Baldwin v. Baldwin

170 P.2d 670, 28 Cal. 2d 406, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 223
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJune 25, 1946
DocketL. A. 19280, 19296
StatusPublished
Cited by68 cases

This text of 170 P.2d 670 (Baldwin v. Baldwin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baldwin v. Baldwin, 170 P.2d 670, 28 Cal. 2d 406, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 223 (Cal. 1946).

Opinion

SCHAUER, J.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment rendered against her in an action against defendant, Baldwin M. Baldwin, for divorce, support, a share of alleged community property, costs of suit, and attorneys’ fees; and defendant appeals from an order made following the filing of plaintiff’s notice of appeal and requiring defendant to pay *408 plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees and costs on appeal. We have concluded that both the judgment in the main action and the order appealed from must be affirmed.

The Judgment in the Main Action.

At the trial of the divorce suit plaintiff conceded that the parties had no community property. The trial court found as a fact that since the intermarriage of the parties, which took place on October 21,1937, ‘ ‘ defendant has inflicted upon plaintiff extreme mental cruelty, causing her grievous mental suffering,” but held that a decree of divorce in defendant’s favor and against plaintiff, rendered by a Nevada court on December 16, 1939, is entitled to full faith and credit in this state and that “plaintiff is not entitled to any relief whatsoever herein.” On this appeal plaintiff contests the validity of the Nevada divorce, asserting that California is not bound by the provisions of section 1 of article IV of the United States Constitution to give full faith and credit to the Nevada decree and that the evidence is insufficient to support the trial court’s finding that the “residence and domicile acquired and maintained by . . . defendant ... in the . . . State of Nevada, commencing on July 1, 1939, . . . was acquired in good faith and was at all times a bona fide residence and domicile; that . . . defendant continued to maintain his said [Nevada] residence and domicile . . . subsequent to said [Nevada] judgment and decree of divorce.” Plaintiff further asserts that consequently the Nevada decree is not entitled to recognition in California. She also urges that the trial court erred in sustaining defendant’s objection to an offer made by plaintiff to prove that defendant “was the wrongdoer and that his Nevada divorce decree was secured by untruthful testimony” in support of the ground (extreme cruelty) upon which such decree was secured.

It appears from the record that on October 21, 1937, plaintiff and defendant, who were then residents of California, intermarried, and on or about January 24, 1939, a final separation took place between them. Until on or about July 1, 1939, both parties continued to maintain residence in this state. No children were born as the issue of the marriage; plaintiff, however, has three minor children by former marriages. Following the separation of the parties and on approximately July 1,1939, defendant left California and went to the county of Washoe in the State of Nevada, where, on October 13, 1939, he filed a complaint for divorce against plaintiff herein. On *409 October 27, 1939, plaintiff herein, Rowena Schneider Baldwin, filed, in Los Angeles County, in this state, this divorce suit against defendant, Baldwin M. Baldwin. On November 15, 1939, a copy of the summons and complaint in the Nevada suit was personally served on plaintiff herein in Los Angeles County, and on December 16, 1939, a judgment was rendered in the Nevada suit, by which it was decreed “that the bonds of matrimony . . . existing between the plaintiff and defendant be, and the same hereby are, forever dissolved.” On March 29,1943, defendant herein filed his answer to plaintiff’s complaint (First Amended and Supplemental) in the California suit, setting up as a plea in bar the Nevada divorce decree. On August 3, 1944, judgment was entered sustaining such plea and decreeing that the parties have not been husband and wife since the Nevada decree was rendered on December 16, 1939; that, except as to the payment of certain attorneys’ fees, plaintiff is entitled to no relief whatever against defendant; that she has no “right, title, claim or interest in and to any of the property” of defendant; that an order made in this action and dated January 5, 1940, “directing payment of support money and counsel fees, be and the same is hereby vacated”; and that defendant pay certain additional attorneys’ fees to plaintiff’s attorneys. Plaintiff’s appeal is from all portions of the judgment except that awarding the attorneys’ fees.

Concerning the bona tides of defendant’s domicil in Nevada, the trial court in the instant case found that on July 1, 1939, defendant moved all of his personal effects to Washoe County in Nevada with the intention of mating that county and state his permanent residence and domicil, and thereafter resided continuously in such county to the date of filing (on October 13, 1939) his complaint for divorce against plaintiff herein, and still resided there at the time this present action was tried (on July 10, 1944); that during the period between July 1, 1939, and October 13, 1939, defendant opened a bank account and rented a safe deposit box in Washoe County; that he has paid his personal property taxes to and registered to vote and has voted in such county, and is there registered under the Selective Service Act; that he has registered his automobile in the state of Nevada, filed income tax returns as a resident of that state, and actively participated in the civic and political affairs of Washoe County; that defendant’s Nevada residence and domicil were acquired in good faith *410 and were at all times bona fide, and that at all times subsequent to moving to Nevada on July 1, 1939, defendant had intended Washoe County to be his permanent residence and domicil.

These findings—many of them of probative facts— are fully supported by the evidence. In furtherance of her attack upon the bona fides of defendant’s Nevada residence, plaintiff selects and quotes certain testimony which she asserts establishes that such residence was a sham. She urges also that “a careful analysis of the evidence submitted on behalf of respondent [defendant] to support his contention that he had changed his domicile to Nevada shows little more than a carefully followed out artifice planned to give the appearance of a change of domicile.” Without setting forth the evidence in detail, it is sufficient to observe that that relied upon by plaintiff, together with the inferences in her favor which might be drawn therefrom, does nothing more than create a conflict upon the mooted point. Under such circumstances the finding of the trial court must stand. (De Young v. De Young (1946), 27 Cal.2d 521, 525 [165 P.2d 457], and cases there cited.) Under any view, therefore, of the effect of 'the full faith and credit clause (U.S. Const., art. IV, § 1) the Nevada decree is valid as against this attack.

Plaintiff’s next contention—that the trial court erred in refusing to permit her to introduce evidence to prove her claim that defendant was the “wrongdoer and that his Nevada divorce was secured by untruthful testimony” regarding acts of cruelty by plaintiff towards defendant—is answered by the decision in the first Williams case (Williams v. State of North Carolina (1942), 317 U.S. 287 [63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279, 143 A.L.R. 1273]).

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Bluebook (online)
170 P.2d 670, 28 Cal. 2d 406, 1946 Cal. LEXIS 223, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baldwin-v-baldwin-cal-1946.