Case Name: Joyce L. DAHLKE, Appellant, v. Theodore R. DAHLKE et al., Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1957-09-18
Citations: 97 So. 2d 16
Docket Number: 
Parties: Joyce L. DAHLKE, Appellant, v. Theodore R. DAHLKE et al., Appellee.
Judges: TERRELL, C. J., and DREW, THORNAL and O’CONNELL, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 97
Pages: 16–17

Head Matter:
Joyce L. DAHLKE, Appellant, v. Theodore R. DAHLKE et al., Appellee.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Sept. 18, 1957.
Billie B. Bush, Tampa, for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.

Opinion:
BARNS, Justice.
In the final decree of divorce the Court awarded the custody of the three children of the parties to the mother, but thereafter in 1955 at a hearing with both parties before the court he awarded absolute custody to the paternal grandparents of Ohio with leave to the grandparents to take them to Ohio. Since then the grandparents seem to have surrendered the children to the father, of Ohio. Both parents have remarried.
In August 1956 the mother petitioned the court for an order restoring to her the custody of the children and a copy of a rule nisi was served on the husband and grandparents domiciled in Ohio. Neither the husband nor grandparents appeared in response to the rule nisi and the petition was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, and thereupon petitioner-mother appealed. We find no error and affirm.
The children, the father and the grandparents are domiciled in Ohio, and the trial court has not retained jurisdiction in any way. The extraterritorial service on the citizens of Ohio of the rule nisi by registered mail, or otherwise, did not have the effect of the court obtaining personal jurisdiction of the non-appearing respondent-defendants-appellees. The proceedings are in personam and not quasi-in rem and the lower court was impotent to render a decree binding on the appellees. Pennoyer v. Neff, 1878, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565. Furthermore, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution of the United States, Art. IV, § 1, would not make a decree favorable to the appellant-petitioner binding on the appellees or the courts of Ohio in event of proceedings brought to enforce it there. May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 73 S.Ct. 840, 97 L.Ed. 1221.
Affirmed.
TERRELL, C. J., and DREW, THORNAL and O'CONNELL, JJ., concur.