Court Opinion

ID: 9583626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:40:40.373039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:23.914089
License: Public Domain

FORT, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent from that portion of the court’s opinion *346which holds that a motion in the divorce suit to set aside a divorce decree entered in August 1970 on the ground of fraud in obtaining the property settlement agreement entered into in July 1970 and incorporated in the decree is proper.
In Miller v. Miller, 228 Or 301, 365 P2d 86 (1961), the court said:
"* * * The appropriate procedure for attacking a decree obtained by fraud is a suit in equity. ORS 16.460(1)[1]
"The order of the court vacating the decree in the case at bar must be reversed and the decree reinstated without prejudice to the right of the defendant to proceed under ORS 16.460.” 228 Or at 307.
The majority construes both that language and ORS 16.460(1) as not barring the present motion. Here this motion was not filed in the original divorce proceeding but only as a further motion in a motion for change of child support filed some four years after the decree. It is conceded that this motion was not filed within the one-year period authorized under ORS 18.160. In Miller the divorce decree was granted April 8, 1960. On May 5, 1960, the motion to set aside the decree on grounds of fraud was filed by the husband some 27 days after the decree was filed. The Supreme Court held it was error for the trial court to have entertained the motion, and, in my opinion, its decision can only be construed as holding that an attack on a decree of divorce based on fraud cannot be entertained except under ORS 16.460(1). See also: Waldow v. Waldow, 189 Or 600, 221 P2d 576 (1950).
Furthermore, in my opinion there is solid reason for such a rule. It must be remembered that the purpose of a divorce or dissolution proceeding is to terminate the marriage relation. All other matters in the old divorce *347and current dissolution law are of necessity ancillary to and dependent upon that termination. If the court can set aside the property settlement agreement under the circumstances here present, why cannot it entertain an attack based on fraud not only against any other provision of the divorce but against the dissolution decree itself?
Here the wife has an adequate remedy available to her under ORS 16.460(1). Miller v. Miller, supra; Brandt v. Brandt, 9 Or App 1, 495 P2d 1205 (1972).
I agree with the majority’s conclusion to increase the child support $100 per month per child, but for the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent otherwise from the court’s holding.

ORS 16.460(1):
"Bills of revivor and bills of review, of whatever nature, exceptions for insufficiency, impertinence or irrelevancy, and cross-bills are abolished; but a decree in equity may be impeached and set aside, suspended, avoided or carried into execution by an original suit.”