## Facts

- Former spouses divorced in Brazoria County, Texas, in 1976.
- The divorce decree awarded the ex-wife 25% of any property the ex-husband would receive “through inheritance or otherwise” from the Sarita Kenedy East Estate, as her separate property.
- The ex-husband did not appeal the 1976 decree.
- The ex-husband later sought bill-of-review relief, but that proceeding was dismissed for want of prosecution.
- In a later suit filed in Kenedy County (where the property was located), the ex-husband sought to declare void the portion of the divorce decree awarding the ex-wife an interest in his inheritance, claiming the divorce court lacked power to divest separate property and that the award was unconstitutional.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the ex-wife, rejecting the collateral attack.

## Issues

1. Whether the portion of the 1976 divorce decree awarding the ex-wife 25% of the ex-husband’s inheritance from the Sarita Kenedy East Estate was void, permitting collateral attack in a later suit.
2. Whether an alleged error in awarding one spouse’s separate property in a divorce decree is a jurisdictional defect (void judgment) or a substantive legal error (voidable judgment correctable only by direct appeal).
3. Whether later clarification of divorce courts’ limits on distributing separate property rendered the 1976 decree void retroactively.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the summary judgment for the ex-wife.
- The 1976 divorce decree was not void and therefore could not be collaterally attacked.
- Even if the divorce court improperly awarded the ex-husband’s separate property, that would be a substantive error remediable by direct appeal, not a basis to declare the judgment void.
- The decree was regular on its face, unappealed, and final; the later lawsuit was an impermissible collateral attack.

## Legal Principles

- A collateral attack on a prior judgment is permitted only if the judgment is void; a merely erroneous judgment is not subject to collateral attack.
- Misapplication of substantive law in a divorce property division, including an improper award or characterization of separate property, generally makes the judgment voidable, not void, and must be challenged by direct appeal.
- An unappealed divorce decree that is regular on its face is generally insulated from collateral attack in later proceedings.
- Later judicial clarification limiting a divorce court’s authority over separate property does not retroactively render earlier final decrees void; at most it would show an error that had to be raised on direct review.

## Conclusion

The court held that the ex-husband’s later suit was an improper collateral attack on a final, facially regular divorce decree: any alleged improper divestiture of separate property was a non-jurisdictional error that could have been raised only by timely direct appeal.


Putegnat v. Putegnat, 706 S.W.2d 702 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1986)