Court Opinion

ID: 9688460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:48:03.995295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:38.987580
License: Public Domain

Hughes, J.
(dissenting). I am unable to agree with the majority opinion. There is nothing in the record which discloses the true situation, and I cannot believe that the facts *518can be ascertained sufficiently to determine that the defendant has no possible claim to the property.
The plaintiff’s complaint seeks possession of the premises and the sum of $200 for alleged unlawful possession for a period of four months. As stated in the court’s opinion, the defendant and his wife built the home and occupied it together until the wife’s death. The wife bequeathed it to her sister, the plaintiff, in her last will. If the defendant would be entitled to any equitable relief against his wife, if still living, then he would have equal rights against the plaintiff.
It is true that he quitclaimed his interest in the property to his wife, but only as a part of the settlement of a divorce action. I understand that the trial court concluded that he was entitled to no relief because he was guilty of a fraud upon the court in the divorce action.
This court finds no such fraud and certainly there can be none on his part. He merely defaulted and remained out of court. If any fraud was committed upon the divorce court, it was by the wife in testifying to facts which entitled her to a divorce judgment while withholding from the court facts (their continuing to live together as man and wife) which would defeat her right to a divorce.
The defendant had no attorney in the divorce case. Pie went with his wife to her attorney’s office seven or eight days after the summons was served upon him, waived the time for filing answer, his right to answer and notice of hearing, and stipulated to a property settlement. He also gave the deed. He must have been somewhat uninformed as to his rights. The plaintiff now relies upon such conduct to wrest title from him.
The allegation in the counterclaim that he lived with his wife after the divorce “firmly believing” that she had. had the divorce judgment set aside would warrant the inference that she had led him to that belief.
*519In any event, granting that the allegation is insufficient to state a cause of action, it does not affirmatively show that he has no possible cause for relief. In my opinion, upon sustaining the demurrer the court should have afforded the defendant an opportunity to plead any cause of action which may exist. I think the entry of final judgment upon the pleadings, and particularly the entry of a judgment which goes beyond the prayer for relief in the complaint and attempts to establish perfect title in the plaintiff, is unjustified and should be reversed.