Court Opinion

ID: 9550957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:45:45.413411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:49.421864
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I concur in the views expressed by Judge LEWIS. As pointed out, the main opinion concedes that plaintiff could have maintained an independent suit on her claim of fraud or breach of contract. This would seem to be the more orderly procedure, rather than allowing her to proceed in the divorce action itself, where confusing problems of continuing jurisdction, intrinsic fraud, extrinsic fraud, pleading defenses and the like arise. This very case, where the original petition was amended three times only to be defeated four times by successive demurrers, illustrates the point. Such problems generally do not arise in an independent action, where, as is not the case here, the defendant would have the right to be served with process regularly, and would have the statutory time within which to answer.
The prevailing opinion sanctions the trial of an action which admittedly could have been brought independently, *368for fraud or breach of contract, in a divorce action long since tried, whose stage was set by plaintiff herself, in which she invoked the jurisdiction of the court and in which she obtained all the relief for which she prayed. It is difficult to see how she could be the unsuccessful litigant, a necessary requirement for relief on the grounds of extrinsic fraud. She should not be permitted to take the position now that her own considered non-disclosure is a basis for equitable relief in the very action where such failure to disclose was indulged. To allow the procedure sanctioned in this decision, in my opinion, would invite excursions by irate ex-wives into the altered domestic realm of ex-husbands, by the simple vehicle of an order to show cause why property settlements of ancient vintage should not be re-examined and re-adjusted.