Court Opinion

ID: 9648174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:07:16.617599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.863361
License: Public Domain

Joslin, J.,
concurring and dissenting. I concur in part and dissent in part. In my judgment the court below erred when it enjoined the father from taking his child into Virginia and when it required that he discontinue his pending suit in that state as a condition precedent to seeing or visiting with his child.
The divorce decree which terminated the marriage of the parties was entered by the circuit court in Loudoun county, Virginia, on September 6, 1963. The custody of the minor daughter was awarded to the mother and the father was permitted to visit and to have her with him at reasonably proper times and places. When the father met with difficulties in advantaging himself of these visitation rights, he commenced proceedings in Virginia on May 20, 1964 in *673order to clarify and amend .them. Section 20-108 of the Virginia Code- (1950) specifically conferred upon the courts of that state jurisdiction of his petition even though a final decree of divorce had already been entered and notwithstanding that both the mother and the child had immediately following its entry departed from the commonwealth and had become resident and domiciled in Rhode Island. Kern v. Lindsey, 182 Va. 775. Virginia follows what is generally the rule elsewhere. Hersey v. Hersey, 271 Mass. 545; Hatch v. Hatch, 15 N.J. Misc. 461; White v. Shalit, 136 Me. 65.
Eight days after the filing of the father’s .petition in Virginia the mother commenced these proceedings. She alleged that the Virginia court was without jurisdiction to act on the father’s pending petition, that those proceedings were “vexatious and harassing” and that they might “result in conflicting decrees concerning the -custody” of the chil-d; she asked the family court to determine the custody of the child and in addition to “impose and require such terms- and conditions of custody in the event said minor is removed from this State as shall insure that jurisdiction of custody of said minor child shall continue in this Honorable Court.”
There can, of course, be no- d-o-ubt that our courts have the power to require that the father discontinue the proceedings brought by hi-m in Virginia as a condition precedent either to visiting or having his daughter with him. When the father appeared in the family court proceedings he subjected himself to its process and its imposition of the condition of discontinuance, a condition which in substance enjoins the prosecution of his petition in the courts of Virginia, constituted an ex-ercise of that court’s in personam jurisdiction over him. The question before this court, however, is not of the family court’s power, but of the propriety of its exercise.
Although an injunction against proceeding in a sister state is a restraint directed against a litigant and not against *674the court of the foreign jurisdiction, O’Loughlin v. O’Loughlin, 6 N. J. 170, 178, it nonetheless raises an issue of comity, and whether to exercise the jurisdiction poses a problem of great delicacy, Collins v. Collins, 219 S. C. 1, because if exercised it may and frequently does lead to a conflict of jurisdiction. Kahn v. Kahn, 325 Ill. App. 137.
It is for these reasons that the issuance of such an injunction is regarded as an extraordinary remedy which should be sparingly and reluctantly granted, Kleinschmidt v. Kleinschmidt, 343 Ill. App. 539, and only when the circumstances are special and the pressing need is to prevent by way of illustration either a manifest wrong and a grave injustice, Royal League v. Kavanagh, 233 Ill. 175, or an evasion of some policy of the forum state, John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Fiorilla, 83 N. J. Super. 151, or the vexation, harassment and oppression sometimes incident to multiple litigation. Trustees of Princeton University v. Trust Co. of N. J., 22 N. J. 587. The prerequisite overriding equitable considerations are seldom found if the proceedings to be restrained are already pending in a foreign court which has jurisdiction over the issues, Carson v. Dunham, 149 Mass. 52, or if the basis upon which the request for injunctive relief rests is either to convenience the moving party by having the matter adjudicated in his own courts, or to' relieve his distrust of the courts of a sister state. Kleinschmidt v. Kleinschmidt, supra.
The guiding principles are succinctly stated in Arpels v. Arpels, 8 N.Y.2d 339, 341: “The use of injunctive power to prohibit a person from resorting to a foreign court is a power rarely and sparingly employed, for its exercise represents a challenge, albeit an indirect one, to the dignity and authority of that tribunal. Accordingly, an injunction will be granted only if there is danger of fraud or gross wrong being perpetrated on the foreign court.”
When I test this record and the opinion of the majority *675.by these guiding principles I can find nothing which indicates that manifest wrong and grave injustice will occur, or that some policy of this state will be evaded, or that the mother will be vexed or harassed if the father is allowed to continue his prior suit in Virginia, nor can I discover any semblance of evidence, direct or inferential, which reasonably points to the conclusion that any further prosecution of the father’s petition in the courts of Virginia will adversely affect the welfare and well-being of the child. If the majority could tie their opinion to any one of these facets, I would, of course, agree with them. I dissent, however, because in this record I can find nothing which justifies the imposition of a restraint on the foreign proceeding.
What the majority condones is a decree which makes the right of the daughter to be with her father contingent upon the discontinuance of his Virginia petition. They do this notwithstanding the trial justice’s statement in his written decision that the daughter has a “manifest affection for her father.” The order they affirm, although in form a restraint upon the father, in substance affronts the Virginia court whose jurisdiction had already vested when these proceedings were commenced, and evidences, at least implicitly, their belief that the court® of this state are more zealous and better able to- look to the welfare and well-being of the child than are the Virginia courts. I am unwilling to join in that affront nor do I share that belief. In my judgment the trial justice abused his discretion when he imposed a condition of discontinuance which, although it may serve the convenience of the mother, violates the rule of comity.
It is .also my opinion that the portion of the decree which permits the father to take .the child “on trips to any suitable .place he sees fit in the United States, or elsewhere; provided however, respondent is hereby restrained and enjoined from taking said minor child to or within the Common*676wealth of Virginia,” stands on no firmer footing than does the imposition of the condition precedent. A search of the record and of the majority’s opinion fails to disclose any facts upon which that order may justifiably rest, and in the absence of any such basis it is obvious that an order which permits the father to take his daughter anywhere in the world save for the Commonwealth of Virginia, is purposed solely upon preventing the courts of Virginia from acting in the premises. To impose a restraint for that purpose is to use power arbitrarily and wilfully and without regard to1 what is either right or equitable or for the best interests of the child under the circumstances. Power SO' used is abused and should not be countenanced.
Moore, Virgadamo, Boyle & Lynch, Cornelius C. Moore, Salvator L. Virgadamo, Francis J. Boyle, Jeremiah C. Lynch, Jr., for Frances Elizabeth Smith.
Edwards & Angelí, Gerald W. Harrington, for Morton W. Smith.
While I would affirm the decree appealed from, I would strike from it the condition precedent of discontinuance and the injunction against taking the child into' the Commonwealth of Virginia.