Opinion ID: 1836605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: VAGUE and INDEFINITE CHALLENGE

Text: The next question of law concerns that part of F.S., Section 61.052, F.S.A., reading: (1) No judgment of dissolution of marriage shall be granted unless one of the following facts appears, which shall be pleaded generally: (a) The marriage is irretrievably broken... . The quoted language read in context with the remainder of the statute expresses the purpose and intent of the Legislature with sufficient clarity to render it invulnerable to attack that it is unconstitutionally vague and indefinite. The word irretrievably is defined: impossible to recoup, repair or overcome. Webster's Third International Dictionary (1966), page 1196. When compared with the fourth statutory ground for divorce, extreme cruelty, in the former statute (§ 61.041(4), F.S. 1969, F.S.A.), the new language for dissolution of marriage, irretrievably broken, appears to us to be no more susceptible to the charge of vagueness than were the words, extreme cruelty. Extreme cruelty in the former divorce law was held in case after case to envision a great variety of faults and wrongdoings that were deemed sufficient for the granting of divorce, but the phrase was never invalidated for vagueness or overbreadth. For example, in Diem v. Diem, 141 Fla. 260, 193 So. 65, 66, this Court held the phrase, extreme cruelty, as a ground for divorce to be relative. The Court added: What constitutes it may be determined by the degree of one's culture, his emotions, nervous reaction or moral sense. The principles set forth in State ex rel. Lee v. Buchanan, 191 So.2d 33 (Fla. 1966); Locklin v. Pridgeon, 158 Fla. 737, 30 So.2d 102 (1947); Franklin v. State, 257 So.2d 21 (Fla. 1971); and State v. Barquet, 262 So.2d 431 (Fla. 1972), declaring certain statutes unconstitutionally vague and indefinite, have no application here. Those cases related to statutes denouncing criminal offenses. Moreover, in those cases the vagueness complained of in the statutes under attack was quite different from the instant clear statutory issue of whether a marriage has reached terminal stage in point of fact. The holdings in such cases as City of St. Petersburg v. Calbeck, 114 So.2d 316, at 319-320 (Fla.App.2d 1959); McArthur v. State, 191 So.2d 429 (Fla. 1966); Smith v. State, 237 So.2d 139 (Fla. 1970); and Smith v. State, 239 So.2d 250 (Fla. 1970), which apply a test of reasonable certainty appear more in line with a consideration of the present statute which meets such a test. It is the duty of a court to recognize a reasonable construction of a statute which supports its constitutionality. [7] The Legislature does not have to give a detailed and carefully outlined plan of each and every step to be followed in each and every circumstance which could arise. We said in Smith v. State, 237 So.2d 139 (Fla. 1970), quoting from People v. Smith, 36 Cal. App.2d Supp. 748, 92 P.2d 1039, 1042 (1939): `To make a statute sufficiently certain to comply with constitutional requirements it is not necessary that it furnish detailed plans and specifications of the acts or conduct prohibited... .' Under the principles enunciated above, the statute meets the challenge of constitutional vagueness.