Court Opinion

ID: 9863784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 05:54:01.376541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:19.312993
License: Public Domain

TEAYNOE, J.
I dissent.
Plaintiff brought this action to establish as a judgment in this state, a Nevada judgment for accrued arrearages for child support, attorney’s fees and costs. The Nevada judgment was based on the modification order of October, 1954, which continued in effect defendant’s previously adjudicated obligation to pay plaintiff $100 per month for child support. It is undisputed that the Nevada court had personal jurisdiction over defendant to enter the October, 1954 order and that its jurisdiction was continuing. Accordingly, it had jurisdiction to enter the judgment for arrearages if adequate notice to defendant was given. (Lewis v. Lewis, 49 Cal.2d 389, 395-396 [317 P.2d 987], and authorities cited.)
The Nevada court provided that notice should be served on defendant “by registered mail, return receipt requested,” and the conclusion of the trial court herein that the Nevada court did not acquire jurisdiction was based on its finding that “no return receipt bearing defendant’s signature has ever been presented.” The order fixing the kind of notice to be given, however, did not require a return receipt signed by defendant personally and the return receipt in the record, signed “Walter J. Kubon by Charlotte G. Kubon,” supports the recital of the Nevada judgment that ‘ ‘ evidence [of service had] . . . been introduced” and the Nevada court’s assumption of jurisdiction. Service by registered mail was reasonably calculated to give defendant notice of the proceedings (see Griffin v. Griffin, 327 U.S. 220, 229 [66 S.Ct. 556, 90 L.Ed. 635]), and there is no finding that defendant had no actual notice of them. (See Lewis v. Lewis, 49 Cal.2d 389 396 [317 P.2d 987].)
Nor can the Nevada judgment be attacked on the ground that plaintiff may have been in contempt of the custody and support order on which it was based. Whether or not plaintiff’s denial of defendant’s visitation right was a defense to *234her claim for the, support payments was for the Nevada court to determine when plaintiff sought judgment for the arrearages (see Closset v. Closset, 71 Nev. 80 [280 P.2d 290, 291] ; In re Elmer’s Guardianship, 125 N.J.Eq. 148 [4 A.2d 387, 388] ; Meissner v. Meissner, 323 Ill.App. 299 [55 N.E.2d 312] ; Anderson v. Anderson, 207 Minn. 338 [291 N.W. 508, 509]; 88 A.L.E. 199; 105 A.L.E. 901), and that question is now foreclosed by that judgment.
The crucial question therefore is whether plaintiff’s removal of the children from defendant’s custody in violation of the temporary restraining order issued by the California court prior to the October, 1954 Nevada custody and support order is a defense to plaintiff’s action on the valid Nevada judgment for arrearages due pursuant to the latter order. It is my opinion that recognition of such defense violates the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution.
The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a state may not vindicate its own policy by refusing enforcement of a sister state judgment for the payment of money on the ground that its recognition would violate the policy of the state where enforcement is sought. (Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545, 553 [67 S.Ct. 451, 91 L.Ed. 488, 168 A.L.E. 656]; Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282, 291 [59 S.Ct. 557, 83 L.Ed. 653]; Roche v. McDonald, 275 U.S. 449, 451-452 [48 S.Ct. 142, 72 L.Ed. 365, 53 A.L.E. 1141] ; Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 236 [28 S.Ct. 641, 52 L.Ed. 1039].) It has pointed out that in the case of valid final judgments for the payment of money, the exceptions to the full faith and credit clause are rare or nonexistent (Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545, 553 [67 S.Ct. 451, 91 L.Ed. 488,168 A.L.E. 656]; Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430, 438 [64 S.Ct. 208, 88 L.Ed. 149, 150 A.L.E. 413]), and it has held that a “state which may not constitutionally refuse to open its courts to a suit on a judgment of another state because of the nature of the cause of action merged in the judgment [citation], obviously cannot, by the adoption of a particular rule of liability or of procedure, exclude from its courts a suit on the judgment.” (Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282, 292 [59 S.Ct. 557, 83 L.Ed. 653].) Accordingly, just as we cannot directly refuse full faith and credit to the Nevada judgment because the Nevada court failed to give effect to our policy of not assisting a contemptuous litigant, we cannot invoke that policy as a rule of procedure to sustain a plea in abatement to a suit on that judgment.
