Court Opinion

ID: 9719993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:12:05.928621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:12.059897
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). I am unable to sign the opinion proposed for disposition of this case. That opinion, like the opinion below, depends for its worth on a case (Maslen v. Anderson, 163 Mich 477) which, with respect to the jurisdiction of the court in divorce cases to approve and consummate property settlement agreements, was expressly overruled by Newton v. Security National Bank of Battle Creek, 324 Mich 344, 353. Further, the opinion ignores our settled rule that one who has partaken of the fruits of a divorce decree cannot be heard to question the jurisdiction of the court which rendered it. (Norris v. Norris, 342 Mich 83, 87, following as to such point Newton, supra.) Finally, no court of equity should undertake to decide whether an unappealed and decade-old decree, which by consent of the parties and operation of statute apparently vested specific property rights in third persons (here the children of the litigating parties), is void as to such vesting, such third persons never having been brought before the court. Even in the case my Brother would follow (Maslen, supra), the interested children of the parties were haled into court and so became bound by the court’s final decree.
As to the “property settlement” portion of the decree entered January 5, 1951, both parties unconditionally stipulated thereto and asked the court to approve and incorporate same in its decree, which was done. See detail in Mr. Justice Otis M. Smith’s opinion, to which the following evidence of Mr. Flynn’s firm agreement and consent should be added:
*635The defendant husband, present petitioner for invalidation of the property settlement portion of the decree of 1951, was represented at the time by attorney H. Murray Campbell of Cadillac. "We find, in the original record, Mr. Campbell’s affidavit filed January 11, 1951. Therein Mr. Campbell averred that he personally “filed the original decree of divorce dated January 3,1951, with the Wexford county clerk on January 5, 1951, and that as attorney for defendant he retained a true copy of said decree and has notice thereof as to the filing.”
The decreed property settlement was the joint creature of the presently contending parties. They intended, and legally authorized the court to effectuate such intention in their behalf, to convey—fully under the statute (CL 1948, § 622.18 [Stat Ann § 27.1448]) *—7 parcels of real estate to their children with retention by them of separate and respective life estates as provided in the consented portion of the decree of 1951. Such decree provided, immediately following the part quoted by my Brother and in due conformity with the cited statute:
“It is further ordered that if either party shall fail to execute proper instruments of transfer as required in this decree, the other party shall have leave to record a certified copy of this decree in the office of the register of deeds of any county where such property is located and such recording shall *636operate as a transfer of the interest of the party who is in default in the same manner and to the same effect as if a proper conveyance had been executed and delivered.”
Thus the promptly recorded decree automatically effected valid conveyances by the parties, one to the other, and to their children with reservation of such separate life estates. Tested rights were created, not alone by force of the property-conveying consent of the parties but also by force of the cited statute. To say otherwise would unsettle many land titles in Michigan where, as in this instance, part or the whole of the realty subject matter of a divorce case has been disposed of by agreed property settlement, decretal approval thereof, and recording of the decree with its statutory language of conveyance. Indeed, this case presents clear proof that court and counsel proceeded in 1951, with respect to property rights and disposition thereof, according to the undoubted right of lawyers and judges to rely upon the current law of property. The Newton Case, unanimous save only as to Justice Dethmers’ concurrence in result, had been handed down but 20 months prior to the hearing conducted by Judge Holbrook on December 19, 1950, which hearing culminated in the decree dated January 3,1951.
The question of jurisdiction is controlled by Newton v. Security National Bank of Battle Creek, supra. The ultimate and pertinent conclusion expressed by the Court was that the consent trust, like the consented and decretally executed conveyances here, was “the result of the property settlement between the parties, which they had a right to make, and which the court had a right to confirm.” (p 353.) Newton quotes in support West v. West, 241 Mich 679, and In re Berner’s Estate, 217 Mich 612, to which one might well add Palmer v. Fagerlin, 163 Mich *637345, 349, handed down by the Court less, than a month before release of Maslen’s opinion.
