Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/188/14/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:57:09+00:00

Document:
When rights, based on a judgment obtained in one state, are asserted in the courts of another state under the due faith and credit clause of the federal Constitution, the power exists in the state court in which they are asserted to look back of the judgment and ascertain whether the claim which had entered into it was one susceptible of being enforced in another state (Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Company, 127 U. S. 215; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457). And where such rights are in due time asserted, the power to decide whether the federal question so raised was rightly disposed of in the court below exists in, and involves the exercise of jurisdiction by, this Court.
1. Although marriage, viewed solely as a civil relation, possesses elements of contract, it is so interwoven with the very fabric of society that it cannot be entered into except as authorized by law, and it may not, when once entered into, be dissolved by the mere consent of the parties.
The Constitution of the United States confers no power whatever upon the government of the United States to regulate marriage or its dissolution in the states.
A state may forbid the enforcement within its borders of a decree of divorce procured by its own citizens who, whilst retaining their domicil in the prohibiting state, have gone into another state to procure a divorce in fraud of the law of the domicil.
The statute of Massachusetts, which provides that a divorce decreed in another state or country by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and both the parties shall be valid and effectual in the Commonwealth, but if an inhabitant of Massachusetts goes into another state or country to obtain a divorce for a cause which occurred in Massachusetts while the parties resided there, or for a cause which would not authorize a divorce by the laws of Massachusetts, a divorce so obtained shall have no force or effect in that Commonwealth, is an expression of the public policy of that state in regard to a matter wholly under its control, and does not conflict with the Constitution of the United States or violate the full faith and credit clause thereof. And the courts of Massachusetts are not obliged to enforce a decree of divorce obtained in another state as to persons domiciled in Massachusetts and who go into such other state with the purpose of practicing a fraud upon the laws of the their domicil -- that is, to procure a divorce without obtaining a bona fide domicil in such other state.
2. Although a particular provision of the Constitution may seemingly be applicable, its controlling effect is limited by the essential nature of the powers of government reserved to the states when the Constitution was adopted.
As the State of Massachusetts has exclusive jurisdiction over its citizens concerning the marriage tie and its dissolution, and consequently the authority to prohibit them from perpetrating a fraud upon the law of their domicil by temporarily sojourning in another state and there procuring a decree of divorce without acquiring a bona fide domicil, a decree of divorce obtained in South Dakota upon grounds which do not permit a divorce in Massachusetts under the conditions stated in the opinion is not rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction and hence the due faith and credit clause of the Constitution does not require the enforcement of such decree in the Massachusetts against the public policy of that state as expressed in its statutes.
Charles S. and Kate H. Andrews married in Boston in April, 1887, and they lived together at their matrimonial domicil in the State of Massachusetts. In April, 1890, the wife began a suit for separate maintenance, which was dismissed in December, 1890, because of a settlement between the parties, adjusting their property relations.
"being then a citizen of Massachusetts and domiciled in Boston, went to South Dakota to obtain a divorce for a cause which occurred here while the parties resided here, and which would not authorize a divorce by the laws of this commonwealth; he remained personally in that state a period of time longer than is necessary by the laws of said state to gain a domicil there, and on November 19, 1891, filed a petition for divorce in the proper court of that state."
"The husband went to South Dakota, and took up his residence there to get this divorce, and that he intended to return to this state when the business was finished. He boarded at a hotel in Sioux Falls all the time, and had no other business there than the prosecution of this divorce suit. I find, however, that he voted there at a state election in the fall of 1891, claiming the right to do so as a bona fide resident under the laws of that state. His intention was to become a resident of that state for the purpose of getting his divorce, and to that end to do all that was needful to make him such a resident, and I find he became a resident if, as a matter of law, such finding is warranted in the facts above stated."
"The parties had never lived together as husband and wife in South Dakota, nor was it claimed that either one of them was ever in that state, except as above stated."
a bona fide resident of South Dakota, or that she had deserted him, and setting up cruelty on his part toward her. This case was settled, so far as the parties were concerned, in accordance with the terms of the agreement of April 22, 1892, signed by the wife and consented to by the husband, and, for the purpose of carrying out her agreement 'to consent to the granting of divorce for desertion in South Dakota,' she requested her counsel there to withdraw her appearance in that suit, which they did, and thereafterwards, namely, on May 6, 1892, a decree granting the divorce was passed, and within a day or two afterwards, the said Charles, having attained the object of his sojourn in that state, returned to this commonwealth, where he resided and was domiciled until his death, which occurred in October, 1897."
"Fourth. Upon the execution of such papers, M. F. Dickinson, Jr., is authorized in my name to consent to the granting of divorce for desertion, in the South Dakota court."
"Upon his return to this state, he soon met the petitioner, and on January 11, 1893, they were married in Boston, and ever after that lived as husband and wife in Boston, and were recognized as such by all until his death. The issue of this marriage are two children, still living."
It was additionally found that Annie Andrews married Charles S. Andrews in good faith, and in ignorance of any illegality in the South Dakota divorce, and that Kate H. Andrews, as far as she had the power to do so, had connived at and acquiesced in the South Dakota divorce, had preferred no claim thereafter to be the wife of Charles S. Andrews until his death, when in this case she asserted her right to administer his estate as his lawful widow.
From the evidence above stated, the ultimate facts were found to be that Andrews had always retained his domicil in Massachusetts, had gone to Dakota for the purpose of obtaining a divorce, in fraud of the laws of Massachusetts, and with the intention of returning to that state when the divorce was procured, and hence that he had never acquired a bona fide domicil in South Dakota. Applying a statute of the State of Massachusetts forbidding the enforcement in that state of a divorce obtained under the circumstances stated, it was decided that the decree rendered in South Dakota was void in the State of Massachusetts, and hence that Kate H. Andrews was the widow of Charles S. Andrews and entitled to administer his estate. 176 Mass. 92.
no error in deciding the federal controversy, therefore there is no federal question for review. But the power to decide whether the federal issue was rightly disposed of involves the exercise of jurisdiction. Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Austin, (1897) 168 U. S. 685. As the federal question was not unsubstantial and frivolous, we pass to a consideration of the merits of the case.
"SEC. 35. A divorce decreed in another state or country according to the laws thereof, by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of both the parties, shall be valid and effectual in this commonwealth; but if an inhabitant of this commonwealth goes into another state or country to obtain a divorce for a cause which occurred here, while the parties resided here, or for a cause which would not authorize a divorce by the laws of this commonwealth, a divorce so obtained shall be of no force or effect in this commonwealth."
2 2 Rev.Laws Mass. 1902, c. 152, p. 1357; Pub.Stat. c. 146, § 41.
statute are directed solely to citizens of Massachusetts domiciled therein, and that it only forbids the enforcement in Massachusetts of a divorce obtained in another state by a citizen of Massachusetts who, in fraud of the laws of the State of Massachusetts, while retaining his domicil, goes into another state for the purpose of there procuring a decree of divorce.
We shall test the constitutionality of the statute first by a consideration of the nature of the contract of marriage, and the authority which government possesses over the subject, and secondly by the application of the principles thus to be developed to the case in hand.
"Marriage, as creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of the people than any other institution, has always been subject to the control of the legislature. That body prescribes the age at which parties may contract to marry, the procedure or form essential to constitute marriage, the duties and obligations it creates its effect upon the property rights of both, present and prospective, and the acts which may constitute grounds for its dissolution."
to its existence; but when the contract to marry is executed by the marriage, a relation between the parties is created which they cannot change. Other contracts may be modified, restricted or enlarged, or entirely released upon the consent of the parties. Not so with marriage. The relation once formed, the law steps in and holds the parties to various obligations and liabilities. It is an institution, in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress."
125 U. S. 125 U.S. 210.
evident, as we shall hereafter have occasion to show, that the argument, while apparently conceding the power of the state to regulate the dissolution of marriage among its own citizens, yet in substance necessarily denies the possession of such power by the state. But, it is further argued, as the Constitution of the United States is the paramount law, and as, by that instrument, the State of Massachusetts is compelled to give effect to the decree, it follows that the Constitution of the United States must prevail, whatever may be the result of enforcing it.
Before coming to consider the clause of the Constitution of the United States upon which the proposition is rested, let us more precisely weigh the consequences which must come from upholding the contention not only as it may abridge the authority of the State of Massachusetts, but as it may concern the powers of government existing under the Constitution, whether state or federal.
operation of the Constitution of the United States of a power which must belong to, and somewhere reside in, every civilized government. This would be but to declare that, in a necessary aspect, government had been destroyed by the adoption of the Constitution. And such result would be reached by holding that a power of local government vested in the states when the Constitution was adopted had been lost to the states, though not delegated to the federal government, because each state was endowed, as a consequence of the adoption of the Constitution, with the means of destroying the authority, with respect to the dissolution of the marriage tie, as to every other state, while having no right to save its own power in the premises from annihilation.
the clause of the Constitution forbidding a state from impairing the obligations of a contract, it is settled by the decisions of this Court: although a state, for adequate consideration, may have executed a contract sanctioning the carrying on of a lottery for a stated term, no contract protected from impairment under the Constitution results, because, disregarding the mere form and looking at substance, a state may not, by the application of the contract clause of the Constitution, be shorn of an ever inherent authority to preserve the public morals by suppressing lotteries. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814; Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U. S. 488. In other words, the doctrine is that, although a particular provision of the Constitution may seemingly be applicable, its controlling effect is limited by the essential nature of the powers of government reserved to the states when the Constitution was adopted. In view of the rule thus applied to the contract clause of the Constitution, we could not maintain the claim now made as to the effect of the due faith and credit clause without saying that the states must, in the nature of things, always possess the power to legislate for the preservation of the morals of society, but that they need not have the continued authority to save society from destruction.
