Opinion ID: 103736
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: lack of domicile.

Text: We should, I think, require that divorce judgments asking our enforcement under the full faith and credit clause, unlike judgments arising out of commercial transactions and the like, must also be supported by good-faith domicile of one of the parties within the judgment state. [7] Such is certainly a reasonable requirement. A state can have no legitimate concern with the matrimonial status of two persons, neither of whom lives within its territory. The Court would seem, indeed, to pay lip service to this principle. I understand the holding to be that it is domicile in Nevada that gave power to proceed without personal service of process. That being the course of reasoning, I do not see how we avoid the issue concerning the existence of the domicile which the facts on the face of this record put to us. Certainly we cannot, as the Court would, by-pass the matter by saying that we must treat the present case for the purpose of the limited issue before us precisely the same as if petitioners had resided in Nevada for a term of years and had long ago acquired a permanent abode there. I think we should treat it as if they had done just what they have done. The only suggestion of a domicile within Nevada was a stay of about six weeks at the Alamo Auto Court, an address hardly suggestive of permanence. Mrs. Hendrix testified in her case (the evidence in Williams' case is not before us) that her residence in Nevada was indefinite permanent in character. The Nevada court made no finding that the parties had a domicile there. It only found a residence  sometimes, but not necessarily, an equivalent. [8] It is this Court that accepts these facts as enough to establish domicile. While a state can no doubt set up its own standards of domicile as to its internal concerns, I do not think it can require us to accept and in the name of the Constitution impose them on other states. If Nevada may prescribe six weeks of indefinite-permanent abode in a motor court as constituting domicile, she may as readily prescribe six days. Indeed, if the Court's opinion is carried to its logical conclusion, a state could grant a constructive domicile for divorce purposes upon the filing of some sort of declaration of intention. Then it would follow that we would be required to accept it as sufficient and to force all states to recognize mail-order divorces as well as tourist divorces. Indeed, the difference is in the bother and expense  not in the principle of the thing. The concept of domicile as a controlling factor in choice of law to govern many relations of the individual was well known to the framers of the Constitution. It was hardly contemplated that a person should be subject at once to two conflicting state policies, such as those of Nevada and North Carolina. It was undoubtedly expected that the Court would in many cases of conflict use one's domicile as an appropriate guide in selecting the law to govern his controversies. Domicile means a relationship between a person and a locality. It is the place, and the one place, where he has his roots and his real, permanent home. The Fourteenth Amendment, in providing that one by residence in a state becomes a citizen thereof, probably used residence as synonymous with domicile. Thus domicile fixes the place where one belongs in our federal system. In some instances the existence of this relationship between the state and an individual may be a federal question, although this Court has been reluctant to accept that view. [9] If in testing this judgment to determine whether it qualifies for federal enforcement we should apply the doctrine of domicile to interpretation of the full faith and credit clause, Nevada would be held to a duty to respect the statutes of North Carolina and not to interfere with their application to those whose individual as well as matrimonial domicile is within that State unless and until that domicile has been terminated. And North Carolina would not be required to yield its policy as to persons resident there except upon a showing that Nevada had acquired a domiciliary right to redefine the matrimonial status. However, the trend of recent decision has been to break down the rigid concept of domicile as a test of the right of a state to deal with important relations of life. This trend has been particularly apparent in cases where the Court has authorized, if not indeed encouraged, the several states to set up their own standards of domicile and to make conflicting findings of domicile for the purpose of taxing the right of succession. Worcester County Trust Co. v. Riley, 302 U.S. 292. The Court has completely repudiated domicile as the measure of a state's right to tax intangible property. State Tax Commission v. Aldrich, 316 U.S. 174, 185. The present decision extends the trend to the field of matrimonial legislation. This direction is contrary to what I believe to be the purpose of our Constitution to prevent overlapping and conflict of authority between the states. In the application of the full faith and credit clause to the variety of circumstances that arise when families break up and separate domiciles are established, there are, I grant, many areas of great difficulty. But I cannot believe that we are justified in making a demoralizing decision in order to avoid making difficult ones.