Title: Juneau v. Juneau
Citation: 227 La. 921, 80 So. 2d 864
Docket Number: N/A
State: Louisiana
Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court
Date: April 25, 1955

80 So. 2d 864 (1955) 227 La. 921 Edgar C. JUNEAU v. Mildred Palmisano JUNEAU. No. 41659. Supreme Court of Louisiana. April 25, 1955. Rehearing Denied May 23, 1955. *865 Richard Dowling, New Orleans, for appellee and appellant. MOISE, Justice. Two appeals are presented for our consideration. Edgar C. Juneau, plaintiff-husband, appealed suspensively from a judgment dismissing his suit against his wife. Mildred Palmisano Juneau, for separation from bed and board on the ground of abandonment. On the day set for hearing in this Court, he failed to make an appearance or file a brief in support of his appeal. His appeal will, therefore, be dismissed. Chatelain v. Besnard, 219 La. 488, 53 So. 2d 243; Succession of Gumbel, 223 La. 1023, 67 So. 2d 578. The record discloses that plaintiff and defendant separated on December 20, 1952. On January 30, 1953, a previous suit instituted between them was dismissed by consent of the parties on the ground that they had become reconciled. The following day, January 31, 1953, Mrs. Juneau left for Las Vegas, Nevada, where she filed suit for divorce after an alleged six weeks's residence and was granted a divorce by default, on the ground of mental cruelty, on April 9, 1953. On February 3, 1953, plaintiff-husband filed suit against Mildred Palmisano Juneau in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans, State of Louisiana, for separation from bed and board on the ground of abandonment. On May 25, 1953, Mildred Palmisano Juneau, the defendant-wife, filed exceptions of ratione materiae and ratione personae and a plea in bar to plaintiff's petition. The plea in bar was predicated on the Nevada decree of divorce obtained on April 9, 1953, and she prayed that the Nevada decree be given full faith and credit under Article IV of the United States Constitution. The trial judge overruled these exceptions and plea, and reserving her rights under the exceptions defendant filed an answer and reconventional demand to plaintiff's petition, in which she denied his allegations, reasserted the Nevada decree of divorce, and prayed for separation from bed and board on the ground of cruel treatment. The trial court dismissed the entire proceeding, and Mildred Palmisano Janeau, defendant-wife, appealed from the rulings and judgment against her. *866 In his reasons for judgment, the district judge held: We fully agree with our learned brother below. An analysis of his reasons for judgment show that he did not believe, from the facts, that the defendant-wife had established a residence in Las Vegas, Nevada; and we share in that belief, because after the dismissal of a previous suit on January 30, 1953, the wife immediately left for Las Vegas, Nevada. She was given two weeks' vacation, with pay. She was also granted a leave of absence, but she did declare that this leave of absence was forced on her by her employer. Shortly after obtaining the divorce in Nevada, she called her employer in New Orleans and wanted to come back to work here. At that time an opening was not available, and the employer suggested that she could work for a short time in Houston, Texas. She did go there to work for a few weeks as a rate clerk. She then returned to New Orleans and resumed her employment with the same company she was working for when she left New Orleans to go to Las Vegas, Nevada. She is presently located with this same company. In the case of Williams v. State of North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 65 S. Ct. 1092, 1095, 89 L. Ed. 1577, the United States Supreme Court held: The construction usually placed on this ruling of the United States Supreme Court is that a judgment of one state is conclusive upon the merits in every other state, only if the court of the state where judgment was rendered had jurisdiction. When the judgment is used as a plea in bar, as in the instant case, the state of the last matrimonial domicile has the right to determine whether a new domicile was established, in fact and in law. On the merits of the instant case, we agree with the trial judge that the parties were mutually at fault, and his judgment was correct in dismissing the wife's reconventional demand. The parties should be left where their misconduct toward each other has placed them. Callahan v. Callais, 224 La. 901, 71 So. 2d 320. The record reflects that there was bickering and fussing, and it takes two to have a quarrel. The wife alleges that her husband drank excessively and called her insinuating names; the husband alleges that his wife wanted to go out socially too often and that he complained over the practice. These acts of misconduct, together with the throwing of a glass of water in the husband's face by the wife, were alleged to have occurred on December 20, 1952. *867 Article 39 of the LSA-Civil Code states: "A married woman has no other domicile than that of her husband; * * *." Article 120 of the LSA-Civil Code states: In the case of Zinko v. Zinko, 204 La. 478, 15 So. 2d 859, 860, this Court stated: Judgment affirmed. HAMITER, Justice (dissenting in part and concurring in part). Since the record fails to affirmatively show that defendant (the wife) did not establish the requisite domicile in Las Vegas, the presumption that the Nevada court had jurisdiction in her divorce action of the subject matter and the persons has not been overcome. I am of the opinion, therefore, that defendant's Nevada divorce decree should be recognized and given full faith and credit in this cause. Otherwise, I concur in the holding of the majority.