Carpenter v. Carpenter ( 1982 )

DOOLIN, Justice,

specially concurring:

The majority correctly states that the relief sought by the father is in the nature of a judicial declaration of rights under a foreign divorce decree under the Oklahoma Declaratory Judgment Act. As amended in 1974, the Oklahoma Declaratory Judgment Act permits a district court to construe a foreign judgment or decree. The amended version does not upset our holding in Mills v. Mills¹ as applied to Oklahoma judgments. We do not explore the distinction between foreign and state judgments as to possible equal protection problems under the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Suffice to say it is obvious a party to a state domestic decree or judgment has a full panoply of state remedies to pursue when a party to a foreign decree has a limited arsenal for relief.

We held in Mills “that Oklahoma’s Declaratory Judgment Act, 12 O.S. 1971, § 1651 et seq., may not be used to interpret rights fixed by a final decree of a court of competent jurisdiction.” (Emphasis ours).

A dispute arose between the parties in Mills over a contract settlement covering real and personal property incorporated into the divorce decree. We determined that “much of what the wife really sought was in the nature of a second trial on the identical issues previously adjudicated by the decree of divorce.”²

We concluded from these facts that a declaratory judgment action would not lie as a substitute for an appeal. This was the correct result, but the holding went beyond these facts and precluded the use of a declaratory judgment to interpret or construe any prior judgment.

Declaratory judgments should not be allowed as a guise to permit collateral attack on final judgments. They should be restricted to determining what the prior action held.³

Courts miist frequently interpret the meaning of prior judgments in substantive actions. In Titsworth v. Titsworth, 206 Okl. 399, 244 P.2d 295 (Okl.1952), we held that in a hearing upon application to construe a divorce decree the court is limited to giving effect to doubtful or ambiguous provisions of the decree, but may not add new provisions to the decree. We stated in Knight v. Armstrong, 303 P.2d 421 (Okl.1956), that in construing an obscure or ambiguous judgment, the entire record may be considered to determine what was adjudged. We reiterated this interpretive limitation in Jones v. Jones, 402 P.2d 272 (Okl.1965), in the Court syllabus at page 273:

“The purpose and function of the court in construing an order concerning custody and child support, entered by it coincident with or subsequent to the divorce decree, is to give effect to that which is already latently in the order, and the court has no warrant to add new provisions, substantive or otherwise, which were omitted or withheld in the first instance in the order.”

Dickason v. Dickason, 607 P.2d 674 (1980), held if the ambiguity was on the face of the record the court is confined to the inspection of the judgment roll when construing it.

There may be good reason to permit declaratory judgments where a party’s rights or duties determined by a prior judgment have become ambiguous. It is far preferable to permit a declaratory judgment to clarify the matter before a party has been harmed or has breached a duty. The initial case would still be res judicata as to all the rights it determined. The declaratory judgment would be res judicata as to the construction it placed on the prior judgment.

A declaratory judgment proceeding is not the appropriate method of questioning a final judgment or decree unless such final judgment or decree has become the source of definite rights and is unclear or ambiguous.⁴

This test precludes erosion of the doctrine of res judicata by requiring that a prior judgment or decree be the source of definite rights. It also guarantees the presence of an actual controversy by requiring the prior judgment be unclear or ambiguous.⁵

1 . Mills v. Mills, 512 P.2d 143, 148 (Okl.1973).

2 . Id. at 147.

3 . 26 Okla.L.Rev. 454, 455.

4 . de Marigny v. de Marigny, 43 So.2d 442 (Fla.1949).

5 .See Sherfy, “Mills v. Mills: Is Construction of Prior Judgments A Proper Subject for Declaratory Relief,” 10 Tulsa L. Journal 281 (1974).