Court Opinion

ID: 9527988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:01.948347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:22.121381
License: Public Domain

MOISE, Justice
(dissenting).
My expressions here are in the nature of a dissent and not a concurring opinion, for this is the first occasion that this Court has had to pass on the application of Article 2403 of the LSA-Civil Code under the facts herein stated.
The plaintiff, John J. Krieger, contracted a marriage; it had an unhappy ending; three children were born of the marriage; the wife obtained a divorce on the grounds of his having been convicted of an infamous offense, and she also obtained the custody of the children with a money judgment awarded for their support in the amount of $50 per month. This judgment is executory, and on 'its rendition it became the property of the person in whose favor it was rendered. Therefore, the obligation of this judgment, and particularly after the dissolution of the marriage, was a personal debt of the husband.
Thereafter, the husband contracted a second marriage. Krieger does not work, and his wife earns $280 a month as a governmental employee. The first wife filed a rule for additional alimony and be is condemned to pay additional alimony, in the sum of $25 per month, because the court took into consideration the salary of the second wife, and it declared that $25 per month was a fair assessment to be deducted out of his half of the wife’s salary.
The judgment of this court is unenforceable, because it does not take into consideration the conditions precedent for the necessity before making an award — such as the necessities of life, the payment of charges and debts, the consideration of the personal obligations of the 'husband and the wife before this marriage — and after all of these things are figured and accounted for, then and then only, conceding the judgment to be correct, could an assessment be made. So, therefore, we take that to enforce this judgment, the suit must be remanded to the court of original jurisdiction.
But, the majority opinion of this Court rests its contention that Article 2403 of the LSA-Civil Code, and all of its provisions, is not applicable because the payment of alimony is not a debt but a duty. The super-technical construction as to the meaning of words becomes a distinction without a difference, which I will proceed to demonstrate.
Article 2403 of the LSA-Civil Code reads:
“In the same manner, the debts contracted during the marriage enter into the partnership or community of gains, and must be acquitted out of the common fund, whilst the debts of both hus*527band and wife, anterior to the marriage, must be acquitted out of their own personal and individual effects (Italics ours.)
Under this article, the plain intendment of the law, and we may say “the letter killeth but the spirit maketh alive”, is that personal debts or obligations or duties incurred during the first community must be acquitted out of the funds of the personal property of the spouses in the second community. To bring about a logical result, numerous decisions have been quoted, giving the definition of “alimony” by the court when they were not considering cases of the same facts as in this suit.
What road, therefore, are we going to take? The Court’s-definition of words not involving the same question of law, or Mr. Webster’s definition of the two terms?
On “duty” Mr. Webster states:
“Duty — That which one is bound to render or pay; a material due of any sort; a charge or payment due.”
On “debt” he states:
“Debt — That which is due from one person to another, whether money, goods, or services; that which one person is bound to pay to another, or to obligation or liability.”
The terms are, therefore, almost synonymous. Whether it is a duty or whether it is an 'obligation or whether it is a debt, it has to be paid in currency — it has to be acquitted out of funds — and it is certainly not the debt of the wife, nor the debt of the second community. And so, therefore, to arrive at the conclusion reached by the majority opinion, Article 2403 of the LSA-Civil Code had to be amended by this Court by writing in an exception not provided for in the Code.
We must remember that what is sought here is to bind the second community to pay the obligation or debt of the husband out of the community funds, and that the article of the code prohibits such.
Article 160 of the LSA-Civil Code relates to the payment of alimony to the wife by the husband.
Article 120 of the LSA-Civil Code relates to the fact that the husband must receive the wife and provide her with the necessities of life.
We do not find in either of these articles any mention that the wife’s salary, forming a part of the second community, could be used for the payment of this debt which has been reduced to a judgment. Evidently the Legislature recognized that there was no provision of the Code relating to the financial support that the wife must give to her husband, because they have provided in Act 617 of 1954, which has reciprocal provisions both as to the husband and wife, that this support is due if in destitute or necessitous circumstances, and it is provided that such *529support is a ground for separation of bed and board.
I rest this decision on the fundamental principle of lazv that all cases must be governed by their ozmn facts; that zvhen the Court submits to the infallibility of zvords used by fudges in past decisions, it is only establishing the mental slavery of the members.
I again call attention to the fact that “debt” and “duty” are synonymous terms; that when the Court seeks to perpetuate what is decided in cases not relating to the particular article of the code, it only arguments that it is a successful organization, that it is well devised, but it destroys mental independence, for no one must pretend that the mind of man is perfect; it is affected by desires, colored by hopes and weakened by fears, and all of this adds to the incorrectness of judgment.
The cited cases in the majority opinion were cases in which the court had under consideration the enforcement of the payment of past due alimony by the process of contempt, and it made the ingenuous distinction that alimony is a duty not a debt, and, therefore, the charge of imprisonment for debt had no application. We have no such condition in this case.
I respectfully dissent.
Rehearing denied.
MOISE, J., dissents.