Courts — Jurisdiction — Supplementary proceedings — Process — Ancillary or auxiliary rule — Service — Reasonable notice — Opportunity to be heard — Notice by mail — Husband and wife — Support — Orders — Change — Act of April 13, 1867, P.L. 78.
1. Where a court has acquired jurisdiction over a party to an action, a rule which is merely ancillary or auxiliary to that action may be served on him by any adult person, wherever he may be found, or by any method sufficient to give him actual notice of the petition and rule and reasonable opportunity to be heard upon it.
2. Such rule is especially applicable in proceedings for support and maintenance under the Act of April 13, 1867, P.L. 78, and its amendments.
3. Where the court has acquired jurisdiction of the parties in a proceeding for support and maintenance under the Act of 1867, notice sent by mail to the defendant outside of the state is sufficient, and this is so even though both parties have become non-residents, providing that the defendant has reasonable notice and an opportunity to be present and to be heard.
3. In proceedings for support and maintenance under the Act of 1867, as amended, the orders of the court are not irrevocably fixed and final, but are subject to be increased, reduced or vacated when the financial condition of the parties changes or other proper reasons exist.
5. Where it appeared that, after a hearing at which defendant was present, he was ordered to pay a stated sum monthly for the support of his wife and children, which order was later reduced upon his petition; that, subsequently, the paternal grandfather was brought into the proceedings by citation and the then existing order was amended to provide a specified sum monthly for the support of the wife only and vacated as to the children, the grandfather to pay a stated sum monthly for the support of the children; and that, on appeal by the grandfather, the decree was reversed; it was held that the reversal of the decree in question left the prior order in existence as the basis of supplementary proceedings and a contention of defendant that the court was without jurisdiction was without merit, especially where it appeared that thereafter defendant voluntarily appeared and petitioned for reduction of the order.
Argued May 6, 1942.
PER CURIAM, May 8, 1942:
On February 11, 1942 the relatrix, Frederica L. Milne, obtained a rule in the municipal court upon her husband, Caleb J. Milne, 3d, this appellant, to show cause why an order of support entered against him on February 25, 1924 — which had been reduced from time to time at his instance, the last reduction having been made by the court on March 23, 1936 — should not be increased in consequence of a very considerable betterment of his financial condition, as a result of the death of his father — a man of large means — and the will of the latter bequeathing him one-third of the net income of a large trust estate.
The husband obtained a rule — under the Act of March 5, 1925, P.L. 23, 12 PS sec. 672, et seq. — to show cause why service of the said rule, and the petition on which it was based, should not be set aside and the rule discharged for want of jurisdiction, which the court, after hearing, discharged. The husband appealed.
The question involved is solely one of jurisdiction.
The opinion of the court below, the essential part of which will be printed in the reporter's statement, fully justifies the order appealed from.
To the citations contained in the opinion may be added the case of Carey v. Carey, 121 Pa. Super. 251, 183 A. 371, which supports the legal principle that where a court has acquired jurisdiction over a party to an action, a rule which is merely ancillary or auxiliary to that action may be served on him by any adult person, wherever he may be found, or by any method sufficient to give him actual notice of the petition and rule and reasonable opportunity to be heard upon it. See also, In re Minor Children of Rosenthal, 103 Pa. Super. 27, 30, 157 A. 342.
This, we may add, is especially the case in proceedings for support and maintenance under the Act of April 13, 1867, P.L. 78, and its amendments, in which the orders of the court are not irrevocably fixed and final, but are subject to be increased, reduced or vacated when the financial condition of the parties changes or other proper reasons exist.
For the reasons set forth in the court's opinion, as it appears in the reporter's statement, the order is affirmed at the costs of the appellant.