Court Opinion

ID: 9624567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:09:18.568028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:49.897830
License: Public Domain

MOLLOY, Chief Judge
(specially concurring) .
I concur in the result reached here and have no basic quarrel with the reasoning of the majority. However, I arrive at the same result, and largely through the same authorities, without relying principally upon this matter of “jurisdiction.”
As was said by Justice Struckmeyer: “There is no magic to be promoted by the incantation of the word ‘jurisdiction.’ ”1 Too often, “lack of jurisdiction” is the label placed by an appellate court upon its reason for setting aside the judgment of a trial court, when the real reason for the appellate action is that the court needs an excuse for raising the defect on its own motion, and because the appellate court conceives that the defect is so serious as to render the judgment fundamentally “wrong.”
In this case, the division of this community property has such a basic defect. Rather than label this an absence of jurisdiction, I would prefer to regard it as being one of a failure to state a claim insofar as the division of the community property is concerned. This failure was not recognized in the trial court by either counsel or the court, and, as I see it, this defect fatally permeates the judgment that was rendered. Both counsel and the court assumed that the plaintiff, by asking for the divorce a mensa et thoro and stating the cause of action for divorce, had stated a claim for an equitable division of the community property. I believe the authorities cited in the majority opinion clearly demonstrate that there is no such cause of action.
The defect of failure to state a claim is one that should be raised sua sponte by the court. Jacob v. Cherry, 65 Ariz. 307, 309, 180 P.2d 217 (1947); Robles v. Preciado, 52 Ariz. 113, 126, 79 P.2d 504 (1938); and see Coulter v. Stewart, 93 Ariz. 242, 247, 379 P.2d 910 (1963); 4 *223C.J.S. Appeal & Error § 242, n. 12, at 749, and § 274, at 822.
It may be that on occasion an appellate court would be justified in overlooking even defects that fall within the general label of “failure to state a claim,” providing that there was no obvious injustice to result. Here, however, it is apparent that the judgment rendered below was predicated on the assumptions that the wife had the right, once she had shown grounds for divorce, to have an equitable division of the community property and that this “divorce” decree would split the marital blanket of this couple, so that subsequent acquisitions of both spouses would be their respective separate properties. As the majority opinion demonstrates, these are erroneous assumptions, except insofar as the wife’s post-“divorce” earnings are concerned. With all parties, and the court, operating under such pervading mistakes of law, it seems appropriate that the judgment should be reversed to allow these marital partners (unwilling ones, as they are) to litigate on a sound basis.

. McClintock v. Serv-Us Bakers, 103 Ariz. 72, 74, 436 P.2d 891, 893 (1968).