Bonilla v. Sierra
Bonilla v. Sierra
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
The District Court of San Juan granted an absolute divorce to Mrs. Josefa Bonilla from the bonds of matrimony which connected her to the present appellant, Mr. Florencio Sierra. The petition of the complaint in that case was that the court should render judgment dissolving the marital bond celebrated between the parties on March 25, 1907, along with the other pronouncements of the law. The judgment of the court declared the bonds of matrimony broken and dissolved with the other pronouncements or effects of the law. Neither the complaint nor the judgment contained any averment or reference to the property of either spouse or prayed any relief with respect to the possession or ownership of any property which might have belonged to the conjugal partnership existing between the parties or belonging to either of them as his or her separate property.
The judgment was rendered on November 20, 1908. On April 16, 1909, the appellee filed a motion wherein, after reciting the fact that the judgment had been appealed and the appeal dismissed, set forth that the judgment was then ready to be carried into effect; that the defendant was continuing tO' live in the conjugal domicile, namely, a house situated in Dos Hermanos Street, Santnree, where the defendant (sic)
Neither the motion nor the affidavit was served on the appellant.
In response to this motion the District Court of San Juan, after first reciting the facts of the motion and that the judgment was unappealable, ordered that the secretary issue the certified copy of the judgment prayed for and that the defendant, Florencio Sierra, abandon the domicile of the complainant, of which mention was made, within 24 hours from the time when the order was notified to him by the marshal, under pain of being punished for contempt should he not comply with the order. This is the order from which the appeal is taken.
In California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Texas, and probably other States, there are laws to the effect that in a proceeding for divorce, the court may make a disposition of the community property. The statute of Washington goes so far as to enable the court to decree to the innocent party the .separate property of the other. In Porto Rico the effects of •a divorce are set out in, and limited by, sections 173 to 177 of the Civil Code. The court may decree alimony but, in a di
The law declares that a number of results shall flow from certain specified acts. If a man, for example, being insolvent,, makes a general assignment for the benefit of creditors the law declares that act to be an act of bankruptcy. Nevertheless, further and direct proceedings are necessary to give creditors rights over the property belonging to such bankrupt. Death is a dissolution of the conjugal partnership, but further steps are necessary before the surviving husband or wife-may exercise complete dominion over the property which might have belonged to, or been in possesion of, the conjugal partnership.
Even if it were conceded that a complainant in Porto Rico-might, by law, obtain a judgment wherein both a divorce and a specific division of property be decreed, nevertheless, this double relief would have to be prayed for in the complaint. The defendant would be entitled in such an action as in any other to know the nature of the relief sought-against him. Where the law says that no one shall be condemned without first being heard and overcome in a trial, it is an indispensable prerequisite thereto that he must know the nature of the complaint made against him. He is entitled to notice. When the District Court of San Juan pronounced judgment on Novem
In the case at bar, moreover, the motion itself was not notified to the defendant. The ex parte affidavit of the complainant was in no wise sufficient to prove its contests specially without any opportunity to the defendant to disprove it. In the case where the property in question had belonged to the husband and to his family before him, and the affidavit supporting the motion was false, it would not be contended that a husband could be dispossessed in such a case. The property may be the wife’s in this case, but other cases may arise where a person might be deprived of an absolute right without an opportunity to be heard. This is the more manifest meaning of the principle heretofore invoked of a notice and a hearing. The controversy was not properly before the District Court of San Juan.
For these reasons the order appealed from must be reversed and the case remanded to the District Court of San Juan with instructions to dismiss the motion and leaving the parties to seek their rights by proper proceedings.
Reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.