Court Opinion

ID: 9444589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:42.504765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:55.500733
License: Public Domain

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
When this suit was filed neither party was domiciled, resident or employed in the District of Columbia. The wife and child lived in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and the husband lived there also, about a block away. Neither party had any property in the District. Process was served on the husband while he was passing through the District of Columbia. Yet the District Court exercised jurisdiction.
We said in Curley v. Curley, 1941, 74 App.D.C. 163, 165, 120 F.2d 730, 732:
“ * * * [T]he public policy of the District of Columbia does not require its courts to take jurisdiction of a matrimonial dispute between two persons who are neither domiciled in the District nor even residents thereof; especially where there is no showing that the welfare of children, rights of property, or other public interests, in the District are in any way affected.”
In Melvin v. Melvin, 1942, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 56, 57, 129 F.2d 39, 40, this court quoted the foregoing excerpt from the Curley opinion and then added:
“ * * * Our view was, and is, that the District Court’s undoubted jurisdiction of maintenance suits between nonresidents domiciled elsewhere should not be exercised unless unusual circumstances justify trial here.”
There are no unusual circumstances in the present case to justify the exercise of jurisdiction by the District Court. I would reverse with directions to dismiss, as I think the court clearly abused its discretion in exercising jurisdiction.
But, assuming that the District Court properly accepted jurisdiction— which this court now holds — my view is that the judgment should be affirmed for the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion of Chief Judge STEPHENS, in which I concur.