Ex parte Hart

Decided April 1, 1892

California Supreme Court · decided 1892-04-01

<p>Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco.</p> <p>The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““As I construe the decree, it intends the payment of alimony to continue during the life of the plaintiff in the divorce suit, or until modified by the court. Such a decree the court had power to make in granting a divorce for the offense of the husband.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Stoutland v. Estate of Stoutland Ex Rel. Stoutland

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-04-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently May 1960

6 state decisions

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 →

Beatty, C. J.

¶1The petitioner is imprisoned upon a charge of contempt of court, consisting in his refusal to pay alimony awarded to his divorced wife by the decree of divorce. He contends that the imprisonment is unlawful, because, as he claims, the decree as to the order for alimony is void by reason of the fact that it does not *255specify the period during which the alimony is to he paid.

¶2As I construe the decree, it intends the payment of alimony to continue during the life of the plaintiff in the divorce suit, or until modified by the court. Such a decree the court had power to make in granting a divorce for the offense of the husband. (Civ. Code, sec. .139.) The decree is, in my opinion, sufficiently certain in its terms. It is within the jurisdiction of the court, and can be enforced by process of contempt.

¶3The prisoner is remanded to custody.