Title: Gullo v. Brown
Citation: 483 P.2d 293
Docket Number: 9142
State: new-mexico
Issuer: new-mexico Supreme Court
Date: March 29, 1971

483 P.2d 293 (1971) Jack Anthony GULLO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Miriam Anne BROWN, Defendant-Appellee. No. 9142. Supreme Court of New Mexico. March 29, 1971. *294 Hartley, Olson &amp; Baca, Albuquerque, for plaintiff-appellant. McAtee, Marchiondo &amp; Michael, Pat Chowning, Albuquerque, for defendant-appellee. STEPHENSON, Justice. This declaratory judgment action was filed in the District Court of Bernalillo County seeking an adjudication that a divorce decree obtained by appellee prior to a ceremonial marriage between the parties was void, having been procured by fraud. From an adverse summary judgment, this appeal was taken. In 1947, appellee married John J. Brown. On February 17, 1951, a decree was entered by the District Court of Bernalillo County granting appellee a divorce from Mr. Brown. Because this decree and the manner in which appellee procured it are the root of this controversy, we will summarize the surrounding circumstances. In July, 1950, appellee, a resident of the District of Columbia, was separated from Mr. Brown. Appellant brought her to Albuquerque, where they stayed for about two weeks, at his expense, for the purpose of establishing residence, looking toward the obtaining by appellee of a divorce in New Mexico from Mr. Brown and the marriage of the parties to follow. Following *295 correspondence between appellee and an Albuquerque lawyer, appellee filed suit for divorce on January 15, 1951. In mid-February, 1951, appellee traveled by air from the District of Columbia to Albuquerque, went directly from the airport to the courthouse, there conferred with her attorney, attended her hearing and procured her divorce. The decree was entered February 17, 1951, whereupon appellee returned to the District of Columbia. Appellee was never a resident of New Mexico. She testified that appellant paid for the February, 1951 travels and the legal services, which was denied by appellant, although he admitted that he knew and understood the purpose of the trip and was agreeable that appellee make it. The parties were married on April 28, 1951. In the fall of 1960, the marriage between the parties was breaking up; they had separated; and on November 16, 1960, appellee filed suit for divorce in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia, where they then resided. At that juncture, appellee commenced advancing a contention that by reason of appellee having procured the New Mexico divorce decree by fraud, the divorce was void, and the subsequent marriage between the parties was hence void and should be annulled. This legal chimera has been pursued by appellant through trial and appellate courts in the District of Columbia, Virginia, and now in New Mexico, with uniformly unfavorable results, but with a single minded purpose and persistence that is truly remarkable. For a summary of intervening litigation between these parties which is as concise as its tangled and convoluted nature permits, we will adopt and approve the language of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Gullo v. Hirst, 207 A.2d 662 (D.C.App. 1965) [Appellee having married Mr. Hirst in 1961]. The court said: Obviously, the application of the doctrine of res judicata bars appellant from obtaining the relief that he seeks. In support of such a conclusion it must be a rare circumstance when a court may rely on opinions of two other appellate courts specifically so holding in appeals involving the identical issues between the same parties. That opportunity being available to us here, we will not let it pass. In Gullo v. Hirst, 332 F.2d 178 (4th Cir.1964) the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, in affirming the United States District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia held that the matter which appellant (in that case and in this one) sought to litigate was res judicata. In Gullo v. Hirst, supra, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, after the summarization of prior litigation that we have quoted, said: Entirely apart from the doctrine of res judicata, it is clear that appellant lacks standing to attack the decree in the divorce case. He was not a party to it and had no right which was affected by it at the time of its entry. deMarigny v. deMarigny, 43 So. 2d 442 (Fla. 1949); Mumma v. Mumma, 86 Cal. App. 2d 133, 194 P.2d 24 (2d Dist. Ct.App. 1948); Thomas v. Lambert, 187 Ga. 616, 1 S.E.2d 443 (1939); Kirby v. Kent, 172 Miss. 457, 160 So. 569, 99 A.L.R. 1303 (1935); Tyler v. Aspinwall, 73 Conn. 493, 47 A. 755, 54 L.R.A. 758 (1901); See generally Ferret v. Ferret, 55 N.M. 565, 237 P.2d 594 (1951). Having held that the appellant is barred from relief both by the doctrine of res judicata and his want of standing to attack the divorce decree, we would ordinarily say no more regarding the merits of this case. But appellant raises one important question upon which we feel obliged to express ourselves. Appellant asserts that under our decision in Heckathorn v. Heckathorn, 77 N.M. 369, 423 P.2d 410 (1967), the divorce decree obtained in this case by the appellee was utterly void and a complete nullity, and that we are bound to so hold lest, by failure to do so, we give substance to a nullity which we said in Heckathorn we would not do. It is true that there is a certain similarity between the facts in Heckathorn and here, with the notable differences that in Heckathorn the attack on the divorce decree was waged by one who was a party to the divorce action and, so far as the opinion shows, did not participate in procuring the decree. In Heckathorn we held that residence for the period required by statute is a jurisdictional prerequisite to divorce in New Mexico, and that if the jurisdictional prerequisite is lacking, the decree *297 is a nullity. However, we do not reach the matter of the validity of the divorce decree in question here, since appellant is barred from raising this question by both res judicata and lack of standing to litigate the issue. Hence, nothing we have said modifies or departs from our holding in Heckathorn. Appellee suggests that we should remand the case with directions to the trial court to allow attorney's fees because of the harassment of the appellee by the appellant by means of this vexatious litigation. She correctly points out that in Gullo v. Hirst, supra, the United States Court of Appeals remanded with directions to tax attorney's fees, and that in Gullo v. Hirst, supra, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in order to bring an end to vexatious litigation, taxed attorney's fees against the appellant for the appellee's legal services both in the trial court and on appeal. It may be that the viewpoint of these federal appellate courts is somewhat more detached than ours, but we find it difficult to overlook the fact that it was a New Mexico court upon which fraud was practiced in securing the divorce decree. We do not intend to be understood as condoning the acts of appellee in procuring the decree. To the contrary, we take a serious view of her actions. Indeed, the long, tangled and vexatious course of litigation, including this case, could be said to stem in large measure from the fraud practiced on the District Court of Bernalillo County in 1951. For that reason her circumstances excite little sympathy, stemming as they do, at least in part, from her own wrongful acts. Accordingly, we leave the appellee as we found her on the subject of attorney's fees. The summary judgment of the trial court should be affirmed, and, It is so ordered. COMPTON, C.J., and OMAN, J., concur.