Mackessy v. Mackessy

15 Alaska 361
CourtDistrict Court, D. Alaska
DecidedDecember 31, 1954
DocketCiv. Nos. A-8607, A-9675
StatusPublished

This text of 15 Alaska 361 (Mackessy v. Mackessy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mackessy v. Mackessy, 15 Alaska 361 (D. Alaska 1954).

Opinion

McCARREY, District Judge.

April 16, 1953, the plaintiff filed suit for divorce in this court in cause A-8607. She prayed for an absolute divorce, determination of property rights, alimony, and attorneys’, fees. In conformance with plaintiff’s motion, an order was entered by this court on April 24, 1953, requiring defendant to pay plaintiff $170 per month during the pendency of the action. After a hearing in which defendant had been ordered to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the court’s order of April 24, the cause was dismissed by this court on March 19, 1954, on the ground that the parties had reconciled. Immediately upon dismissal, and while the defendant was still in the court, plaintiff filed a second complaint identical with the one dismissed. Another restraining order was entered against defendant on March 22, 1954, which required that defendant pay $150 per month pending determination of the suit. Defendant failed to comply with the order of March 22, nor to answer or otherwise plead; thus, plaintiff had a [364]*364default entered on April 26, 1954, and on September 13, 1954 the court entered an order to defendant to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the court’s order of March 22, 1954.

At the hearing on this order to show cause, defendant contended that this court had no jurisdiction to hold him in contempt because defendant had obtained a valid foreign divorce, and proffered a certified copy of the foreign decree. (Previously, on June 11, 1954, the court had denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the action on this ground.) The certified copy of divorce decree, and defendant’s affidavits, revealed that defendant instituted divorce proceedings on September 30, 1953, in the 8th Judicial District, Kootenai County, Idaho, and that the plaintiff in that action was personally served in Tacoma, Washington, in October of 1953. They further revealed that the plaintiff appeared especially to contest the jurisdiction of the Idaho court, and that that court found the defendant was a bona fide domiciliary and resident of the state of Idaho, and awarded the defendant an absolute decree of divorce on May 17, 1954.

The only question now before this court is whether, in view of the Idaho divorce secured by defendant, this court has any power to hold defendant in contempt for his failure to comply with this court’s order pendente lite of March 22, 1954.

It is academic that the basis for jurisdiction in divorce proceedings is domicile. If a decree of divorce is rendered where both parties are domiciled, it must be recognized in a sister state under Article 4, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States; i. e., the full faith and credit clause. If it is rendered by a state where neither party is domiciled, since there is no jurisdiction in such state to render a divorce, it need not be.

On the question of the recognition which the Constitution demands, where the decree is rendered at the domicile of one party only, there was until recently the leading case of Had[365]*365dock v. Haddock, 201 U.S. 562, 26 S.Ct. 525, 50 L.Ed. 867. In that case, the parties had been married in New York where both lived at the time. The husband went to Connecticut, established his domicile there, and secured a divorce in that state, the absent wife being served by publication •only. Later the wife brought a separation suit against Haddock in New York. In defense thereto, the defendant set up the decree he had obtained in Connecticut. This was rejected by the court in the New York proceedings. Upon appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court, it was held that there was •no violation of the requirement of full faith and credit. In the Haddock decision, there was nothing to prevent a court from refusing to recognize a foreign divorce where there was no personal service or voluntary appearance by the op-posing party, though as a matter of-practice, most states did give effect voluntarily to such a divorce decree both before and after the Haddock decision.

In 1942, by Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279, decided December 21, 1942, this was swept away and Haddock v. Haddock expressly overruled. There North Carolina litigants went to Nevada, .stayed there for the statutory period, obtained divorces from their former spouses, married each other and came back to North Carolina to live. They were convicted of bigamy in spite of the defense set up that the Nevada decree had freed them from the previous bonds of matrimony, hence they were free to re-marry. On appeal, the Supreme Court, assuming that the spouse who got the divorce was domiciled in Nevada, decided that North Carolina must give full faith and credit to the Nevada divorce. The rule of the case was that a divorce secured at the domicile of one spouse only is entitled to recognition in other states under the full faith and credit clause, and that the decree need not be rendered by a court in the matrimonial domicile to be entitled to full faith and credit.

In the first Williams case, the Supreme Court was pro-ceeding on the premise that the spouse who obtained the di[366]*366vorce was domiciled in Nevada. It did not then have the issue of whether such domicile existed before it. In the second Williams case, decided in 1945, 325 U.S. 226, 65 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed. 1577, the Supreme Court held that a decree of divorce rendered in one state may be collaterally impeached in another by proof that the court which rendered it had no jurisdiction, even though the record of the proceedings in that court purported to show jurisdiction. In this case, the North Carolina court inquired into the jurisdiction of the Nevada court and found that Nevada had no jurisdiction to render the divorce decree for the reason that the spouse who secured the divorce in Nevada was not a bona fide domiciliary thereof. The Supreme Court upheld this finding and held that since Nevada had no jurisdiction to render the decree, it was not entitled to full faith and credit. However, the rule of the second Williams case is modified to the extent that, if both parties appear, dispute and litigate the domiciliary question, as to them the question is res judi-cata. Davis v. Davis, 305 U.S. 32, 59 S.Ct. 3, 83 L.Ed. 26.

In summary, the following propositions appear to apply when full faith and credit is asked to be given to an extraterritorial or foreign divorce:

1. Domicile is the basis of jurisdiction in divorce cases;

2. The domicile of both parties has jurisdiction to render a divorce which must-be recognized in sister states.

3. In a state issuing a decree of divorce wherein neither spouse is domiciled in fact, a decree rendered by such state néed not be recognized elsewhere.

4. The domicile of only one spouse has jurisdiction to render a decree of divorce which must be given full faith and credit. First Williams case, overruling Haddock v. Haddock.

Provided:

(a) The party obtaining the foreign divorce must have been a. bona- fide domiciliary of the state rendering the di[367]

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Related

Haddock v. Haddock
201 U.S. 562 (Supreme Court, 1906)
Davis v. Davis
305 U.S. 32 (Supreme Court, 1938)
Williams v. North Carolina
317 U.S. 287 (Supreme Court, 1943)
Williams v. North Carolina
325 U.S. 226 (Supreme Court, 1945)
Estin v. Estin
334 U.S. 541 (Supreme Court, 1948)
Metzger v. Metzger
167 N.E. 690 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1929)
Verbeck v. Verbeck
187 Misc. 750 (New York Supreme Court, 1946)
Lynn v. Lynn
97 N.E.2d 748 (New York Court of Appeals, 1951)

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15 Alaska 361, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mackessy-v-mackessy-akd-1954.