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284 So. 2d 231

Docket No. 73-705.

Johnson v. Johnson

Brenda JOHNSON, Appellant, v. Earl Lavaughn JOHNSON, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided October 24, 1973.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1973-10-24

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“We receive the statutory law from the legislature and its interpretation from our Supreme Court, agreeing with some, disagreeing with some, following all, because our bondage to law is the price of our freedom.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Johnston

Relies on 277 So. 2d 266 - Ryan v. Ryan

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1973-10-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 2016

6 state decisions

3019731980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1J.E. Satterfield of The Legal Aid Society, Clearwater, for appellant.

¶2No appearance for appellee.

¶3MANN, Chief Judge.

¶4In all candor we must recognize that the matter of divorce is a legislative prerogative.

¶5Dekle, J., in Ryan v. Ryan, Fla. 1973, 277 So.2d 266 at 274

¶6We are oathbound to reverse a circuit judge who refused to grant a dissolution of marriage to a woman who came into his court with "unclean hands." Reminded in a petition for rehearing that the legislature had abrogated the "clean hands" defense in divorce actions and that the Supreme Court had, in Ryan, quoted from above, held the law constitutional, the trial judge replied that "some court other than this one must announce the abdication of common sense, morality, and decency by the courts of this state." It is our duty to oblige, although one of our seven Justices agrees with the trial judge in this case. We receive the statutory law from the legislature and its interpretation from our Supreme Court, agreeing with some, disagreeing with some, following all, because our bondage to law is the price of our freedom.

¶7Reversed and remanded for further proceedings in accordance with law.

¶8McNULTY and BOARDMAN, JJ., concur.

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