that any lawyer admitted to practice when the rules were made effective on July 1, 1979, has not known ever since then that decrees and judgments have to be entered before they are effective. And lawyers admitted since then should have known this. At least the rules, the appellate courts, and countless seminars have made it clear. Not only does the concept affect the time to appeal, it affects liens, divorces, interest rates, property interests, and many other things. It is time to accept the idea that decrees and judgments in civil cases are no longer effective — even for selected purposes — when “rendered.”