"Upon principle, it would seem that the operation of every judgment must depend on the power of the court to render that judgment, or, in other words, on its jurisdiction over the subject matter which it has determined. In some cases, that jurisdiction unquestionably depends as well on the state of the thing, as on the constitution of the court. If, by any means whatever, a prize court should be induced to condemn, as prize of war, a vessel which was never captured, it could not be contended that this condemnation operated a change of property. Upon principle, then, it would seem that, to a certain extent, the capacity of the court to act upon the thing condemned, arising from its being within or without their jurisdiction, as well as the constitution of the court, may be considered by that tribunal which is to decide on the effect of the sentence."
"The application of the rule to the courts of the several states and of the United States is not affected by the provisions of the Constitution and of the act of Congress by which the judgments of the courts of any state are to have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the state in which they were rendered. Constitution, Art. IV, Sec. 1; Act May 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 122, c. 11; Rev.Stat. § 905."
other respect than in not being reexaminable on their merits nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of the parties. Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U. S. 1, 116 U. S. 4."
"In the words of Mr. Justice Story, cited and approved by Mr. Justice Bradley speaking for this Court,"
"Story's Conflict of Laws, § 609; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, 85 U. S. 462-463."
"A judgment recovered in one state, as was said by Mr. Justice Wayne, delivering an earlier judgment of this Court,"
"McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 38 U. S. 325."
"The essential nature and real foundation of a cause of action are not changed by recovering judgment upon it, and the technical rules which regard the original claim as merged in the judgment, and the judgment as implying a promise by the defendant to pay it, do not preclude a court, to which a judgment is presented for affirmative action (while it cannot go behind the judgment for the purpose of examining into the validity of the claim) from ascertaining whether the claim is really one of such a nature that the court is authorized to enforce it."
was held that the due faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States imposed upon the courts of New York the duty of giving effect to the decree of divorce which had been rendered in Kentucky.
But it is said that the decrees of divorce which were under consideration in Bell v. Bell and Streitwolf v. Streitwolf were rendered in ex parte proceedings, the defendants having been summoned by substituted service, and making no appearance; hence, the case now under consideration is taken out of the rule announced in those cases, since here, the defendant appeared, and consequently became subject to the jurisdiction of the court by which the decree of divorce was rendered. But this disregards the fact that the rulings in the cases referred to were predicated upon the proposition that jurisdiction over the subject matter depended upon domicil, and without such domicil there was no authority to decree a divorce. This became apparent when it is considered that the cases referred to were directly rested upon the authority of Thompson v. Whitman, supra, where the jurisdiction was assailed not because there was no power in the court to operate by ex parte proceedings on the res if jurisdiction existed, but solely because the res was not, at the time of its seizure, within the territorial sway of the court, and hence was not a subject matter over which the court could exercise jurisdiction by ex parte or other proceedings. And this view is emphasized by a consideration of the ruling in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Company, supra, where the judgment was one inter partes, and yet it was held that, insofar as the extraterritorial effect of the judgment was concerned, the jurisdiction over the subject matter of the state and its courts was open to inquiry, and if jurisdiction did not exist, the enforcement of the judgment was not compelled by reason of the due faith and credit clause of the Constitution.
those cases should not be applied merely because of a distinction without a difference.
appearance of the parties. Here again the argument, if sustained, would involve the overruling of Bell v. Bell and Streitwolf v. Streitwolf. As in each of the cases jurisdiction was conferred, as far as it could be given, by the appearance of the plaintiff who brought the suit, it follows that the decision that there was no jurisdiction because of the want of bona fide domicil was a ruling that, in its absence, there could be no jurisdiction over the subject matter, irrespective of the appearance of the party by whom the suit was brought. But it is obvious that the inadequacy of the appearance or consent of one person to confer jurisdiction over a subject matter not resting on consent includes necessarily the want of power of both parties to endow the court with jurisdiction over a subject matter which appearance or consent could not give. Indeed, the argument but ignores the nature of the marriage contract and the legislative control over its dissolution which was pointed out at the outset. The principle dominating the subject is that the marriage relation is so interwoven with public policy that the consent of the parties is impotent to dissolve it contrary to the law of the domicil. The proposition relied upon, if maintained, would involve this contradiction in terms: that marriage may not be dissolved by the consent of the parties, but that they can, by their consent, accomplish the dissolution of the marriage tie by appearing in a court foreign to their domicil and wholly wanting in jurisdiction, and may subsequently compel the courts of the domicil to give effect to such judgment despite the prohibitions of the law of the domicil and the rule of public policy by which it is enforced.
could not suffice to confer jurisdiction over the subject matter where it was wanting because of the absence of domicil within the state, we conclude that no violation of the due faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States arose from the action of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in obeying the command of the state statute and refusing to give effect to the decree of divorce in question.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER, MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM dissent.

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