Court Must Determine if Default Divorce Judgment Was Proper
Tennessee case summary on default judgments in divorce.
Harmon L. Maddox v. Tajuana Rochell Maddox
The husband in this Montgomery County, Tennessee, filed for divorce based upon irreconcilable difference and inappropriate marital conduct. The wife didn’t file an answer, and the husband filed for default. The husband was granted the divorce, and the wife was ordered to pay alimony of $800 per month for 18 months. The husband was also awarded half of the wife’s investment account for the time of the marriage.
In 2020, the husband filed for contempt, arguing that the wife had never made the required payments. In 2021, the wife filed a motion to set aside the default on the grounds that she was never personally served with the complaint. She also pointed out that she had never resided in Tennessee. Service of process allegedly took place at the address of a baby shower in Indianapolis that the wife had attended, but she offered an affidavit that she was never served, and her daughter offered an affidavit stating that she was unaware of any papers being served. The wife’s motion was denied, as was a motion to reconsider. The wife then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
After stating the standard of review, the appeals court began by pointing out that default judgments are not favored, and that a judgment without personal or subject-matter jurisdiction is void. It then turned to the requirements for service of process. It noted that the husband had offered two affidavits regarding service, but they both had different Indianapolis addresses. Due to this discrepancy, and in light of the policy favoring trials as opposed to defaults, the appeals court held that the case should be remanded for a hearing to ensure that service was proper.
The appeals court did warn, however, that even if the court lacked jurisdiction, the judgment might still be valid if the party having notice of it treated it as valid. But since those facts were not in the record, the appeals court held that the lower court would need to consider such issues.
For these reasons, the lower court’s judgment was reversed and the case remanded. The costs of the appeal were assessed against the husband.
The appellate court’s opinion was written by Judge Andy D. Bennett.
No. M2021-00609-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 28, 2022).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.
