82 F.2d 847 | D.C. Cir. | 1936
Appeal from a decree in the Supreme Court of the District dismissing the petition of appellant (plaintiff) to annul his marriage to appellee (defendant).
According to the averments of the petition, defendant and John N. Keyser on May 29, 1894, were married in the District of Columbia and thereafter, until May 15, 1916, resided in the District as husband and wife. On May 15, 1916, Keyser deserted the defendant, moving into the state of Maryland, where, about eleven years thereafter, on June 28, 1927, he instituted in that state a suit for divorce on the ground that the defendant without cause had abandoned and deserted him. In that suit Keyser alleged that the defendant was and had been continuously a resident of the District of Columbia, and he therefore
Plaintiff herein, in reliance on defendant’s representations that she had been legally divorced from Keyser, entered into a marriage ceremony with her on November 17, 1927, in the District of Columbia. Subsequently advised that the divorce was invalid and the marriage void, plaintiff on January 19, 1935, instituted this suit.
Except for constitutional provisions, the law of no state can have effect beyond the bounds of the state imposing it, unless by permission of the state where it is to be allowed to operate. Whether or not the operation of foreign decrees of divorce will contravene the policy of or do wrong or injury to the citizens of the state is to be determined by the courts of that state. Those courts are the final judges of the occasions on which the exercise of comity will or will not make for justice or morality. Hubbard v. Hubbard, 228 N.Y. 81, 126 N.E. 508.
The facts in that case were in material respects parallel to the facts in this. There, as here, plaintiff alleged that the decree divorcing the defendant from her former husband was invalid and plaintiff therefore sought an annulment of his subsequent marriage to her. At the time of her divorce the defendant in that case was a resident of Massachusetts and her then husband was a resident of New York. The Massachusetts court ordered constructive service of process upon him. He did not appear in the action and the absolute divorce for desertion was granted by default. It was claimed that the decree was void as to the courts of the state of New York in virtue of the adjudged policy of that state to refuse to recognize as binding a decree of divorce, obtained in the court of a sister state, not the matrimonial domicile, upon grounds insufficient for that purpose in the state of New York, when the divorced defendant resided in New York, was not personally served with process, and did not appear in the action. It was held that while the decree divorcing defendant from her former husband might adjudge her marital status within the state of Massachusetts as to the husband and the world at large, the courts of the state of New York, untrammeled by the full faith and credit clause of the Federal Constitution (article 4, § 1),
There, as here, the decree sought to be given operation was obtained in a state not the matrimonial domicile and on grounds insufficient for divorce in the state in which it was sought to be given operation. When Keyser invoked the jurisdiction of the Maryland court, he had been a resident of that state for about eleven years (and it is not averred that he took up residence there to obtain a divorce). Section 38, art. 16, Maryland Code 1924, confers jurisdiction on the equity courts of that state to determine the matrimonial status of its own residents, but where the defendant in a divorce suit is a nonresident jurisdiction of the court is limited to the dissolution of the marriage. Garner v. Garner, 56 Md. 127. The Maryland decree in the present case went no farther.
The averment that defendant and Keyser were guilty of collusion did not affect the jurisdiction of the Maryland court, Keyser having been a bona fide resident and citizen of that state. United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U.S. 61, 25 L.Ed. 93. In Simmons v. Simmons, 57 App.D.C. 216, 19 F.(2d) 690, 54 A.L.R. 75, and Frey v. Frey, 61 App.D.C. 232, 59 F.(2d) 1046, Virginia decrees of divorce had been obtained through fraudulent representations as to plaintiff’s residence in each case. The Virginia courts, therefore, had no jurisdiction and the decrees were void.
Decree affirmed, with costs.
Affirmed.
Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U.S. 562, 26 S.Ct. 525, 50 L.Ed. 867, 5 Ann.Cas. 1.