Court Opinion

ID: 9642707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:07:26.026782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:13.582817
License: Public Domain

HOGG, Judge
(dissenting).
I do not agree with the majority opinion and feel constrained to dissent. We have at the root of this case, as I see it, a denial of due process of law. I think that the action in the lower court denying appellant a hearing on order for increased payments amounted to that.
The order was entered without personal service upon the appellant. To the extent that the order increased the payment from $25 to $50 per month, it had the effect of rendering a personal judgment against appellant in the amount of the increase. In my opinion, the notice attempted to be given was insufficient on which to base a personal judgment. An order was entered without notice to appellant and without an opportunity for him to be heard. 17 Am.Jur., Divorce and Separation, Section 685, Page 519; Jasper v. Tartar, 224 Ky. 834, 7 S.W.2d 236, 237. See cases collected 76 A.L.R. 253.
*32In the Jasper case, it was said:
“It is a fundamental principle of Anglo Saxon jurisprudence that no judgment is valid unless the defendant therein is brought before the court and given an opportunity to be heard. In other words, all litigants are entitled to their day in court, and any judgment against them, in any wise affecting their rights, made and entered contrary to that principle, is of no effect whatever and may be ignored by the one against whom it is rendered as though it had never been done. The proposition is too fundamental to require the citation pf authority in support of it.”
KRS 403.070 provides that the court retain jurisdiction over the subject matter; namely, the' custody of the children. It does not serve to retain jurisdiction over the person of the parent, in this instance the father. In this case, the divorce action had been stricken from the docket and both parents were living outside Kentucky. While retaining jurisdiction over the custody of the children, the court no longer had jurisdiction over the person of appellant. It could not render a valid personal judgment except on personal service upon appellant:
The Muehlenkamp case cited in the majority opinion involves a statutory procedure to collect storage charges to which the property owner voluntarily submitted, either actually or constructively, knowing the effect of the failure to pay. Under this statute, the warehouseman could proceed only against the property stored which was a proceeding in rem. No personal judgment could have been obtained except by personal service. It was not a judicial proceeding such as this is.
The notices by mail in the New York cases cited, as I understand them, were not used as the basis for service upon which to obtain personal judgments. The federal cases cited are distinguishable on the ground that they were not cases where the action had been stricken from the docket and additional personal judgments were sought.
Appellant questioned the validity of the judgment but was denied the right to be heard under judicial duress, that is, penalty of contempt, until he purged himself by payment of what was in arrears.
The far-reaching and harsh construction given CR 5.02 seems to me to be unreasonable. If such construction were reasonable, the rule itself is violative of fundamental constitutional rights and should be changed to the end that no person may be deprived of his day in court nor of an opportunity to be heard before being deprived of his justi-ciable rights. I would reverse.