138 N.Y.S. 639 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1912
The action,is for divorce on the ground of the defendant’s alleged adultery. The plaintiff and the defendant were married on.the 21st day of March, 1885, in the city of Hew York. In 1901 they moved to Virginia and established their' residence in that state, where they lived until March 9, 1903, when the defendant left the plaintiff still residing 'in Virginia and thereafter never had a residence in that state. The plaintiff continued to reside in Virginia with her two sons and a daughter, the issue of the marriage, until the spring of 1906, the exact date of her departure not being shown by the evidence. Upon leaving Virginia she returned to Hew York. Before leaving Virginia she retained an attorney there to procure, as she now claims, a limited divorce. He in fact procured an absolute divorce, that remedy apparently being provided by the Virginia law for abandonment. She claims she did not know an absolute divorce was procured for her, although the decree declares her to be “ divorced from the bonds of matrimony,” and such is the relief she is now seeking. The summons in that action was mailed by the plaintiff’s attorney to the defendant, who was then living in Chicago, Ill., who signed a written acknowledgment indorsed upon the back of the summons and returned the same to the attorney. Ho appearance was made by the defendant in the suit, nor was any answer served, nor was any notice of the suit or order for publication or order for service without the state ever made, and no notice of the suit was ever given except as appears by the summons and the indorsed admission of service thereon. Subsequently the defendant married another woman in the state of Delaware, and has lived with her since that time and.was still living with her at the time of the trial. It is established by abundant authority that the plaintiff, having invoked the jurisdiction of the Virginia court and obtained a judgment of divorce in that court, cannot be heard now to question its jurisdiction. This doctrine has been frequently applied by the courts of this state. One of the most recent cases is Starbuck v. Starbuck, 173 N. Y. 503, where a woman, after obtaining a decree of divorce from her husband in Massachusetts on the ground of ex
Ordered accordingly.