Case Title: Zweig v. Zweig

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1990-04-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
 
 
                                No. 89-120
 
 
Michael F. Zweig                             Supreme Court
 
     v.                                      On Appeal from
                                             Caledonia Superior Court
Martha MacNeal Zweig
                                             April Term, 1990
 
 
Matthew I. Katz, J.
 
Rubin, Rona, Kidney & Myer, Barre, for plaintiff-appellee
 
Martha MacNeal Zweig, pro se, Hardwick, defendant-appellant
 
 
PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Peck, Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ.
 
 
     PECK, J.  This is an appeal by defendant wife from a divorce decree
entered upon a finding that the parties had lived apart for six months and
that the resumption of marital relations was not reasonably probable.  15
V.S.A. { 551(7).
     The parties were married in Philadelphia in 1965 and moved to New York
State.  In 1974, plaintiff husband left the marital home and moved to New
York City, where he still resides.  Defendant wife moved to Vermont in the
fall of that year and has lived in this State ever since.  Both parties
have cohabited with other individuals for over ten years.  The only child of
the marriage will be twenty years old in November of this year.
     In December, 1978, plaintiff filed an action for divorce in New York
State on the grounds of constructive abandonment and cruel and inhuman
treatment.  Defendant contested the action, and counterclaimed, seeking
custody, child support, and maintenance.  The court severed the custody and
support issues, and the matter was tried on the divorce complaint alone.  In
July, 1980, the court dismissed the action, stating that plaintiff had
failed to prove his allegations of constructive abandonment and cruelty.
     After considerable lapse of time, in March of 1988 the New York court
ordered plaintiff to pay child support of one hundred dollars per week
retroactive to January 1, 1985; to maintain medical, dental, and life
insurance for his daughter's benefit; and to pay all medical and dental
bills in excess of one hundred dollars a year that are not covered by
insurance.  The support order remains in effect until his daughter's twenty-
first birthday in November, 1991.
     In 1988, plaintiff brought an action for divorce in Vermont pursuant to
15 V.S.A. { 592, alleging an irreconcilable separation exceeding six months.
The court granted the divorce and denied maintenance to defendant.  This
appeal ensued.
     On appeal, defendant challenges the trial court's jurisdiction to grant
the divorce, asserting that the matter is res judicata because of the prior
New York decision.  Defendant is correct that if an initial suit for divorce
is brought in a different state than the second suit, a judgment on the
merits for the defendant bars a subsequent divorce action on identical
grounds where the evidence will be essentially the same.  See Slansky v.
Slansky, 150 Vt. 438, 441,