Court Opinion

ID: 9865529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 18:50:33.362059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:32:19.049082
License: Public Domain

Jenkins, Presiding Justice.
The ruling made in the first division of the syllabus appears to be directly and fully controlled by the recent case of Hicks v. Hicks, supra, therein quoted from, as concurred in by five justices. It is in harmony with a full-bench *632decision recently rendered by this court in Thomas v. Lambert, 187 Ga. 616 (1 S. E. 2d, 443); and is not in conflict with Hamilton Bell, 161 Ga. 739 (132 S. E. 83). In the Hamilton case there had been no previous adjudication of divorce, and for that reason the-case differs altogether from the Thomas and the Hides cases.
Save for certain exceptions in favor of creditors or bona fidepurchasers, the general rule is that none but the parties to a judgment, regular on its face, can move for its nullification. The rule-applies with peculiar force in matters of divorce which, although, not favored by the policy of the State, may after being granted affect the rights and interest of innocent persons. Axtell v. Ax-tell, 183 Ga. 195, 197 (187 S. E. 877). The fundamental exception to this general rule with respect to who is entitled to attack a. judgment regular on its face, is privity. This is the rule recognized by the Code, § 37-213, which provides: “Equity will grant-relief as between the original parties or their privies in law, in fact, or in estate, except bona fide purchasers for value without: notice. As to cases of this character, see Williams v. Lancaster, 113 Ga. 1020 (6) (39 S. E. 471); McArthur v. Matthewson, 67 Ga. 134 (4).
Nor is a different rule to be applied or a different conclusion to-be arrived at in this case merely because the plaintiff alleges that he occupies the status of a creditor, in that he has heretofore paid to the divorcee with whom he subsequently contracted marriage certain amounts of alimony, which he says he is in good conscience-entitled to recover by reason of the fact that his marriage to the divorcee is illegal in that his spouse had never been legally divorced from her first husband, and that the divorce was obtained by fraud because of untrue allegations and proof with respect to her residence at the time the suit was instituted. While it is true that under the provisions of the Code, § 110-711, creditors may attack a judgment for' any defect appearing on the face of the record, or for fraud or collusion wherever it interferes with their rights, either at law or in equity, and while it is also true as stated in the Thomas case, supra, that the direct nature and character of an independent attack on a judgment, not void on its face, is not changed by the fact that such a proceeding may seek other incidental relief besides the main purpose of setting aside the judgment, still an attack on a judgment regular on its face must be taken as collateral, where *633the petitioner, as a stranger to the previous record, merely claims to have become incidentally interested therein after a termination of that case. Almand v. Thomas, 148 Ga. 369 (6) (96 S. E. 962); Sullivan v. Ginsberg, 180 Ga. 840 (1), 845 (181 S. E. 163); Thomas v. Lambert, supra. The judgment of divorce as and when -rendered did not and could not have affected the rights of the petitioner; nor does he, even now, occupy the status of a creditor, since -it appears that his present proceeding to annul the previous di-vorce is but an attempt to give himself the status of a creditor, which, if the judgment be regular on its face, constitutes a pre-requisite to the maintenance of the action. Therefore he cannot jump the gun and be heard to bring the suit as a creditor in order “that he may thereafter set up a claim as such.
Since, as ruled in the first division of the syllabus, if the previous .judgment of divorce, in nowise concerning the present plaintiff, be 'treated as valid on its face, the present plaintiff, a stranger to that -proceeding, is not a proper person to attack it, and since, as ruled fin the second division of the syllabus, if it should be said that the previous judgment of divorce is void on its face, the present plain■tiff will not be heard to invoke equitable remedies when he would 'be able to attack it anywhere or at any time, the petition, under ■either view, failed to set out a cause of action and -was properly • dismissed on demurrer.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur.