Court Opinion

ID: 9699938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:59:22.905694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:00.928638
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The trial court has granted an absolute divorce to a husband, awarded him exclusive ownership of jointly-owned marital property and given him continued custody of the children of the marriage. There is a legal issue as to whether the divorce could be granted on the ground of desertion where the appellant-wife, by virtue of a prior consent order dismissing her suit for a limited divorce on the grounds of cruelty, was barred from entering the family residence during the period in question.1 There is also an issue as to whether that consent order, sought by the wife after extensive questioning as to her adulterous relationships and drafted without factual findings,2 was res judicata as to the wife’s claimed justification for leaving the home. There is, moreover, an issue as to the correctness of the trial court’s method of computing the property award and the exercise of its discretion with respect thereto where there was evidence that the wife had made contributions and was not the only party engaging in misconduct.
*400The majority, in adroitly sidestepping these issues, has held that appellant is es-topped in this court from challenging the divorce and the- property award because of her counsel’s irregularity in timely serving on opposing counsel a copy of her request to the court that her motion to proceed on appeal in forma pauperis be withdrawn and a paid appeal substituted. The majority does not question that her appeal is timely (nor does it appear possible to do so as I read the law); 3 rather, says the majority, appellant’s irregularity in the service of her request for a change in the status of that appeal misled her husband into thinking that the appeal was abandoned and that he could safely remarry, which he did, three days after her request was granted (and apparently on the same day he received notice thereof).
As I understand the theory of “equitable estoppel,” there must not only be either a false representation, concealment of a material fact, or wrongful misleading silence on the part of the person estopped, but the party claiming the estoppel must lack knowledge, and a means of securing knowledge, of the true facts. Parker v. Sager, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 4, 8, 174 F.2d 657, 661 (1949). See also United States v. Georgia-Pacific Co., 421 F.2d 92, 96 n.4 (9th Cir. 1970); United States v. Shaw, 137 F.Supp. 24, 28-29 (D.C.N.D.1956).
This claimed irregularity in service, therefore, seems to be a slender thread upon which to hang a theory foreclosing such important considerations as are involved in this case. Moreover, with all due respect to counsel, I find it hard to believe that appellee, himself a lawyer, having strongly contested the status of his wife to proceed in forma pauperis, could have reasonably concluded, in these bitterly fought proceedings, that his wife was abandoning an appeal altogether.
However, in the interest of balancing equities, and in view of the fact that appellant had sought divorce initially, I have no objection to joining the majority in its efforts not to “cast a shadow” over Mr. Neuman’s marital status. I cannot agree that we should refrain from hearing the merits of an issue that might cast a shadow over Mr. Neuman’s financial status where there is an issue as to whether appellant had contributed significantly to that status. Estoppel by its very nature must be equitable. I believe the first Mrs. Neuman has been denied inequitably a right of appeal and I respectfully dissent.4

. Cf. Edwards v. Edwards, D.C.App., 356 A.2d 633 (1976).

. The trial court in that action advised counsel that he favored a “civilized” consent decree not branding anyone in the interest of the children. After negotiations, a consent order dismissed the complaint with prejudice, granted the husband’s counterclaim for custody of the children with visitation rights vesting in the wife, approved the waiver of the wife’s right to alimony, and awarded the husband the use and occupancy of the jointly-owned residence.

. An application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis has frequently been regarded as the equivalent of a notice of appeal. Gerringer v. United States, 93 U.S.App.D.C. 403, 407, 213 F.2d 346, 350 (1954); Randolph v. Randolph, 91 U.S.App.D.C. 170, 171 n.4, 198 F.2d 956, 957 n.4 (1952); Des Isles v. Evans, 225 F.2d 235 (5th Cir. 1955); accord, Lee v. Habib, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 403, 407 n.8, 424 F.2d 891, 895 n.8 (1970) (the lodging of a motion to proceed in forma pauperis tolled the jurisdictional limit for filing a notice of appeal).

. However an appellate court might react to the reading of a record, it is difficult to question a trial court’s assessment as to custody of children and I do not do so here. I do note, however, that the baby child, a little girl, was not examined by the psychiatrist, and that there was considerable testimony that appellant was a fit and proper mother.