Court Opinion

ID: 9667968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:59:21.800627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:42.012566
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). The question that is the subject matter of the opinion of the Court is whether the ten-day county residency provision* 1 is jurisdictional. If it is, then the failure of Eugenia Stamadianos to have resided in Livingston County for at least ten days immediately preceding the filing of her complaint might require that the consent default judgment of divorce be set aside.
i
Leave to appeal was granted because the decision of the Court of Appeals was seen as conflicting with a decision rendered by another panel of *15the Court of Appeals in a different case and with this Court’s opinion in Lehman v Lehman, 312 Mich 102; 19 NW2d 502 (1945).
Neither party in this case is advocating that the ten-day county residency provision be construed as a venue provision. It appears that both Eugenia and Thomas G. Stamadianos, at one point in time, agreed to have the divorce set aside. Their positions have changed throughout the litigation.2 This is not a case in which the question whether this residency provision is one of venue or one of jurisdiction should be decided.
In many divorce cases there will be a disgruntled party looking for a ground on which to appeal. I would not issue an opinion calling attention to a basis for invalidating a divorce at a significantly later point in time because a party discovers, or chooses to reveal, that the county residency requirement was not satisfied.
In many cases, estoppel or laches should bar a *16party from setting aside the divorce. Some courts have reasoned that if both parties submitted to the court’s jurisdiction, and neither party raised a residency issue, they are later barred from challenging the divorce on those grounds.3
There may be a subjective element to satisfying the ten-day county residency requirement which frequently will be difficult to satisfy. In many, perhaps most cases, when a spouse moves out of the marital home, that spouse might not relocate in a county in which there is an intention to make a new permanent home. It is a transitory time in a person’s life.
n
The Court of Appeals ruled that the county residency requirement was a venue provision, not a jurisdictional prerequisite to the filing of a complaint for divorce.4 In seeking legislative intent, *17the Court commented that living arrangements after a decision to discontinue living together are often temporary. The Court observed that voiding an otherwise valid decree of divorce on the basis adopted in the opinion of this Court could cast a cloud of uncertainty over such decrees and "constitutes too powerful a weapon to place in the hands of disgruntled former spouses . . . .”5
Because there has not been the requisite advocacy in this Court to decide a question of this importance, leave was improvidently granted and the appeal should be dismissed.
Archer, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 MCL 552.9; MSA 25.89.

 Eugenia initially stated that she had lived in Livingston County for the requisite ten days immediately preceding the filing of her complaint. She subsequently said that she failed to comply with the ten-day county residency provision because "she never intended to make Livingston County her permanent home and had not understood the necessity of such intent in establishing legal residency.” 133 Mich App 430, 433; 350 NW2d 268 (1984). The subjective aspect of residency might be a judicial gloss.
Neither party is arguing that the ten-day county residency provision is a venue provision. Thomas has not filed a brief in this Court. Initially, Eugenia sought the divorce and obtained a consent default judgment in Livingston Circuit Court on April 27, 1981. The Stamadi-anoses had resided in Washtenaw County, but Eugenia commenced the action in Livingston County at the request of Thomas who wished to avoid shame in the Ann Arbor Greek community. Almost a year later, Thomas filed a motion to modify the property settlement and attorney-fee provision or, in the alternative, to set aside the default judgment on the basis that Eugenia had committed fraud on the court.
Eugenia filed, on June 30, 1982, an amended answer to Thomas’ motion to modify the judgment of divorce and consented to the alternative relief sought, namely that the entire judgment of divorce be set aside. Thomas then changed his position and opposed setting aside the divorce.

 See Gunn v Gunn, 205 Mich 198, 200; 171 NW 371 (1919). See also Johnson v Johnson, 230 Ga 204; 196 SE2d 394 (1973); Zahorsky v Zahorsky, 543 SW2d 258 (Mo App, 1976).

 The Court of Appeals agreed with the similar holding in Abadi v Abadi, 78 Mich App 73, 76-77; 259 NW2d 244 (1977), lv den 402 Mich 870 (1978). In Abadi, the Court of Appeals construed the residency requirement of 180 days in the state (MCL 552.9; MSA 25.89) to be jurisdictional (to prevent "forum shopping”), but found the ten-day county requirement to be a venue provision only. The Court was apparently sympathetic to the plight of the woman who left her marital home in Wayne County on October 4, 1973, to return to her family in Virginia, then returned and checked into a Holiday Inn in Oakland County on October 8, 1973. She did not wish to return home because of fear of her husband. The complaint was filed on October 19, 1973, and she returned to Virginia on October 20, 1973. The trial judge held a hearing on the residency question and resolved the issue in her favor. The opinion of this Court states that the language with respect to the county provision is dictum since Mrs. Abadi had satisfied the ten-day requirement.
Beaudry v Beaudry, 20 Mich App 287; 174 NW2d 28 (1969), is said to be in conflict with Abadi and Stamadianos. Beaudry was an appeal from a denial of a motion to dismiss a complaint for divorce. Apparently, in contrast with the instant case and Abadi, there was no decree of divorce that would be set aside if the court was found to *17lack jurisdiction. The plaintiff in Beaudry commenced residency in Oakland County on June 22, 1968, and ten days later filed her complaint for divorce on July 1, 1968. Because the ten-day period is computed excluding the first day, the ten-day county requirement was not satisfied.
The other case said to be in conflict is the pre-no-fault divorce case of Lehman v Lehman, supra, where this Court said that the county residency requirement was jurisdictional. The statute at that time provided: "A divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be decreed by the circuit court of the county where the parties or one of them reside.” There was no durational requirement. The Court held, because neither party resided in the county in which the divorce was sought but were just "visiting parents,” that the circuit court was without jurisdiction to grant the divorce decree.

 133 Mich App 435.