Rex v. Rex, 331 Mich 399, also relied upon by the -chancellor in making the appealed order of invalidation, is not opposed to the Newton Case or its stated conclusion. Rex presented question whether, in a divorce suit, the court could require the husband (over his vigorous objection and without his consent) to place his personalty, “from which he derives his income,” in trust “for his 3 sons, 2 of whom are now more than 21 years of age, and the third is now near his majority.” The Court, for stated reasons, held that the trial chancellor erred in such regard. Further, and unlike Newton and this case of Flynn, Mr. Rex raised the question upon entry of the divorce decree and immediately reviewed. He did not, as in Newton’s Case and now in Flynn’s case, accept the benefits provided for him by the decree, and so did not bring himself within the rule of Jackson City Bank & Trust Co. v. Frederick, 271 Mich 538, which rule was applied in Newton’s Case and followed later in Norris v. Norris, supra.
Aside from the foregoing, there is an insuperable objection to affirmance of this appealed order. The 3 children of the parties are the record legal owners of the realty subject matter, subject to the respective life estates of record. Mr. Flynn’s petition for invalidation shows on its face all these facts and, in addition, discloses his recent vain effort to obtain quitclaim deeds from the 2 adult children and from the guardian of the third (yet a minor). In this state of things the children should have been brought in as necessary parties to any proceeding by which Mr. Flynn would cut off their record interest. We have a statute providing for such action (CL 1948, § 612.10 [Stat Ann § 27.662]) and the trial chancellor upon his own motion should have denied ju*638dicial action until such requisite parties were brought in and permitted to plead.* Finally, no reason appears for failure to bring them in.
The reason for such joinder of necessary parties is well known. “It is a general rule in equity that all parties entitled to litigate the same questions are necessary parties.” (Nashville & D. Railroad Co. v. Orr, 85 US 471, 473 [21 L ed 810].) For full exposition see 1 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence (5th ed), § 114, p 153, quoted fully in Love v. Wilson, 346 Mich 327, 331. As was said in Watson v. Lion Brewing Co., 61 Mich 595, 604, 605 (bracketing the Flynn children for emphasis):
“There is no claim that any of the Schmidtgall [Flynn] children are dead, and, from the record, it is to be presumed that they are all living, although their exact whereabouts does not appear. Not being made parties, and no one appearing for them, no great pains seems to have been taken to ascertain their present residence. * * *
“These Schmidtgall [Flynn] children were necessary parties to this suit. The complainant had no right to proceed without making them parties. When it was developed, upon the taking of proofs, that these children existed, the complainant’s bill should have been dismissed, unless amended so as to make them proper parties. And such an amendment could not cure the defect in the bill, under complainant’s theory, unless they were made parties defendant, which was not done in this proceeding.
*639“Here, then, we have a case proceeding in equity, to determine the interests of these children in lands, in which premises the proofs show they are legally and equitably entitled to a greater or less share, depending in amount' upon the lawfulness of their birth, if the complainant has any interest in the same.
“And in the suit both parties, as joined in issue, —complainant and defendants,—are laboring, under different theories, to establish the fact that these children have absolutely no interest. By no theory of an equitable nature can such a course of procedure be justified without the opportunity being afforded these children to appear in court and defend their rights.”
The appealed order should be reversed with remand of the record for such further proceedings as may be consistent with the above. Following such remand all necessary parties should be brought before the court forthwith, by order entered pursuant to aforesaid section 612.10.
Mrs. Flynn should be awarded costs.
Kavanagh and Souris, JJ., concurred with Black, J.
Adams, J., took no part in the decision of this ease.

 “See. 18. After the entry and enrollment of any final decree affecting or determining the title to real estate, a copy of such decree, duly certified by the clerk of the county in which the same was entered, under the seal of the court, may be received and recorded in the office of the register of deeds of the proper county, and shall have the same effect as the original decree; and if such decree shall direct the execution of a conveyance or other instrument affecting the title to real estate, the record of such certified copy shall have the same effect as the record of such conveyance or other instrument affecting the title to real estate would have if duly executed pursuant to said decree.”
This section appears in general chapter 22 of the judicature aet of 1915 (PA 1915, No 314), headed “Of judgments and decrees.”

 As said of like necessary parties, in Hoe v. Wilson, 76 US 501, 504 (19 Led 762):
“No relief can be given in the ease before us which will not seriously and permanently aifeet their rights and interests. According to the settled rules of equity jurisprudence the case cannot proceed without their presence before the court. The objection was not taken by the defendant, but the court should, sua sponte, have caused the bill to be properly amended, or have dismissed it, if the amendment were not made. Instead of this being done the cause was heard and decided upon its merits. This was manifest error.”