Opinion ID: 1317841
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Power of the District Court to Modify the Judgment Nisi

Text: We conclude, then, that under New Jersey law the judgment nisi as amended, providing for alimony and child support, was modifiable. By the same token, assuming proper jurisdiction over the person of the plaintiff, the judgment was as modifiable in this state as it was in New Jersey. [16] If it was not so modifiable it would have a conclusive effect in this state not contemplated by the New Jersey law and beyond what was intended by the court which entered it. In Worthley, supra, the Supreme Court of California specifically rejected and refused to follow its earlier decision in Biewend v. Biewend, 17 Cal.2d 108, 113, 109 P.2d 701, 705, 132 A.L.R. 1264 (1941), which had held that a Missouri court decree would be established as the California decree until such time as the Missouri court modifies its decree and held that issues of modification were properly triable in the California court. This appears to us to be in line with the more sensible authorities, 24 Am.Jur.2d, Divorce and Separation § 987, p. 1125. We need not go so far as to determine whether a divorce decree with provisions for alimony or support, not subject to modification in the state of its rendition, is subject to change in another state where the judgment is filed, for as said in New York ex rel. Halvey v. Halvey, 330 U.S. 610, 614-615, 67 S.Ct. 903, 906, 91 L.Ed. 1133 (1947),    [A] judgment has no constitutional claim to a more conclusive or final effect in the State of the forum than it has in the State where rendered.    Whatever may be the authority of a State to undermine a judgment of a sister State on grounds not cognizable in the State where the judgment was rendered (Cf. Williams v. State of North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 230 [65 S.Ct. 1092, 1095, 89 L.Ed. 1577, 157 A.L.R. 1366]), it is clear that the State of the forum has at least as much leeway to disregard the judgment, to qualify it, or to depart from it as does the State where it was rendered. Section 20-66, W.S. 1957 provides in pertinent part: After a decree for alimony or other allowance for the wife and children, or either of them,    the court may, from time to time, on the petition of either of the parties, revise and alter such decree respecting the amount of such alimony or allowance, or the payment thereof    and may make any decree respecting any of said matters which such court might have made in the original action. If a foreign judgment for divorce with provisions for alimony and support is to be entered in a district court of this state with the same force and effect as a judgment of this state, it must be subject to the provisions of this statute.