*235: At the time the Nevada order of October, 1954 and the judgment based thereon were entered, plaintiff was already in contempt of the California court. That fact was for the Nevada court to consider in entering its order and subsequent judgment. Moreover, even had the California order such dignity as to compel its recognition in Nevada under the full faith and credit clause, a final judgment entered in disregard of it could not now be denied enforcement here. (Treinies v. Sunshine Min. Co., 308 U.S. 66, 78 [60 S.Ct. 44, 84 L.Ed. 85] ; Lewis v. Lewis, 49 Cal.2d 389, 393 [317 P.2d 987].) If in the face of the Nevada judgment the California court could not vindicate respect for its own judicial processes that had been erroneously denied full faith and credit, a fortiori, it cannot do so when those processes are not entitled to full faith and credit.* Any doubt is set at rest by Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545 [67 S.Ct. 451, 91 L.Ed. 488, 168 A.L.R 656]. In that ease a Missouri judgment was obtained in direct violation of an Illinois injunction against prosecuting the action. The court held that the time to determine the effect of the Illinois injunction was in the Missouri action and that although it had been given no effect therein, the defendant was precluded by the full faith and credit clause from attacking the final Missouri judgment when plaintiff sought to establish it in Illinois.
Even if we were not constitutionally compelled to reject defendant’s plea in abatement based on plaintiff’s contempt of the temporary restraining order, we should reject it on its own merits. After the temporary restraining order was issued, the parties fully litigated the questions of custody and child support in Nevada. Nevada was the state primarily concerned with the children’s welfare. Their custody had theretofore been awarded pursuant to a Nevada decree, they had lived in Nevada during the previous school year, and they had returned to Nevada and presumably reentered school there. It must be presumed that the Nevada court concluded that their best interests dictated that they should remain with their mother there and that defendant should continue to contribute to their support. The Nevada court *236did not err in placing the welfare of the children above the desirability of compelling plaintiff to respect the order of the California court. (See Lerner v. Superior Court, 38 Cal. 2d 676, 682 [242 P.2d 321], and eases cited.) Surely after this litigation and the Nevada court’s determination that the children should stay where they were, it was not incumbent on plaintiff to set that order at naught, remove the children from school, and return them to California solely to vindicate the dignity of our court and purge herself of contempt.
None of the cases involving the rule that relief should be denied to a eontemptous litigant involved facts such as these. Moreover, many of them indicate that the true basis for the rule is to compel obedience, not to work an automatic forfeiture of whatever rights may be involved. Thus, in both Krog v. Krog, 32 Cal.2d 812 [198 P.2d 510], and Borenstein v. Borenstein, 11 Cal.2d 301 [79 P.2d 388], it was held that a stay of proceedings until the appellant complied with the court’s order, not a dismissal of his appeal, was the proper remedy for his contempt. (See also In re Bauman, 82 Cal. App.2d 359, 364 [186 P.2d 154].) When as in this case, plaintiff can purge herself of contempt only by uprooting the children in prejudice of their best interests as determined by the Nevada court after a full adversary hearing, belated compliance cannot be justified. Nor is the forfeiture of her rights and those of the children fit punishment for her past wrong. (See Allen v. Allen, 138 Cal.App.2d 706, 708-709 [292 P.2d 581].)
I would reverse the judgment.
Gibson, C. J., and Carter, J., concurred.

Sinee it was not a final judgment, the temporary restraining order was not entitled to full faith and credit under existing law (see discussion in Worthley v. Worthley, 44 Cal.2d 465, 468-469 [283 P.2d 19]) even if it is assumed that if final it would be entitled to such protection. (See Equitable Life Assur. Soc. v. Gex’ Estate, 184 Miss. 577 [186 So. 659, 664]; Frye v. Chicago, E. I. # F. Ry. Co., 157 Minn. 52 [195 N.W. 629, 632].)