271 F. 551 | D.C. Cir. | 1921
This appeal is from a decree of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia dismissing the bill of appellant, plaintiff, for a limited divorce.
At the outset, we are confronted with a question of jurisdiction fatal to plaintiff’s case. She avers in the bill that—
“Plaintiff is a citizen of the United States, a resident of the city of Washington, District of Columbia, residing at present at No. 3825 Nineteenth*552 street Northwest, In said city and District, and brings this suit In her own iright as hereinafter set forth as the wife of the above-named defendant, Hollis T. Winston.”
“No decree of nullity of marriage or divorce shall be rendered in favor of any one not a resident of the District of Oolumbia, and no divorce shall be decreed in favor of any person who has not been a bona fide resident of said District for at least three years next before the application therefor for any cause which shall have occurred out of said District and prior to residence therein.”
The statute, it will be observed, contains two limitations upon the right of a party to maintain an action for limited divorce in this District : First, the plaintiff must be “a resident of the District of Columbia” ; and, second, if the cause “occurred out of said District,” before action will lie, the plaintiff must have “been a bona fide resident of said District for at least three years next before the application therefor.” Plaintiff charges that the offenses of the husband upon which she bases her claim for relief were committed in Brooklyn. No offense is averred to have been committed within the District of Columbia; hence her case comes clearly within the three-year limitation of the statute. This is jurisdictional, and requires, not only an affirmative averment of the fact in the bill, but proof in support thereof. Wood v. Wood, 59 Ark. 441, 27 S. W. 641, 28 L. R. A. 157, 43 Am. St. Rep. 42; Miller v. Miller, 33 Fla. 453, 15 South. 222, 24 L. R. A. 137.
The decree of the lower court, dismissing the bill on the merits, is reversed, and the cause is remanded, with instructions to enter a decree dismissing the hill for the want of jurisdiction.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice STAFFORD, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, sat in the place of Mr. Justice ROBB in the hearing and determination of this appeal.